Page 48 of Dark Soul

Almost everything.

“I’m sorry I came without calling you first. I have the afternoon off.”

“You’re always welcome here,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

Alexia took a sip from her water, moving away from him, closer to the window.

“I don’t know. Things are getting … intense at my employer’s house.”

Dark moved so fast, she didn’t even see him move. One moment he was by the kitchen, the next he was standing beside her.

“What do you mean?”

“I think he was trying to fix things with his wife, and it’s not working out for him. And he’s really nervous about this event he’s hosting a couple of days from now. I’m sorry. This isn’t your problem. I don’t even know—“

“What kind of event?”

“Some charity thing.” She shrugged lightly. “I guess there’s a lot of money in Gstaad. It’s good that some of it should go to charity.”

“Has he done anything to make you worry?” Dark’s voice was gentle—careful, even—but she could see his shoulder muscles bunching under the black T-shirt.

“Not to me personally, no,” she said quickly. She didn’t want to give Dark the wrong idea. “It’s just the atmosphere in the house, and the way he speaks to his son, it feels … wrong,” she finished lamely.

Dark’s square jaw tensed further.

And she wasn’t sure why she’d come here. What had she expected Dark to do? Sweep her off her feet and take her away? That wouldn’t solve anything. She’d come to Gstaad for a reason. And maybe that’s all it was … the guilt, getting to her. She’d never been good at deception, and there had been so much deception in the last couple of months.

Even today.

She hadn’t come directly from Kvyat’s house. She’d stopped at an internet café in town and fired off an email to her mystery contact, telling him about the charity event. It wasn’t much—not much to show after months of living in Kvyat’s home. But she hadn’t actually seen anything. Kvyat hadn’t done anything illegal in her presence.

It was just an impression of evil that followed him around, and she didn’t even know if she was making that up.

If there was anything to see, it would be in the upstairs office Kvyat spent most of his time in, or in that small metallic briefcase he often carried between the office and his bedroom.

They weren’t areas of the house she’d ever been invited to. And a part of her told her she was playing with fire. If Kvyat found her spying … getting fired might be the least of her troubles.

Dark’s hand grazed her shoulder gently.

“Alexia? Where did you go just now?”

“I’m sorry. I was just … thinking.”

“You should leave,” he said, and she didn’t need to ask him what he meant. “Leave that house.”

Of course, he would say that.

It’s not like she hadn’t thought of that herself.

She thought of Nikolai. She couldn’t leave him without warning.

“I only have one month left on my contract,” she said, shrugging lightly. She couldn’t tell Dark about her other reasons for staying.

“What do you need?” he asked, and damned it her heart didn’t go pitter-patter at that. None of her previous boyfriends, back before she’d given up on relationships, had ever asked her that. If one of them had, back when she was struggling with the loss of her brother, for example, things might have been different.

He’s not your boyfriend.

No, Dark wasn’t her boyfriend, but he was asking her what she needed.