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“It’s perfect,” Maksim said, walking around me, taking it all in. “This will do.”
The dressmaker visibly relaxed and smiled like a stray dog being petted for the first time. She watched him as he walked around one more time, then stood behind me and said, “It’s lovely, but the train needs to be redone.”
“Oh no, why?” the dressmaker asked.
“It’s filthy,” Maksim said, and she looked surprised and leaned over to inspect it to find what he was talking about.
He took his boot and dragged it across the white silk, just like with the carpet, and repeated it with the other one. He left brown and muddy streaks across the fabric, and the dressmaker looked like she was going to cry.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and her hands shook as she unlaced the dress and helped me out. “We will do that, sir.”
I felt for her, but there was nothing I could do to help. She was trapped in this with Maksim, the same as I. However, she had it easier because she wasn’t bound to him like I was.
I watched longingly as she and her assistants bundled up the now-stained dress and left the room. Maksim motioned for the guards to leave, and they shut the door behind them. Now that I knew they were on the other side, I wouldn’t be so quick to make a run for it. I couldn’t see myself making it through a hail of bullets as they gunned me down. Maksim was the sort who would prefer me dead than let me go.
“Well, then,” Maksim said and stretched with a yawn. “It’s time I get out of these clothes and get somebody to clean this up.”
He motioned to the carpet that he’d ruined and shook his head as if somebody had failed him as if it wasn’t done by his own boots and actions.
He pressed a button on the table near his bed and ordered Margot to send housekeeping to fix the problem he’d created. I wanted desperately to get away from him, but I remained on the edge of the chair with my fingers digging into the flesh of my palms, much the way Avery had back at our place when she’d left blood on the chair.
Had she been this filled with emotion that she’d been unable to stop herself? What a strange thought it was, imagining how she was overcome with excitement or anger when she’d been sitting at my table, cool and calm, observing me and knowing that I was her flesh and blood.
I still didn’t see it. I know, it had only been a couple of days, really, but I thought there would be something to draw me to her if we shared our DNA. I could remember when I met Nat the Brat for the first time when she was a little baby, and I was a little girl. I felt so much love for her then, and I could almost see a golden thread binding us together as a family.
That wasn’t there with Avery. I still felt like I was in the presence of a stranger, one that I really didn’t like.
Avery jumped to her feet just then, surprising me to the point that I let out a gasp of fear. Maksim chuckled and said, “I like that. The sound you make when you’re scared. I want to hear it when I’m driving my cock inside your guts, fucking you until you don’t know if you’re bleeding or coming.”
I looked down and thought about saying something that could get me in trouble, but I remembered my Kings and the vulnerable place they were in. I chewed my lower lip to keep my words trapped inside my mouth and far from causing us damage.
Avery stood next to Maksim and smirked at me before simping for him. She was so eager to please that she didn’t realize how bored he was of her.
We were saved again by his staff coming in to clean up. I took the opportunity to use the bathroom. When I was finished, I lingered in the huge, hollow, white, and golden-tiled room to examine my face in the mirror. I had lines around the corners of my mouth and the edges of my eyes that weren’t there a week or two ago. Being traumatized was aging me, and the lack of sleep was leaving me haggard and grey, a ghost of my former self.
I stayed in as long as I possibly could, but after fifteen or twenty minutes, Maksim grew bored and began to pound on the door.
“You can’t possibly be shitting for this long, Everly,” he complained. “Get your ass out here. I have an idea I want to try.”
I didn’t reply, again finding the quiet safer than letting myself speak out loud.
I opened the door and found him standing right there, his fist raised to knock, and his body was blocking me in.
“There you are. I was about to kick the door down,” he said.
I glanced at his boots and the riding boots had been replaced with good old-fashioned army boots. Shit kickers, I’d heard them called. He could have done it if he’d wanted.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I’m tired.”
“Tired? Did you fall asleep on the toilet?” Avery giggled.
Maksim didn’t join in, but he did lean around me and sniffed the air.
“Doesn’t smell like shit,” he said with his eyes narrowed. “Were you just avoiding me? You’re not allowed to do that when we’re officially married, or I’ll have you beaten.”
“Okay,” I replied and rolled my eyes inside my mind. He would have me beaten, and he wouldn’t even do it himself. Did he have staff to do all his dirty work for him?
“So anyway, now that we’ve established that,” he said and wove his fingers together to crack the knuckles. “I have a plan. I will allow you to bring one of your boyfriends up here for a visit, but you have to decide which one.”
