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My breathing is rapid as my pulse continues to rise with the dread in my belly. I’ve really fucked up this time.
After about ten minutes, the same goddamn sales associate knocks on the door the way I imagine an impatient police officer would. “Can I help you find anything? Do you need any other sizes?”
I could punch her teeth in if I wanted to. She’s very persistent about my body being too fat for the clothes here even though I’m a size 4. If I felt like causing some real problems, I’d beat the shit out of her.
“No! Really! It’s fine!” I reply with increasing tension in my voice.
She walks away, and now I can feel the walls closing in on me. Even if I have to run past Dominik again, it’ll be better than having to deal with this fucking harpy until I hang myself from the exposed beams in the ceiling.
I decide to leave the clothes behind and dash out of the shop. Runninginthe store will undoubtedly attract the attention of my new conjoined twin, so I take a few breaths to calm myself before I walk out with my head high.
She’s nowhere to be seen, so I make my way toward the door until I’m finally free.
Just as I’m about to call a driver to come pick me up, I feel a hand grip my forearm with the strength of a python.
It’s Dominik.
I scream, attempting to jerk my hand away, to no avail. I realize that this situation could read poorly to strangers, and at this point, any complications would impact me just as much as Dominik.
Recognizing the potential to be seen by someone, he pulls me into the nearest alley between the dress shop and a vitamin infusion clinic.
“What the fuck were you thinking? Why are you trying to make this so goddamn difficult?” he whispers harshly, his face mere inches from mine.
I’m stunned by the power of his body pressing mine against the wall. Now, both of his hands are wrapped around my wrists, and I’m reminded of how easy it was for him to pick me up the first day we met. He could lift my whole body weight while exerting hardly any energy at all.
What would it be like to feel him brace me against the bricks that scrape my skin through this pointlessly thin sweater? Would he do something like that just to intimidate me?
Something deep inside me hopes that he would.
“I didn’t realize you were going to freak out like that,” I lie. How could I have believed he wouldn’t react? Of course, I knew he was going to get angry and chase me. If I’m being honest with myself, that’s most of the reason that I did it.
His eyes flare with anger and frustration. “You’re going to get yourself fucking killed if you keep playing with your safety like that. Do you know why your father hired me to look after you?”
The gravity in his voice knocks my ego down a few pegs. This isn’t fun for me anymore. I can see restraint in his expression, like he’s one misstep away from slapping me in the face.
I straighten myself, doing my best to recover what’s left of my confidence as this man twice my size confronts me. “Because he thinks I’m irresponsible and out of control. We’ve been through this already.”
He sighs heavily. “No, it’s not just that. That’s a big part of it, and I doubt you can blame him for that, but that isn’t the whole story.”
Releasing his grip somewhat, but not letting me go, his eyes soften. “Your father has reason to believe that his trading agreements with the Albanian mafia are going to go south. He needs you to be under constant protection to ensure that they don’t target you for leverage. There, are you happy?”
I’m stunned, sitting back on my heels as the realization hits me. There’s a high chance that my father’s business partners have been spying on me, and I would have been perfectly willing to run off into the city on my own. Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?
“He didn’t say anything about that,” I reply defensively. “If it was that serious, he would have told me about it.”
Dominik begins to lose his composure again, and his hands squeeze my wrists as he fights the urge to shout at me.
“After everything you’ve been putting him through, do you really believe he would trust you with information like that? I mean, look how you’re dressed. It’s like you’re begging for the entire world to look at you. I wouldn’t have trusted you with information like that if I were him, either.”
Suddenly, the tension between us shifts from hostility to something far more difficult to explain, or even to justify. The air is heavy with potential, and my face and chest flush hot and red against the bite of the freezing rain.
I feel my body tense to the point that I could shatter into pieces if dropped from the top of a building. I don’t know what’s coming, and I definitely don’t know how to prepare for it. “What do you mean by that?”
Right before I’m able to brace myself, Dominik leans down and kisses me on the lips.
Despite his righteous anger, the kiss is gentle and passionate instead of rough or domineering. Just as I feel his tongue slip into my mouth, he pulls away, shocked and horrified that he would cross such a boundary.
But then he kisses me again.
