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“I’m tired,” she repeated, turning from him to go in search of the bedroom.
Of course, he followed.
Chapter 5 - Zeke
“You think we’re done talking about this?” Zeke asked, walking in Anna’s footsteps as she headed for the stairs.
He knew her too well to be deterred. In fact, he was surprised how much like herself she really was. He hadn’t given much thought to the years he’d spent in her father’s house, running away from the oppression of his own, but sitting next to her at the ceremony celebrations had brought them pouring back. She’d been his closest friend. He couldn’t remember when it had changed.
“I’m done talking about it,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d spend my bonding night talking about my ex. Way to kill the mood.”
“Thisisthe mood,” he stated, following on her heels when she pounded up the stairs. “Where are you going?”
“You tell me,” she said. They reached the landing without her slowing down. “I just want to wash my face and go to sleep. Which door leads to that? This one?”
She opened the door to his study; a smaller affair than his father’s by a mile and a half, but cozy, littered with books and stacks of medical texts. She paused, taking it in, then kept moving.
“Hey,” he said. “If this is going to work—”
She huffed a laugh.
“If this is going to work,” she parroted. “Doubtful, isn’t it? Here we are already having our first fight and we’ve only been bonded for, what? Five hours?”
“This isn’t a fight,” he said.
That made her stop and turn to him.
“No? Then what is it? Because here I was feeling like you wanted me to guarantee I’m a virgin.”
“What,” he exclaimed, throwing his arms out. “That’s not what this is about.”
She didn’t look convinced, opening the second door, revealing a linen closet.
She sighed and closed the door again.
“Just tell me where the damn bedroom is,” she said.
He pointed at the fourth door, following her as she opened it, walked through it. He was proud of his home. He’d enjoyed decorating it, making it feel like a place he could belong. He’d bought the space after years of saving. It was his. He’d spent most of the evening thinking about whether she’d like it or not, wondering if she’d want to change everything around now that it was hers as well, but he barely got any reaction out of her at all. She’d seemed pleased with the downstairs, this room she barely glanced at, moving through it to the en suite bathroom.
Then it dawned on him that what she was doing might be nothing more than maneuvering the topic away from her behavior throughout the evening by making him feel shitty for even broaching it. This wasn’t about whether she slept with Nikolai or not, for crying out loud. It was about whether he still had a hold on her.
She was washing her face with harsh movements.
Was she angry—or stressed out?
He could tell if she was lying, but this was a whole other ballpark of emotions, and he couldn’t be sure. Unless she answered him.
“Come on. You know it doesn’t matter to me if you’re a virgin or not, yeah? Give me some credit here,” he said, leaning against the doorframe of the bathroom, watching as she reached for the nearest towel. “But I need to hear you say that you have absolutely nothing to do with Nikolai or the Kuznetsovs. You realize why I need that, right?”
“This is ridiculous,” she murmured, face buried in the towel.
Was she stalling? Why wouldn’t she simply give him the reassurance he was asking for?
Something was very off.
“Anna,” he spoke her name for the first time.
It made her square her shoulders, lower the towel. Her back was to him, but her eyes met his in the mirror.
