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I’m supposed to be working to get away from Timofey. To protect Benjamin from his influence and get him sent to prison.
And yet, I’ve spent every spare moment tangled in his sheets and wrapped in his arms.
I fist the green velvet fabric of my dress and breathe through the butterflies erupting in my stomach. I can still feel what he did to me last night. My body seems to have permanently molded around the shape of him. When he isn’t inside of me, I ache for him.
“Get it together,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes closed. “Focus.”
I can’t be the woman drooling all over Timofey and falling to pieces at his every glance. I need to appear as his wife-to-be. His equal. I need to look like someone he would believably choose as his partner.
The thought of it is enough to send another bolt of anxiety through me.
Not because it doesn’t feel possible, but because it feels all too real.
This last week has felt like sitting in a trash compactor as the walls slowly close in. Falling for Timofey is an inevitable kind of doom in that way. It presses in from every direction until I’m not sure which way is up or how to get out.
He has me in a stranglehold, and I’m afraid pretending to love him will be one crush too far.
How long until the dinner? I need to know how many minutes I have to get my shit together.
I grab my phone from the vanity to check the time, but I’m distracted by the message icon flashing in the top left corner. It must have gone off while I was meticulously curling my hair for the last hour. I tap the message and Noelle’s name fills the screen.
Before I can scan what she wrote, I lock the screen and it goes black. I hold the phone like it might spontaneously catch on fire.
I haven’t heard from Noelle since she told me about Emily’s murder. Does she have more information? Did she uncover something incriminating?
More importantly,do I still want to hear it?
I drum my fingers nervously on the screen, weighing my options. I could dismiss the message and pretend I never saw it. But Noelle won’t give up. She does not take well to being ignored, especially now that she knows I’ve received and opened the message.
“So I have to read it,” I mumble, my thumb hovering over the button to unlock the screen.
Except, if I read the message and it does have incriminating information about Timofey, I have to deal with that.
I’ve killed plenty of people, Piper. I’m not a good man.
Timofey has been honest with me from the beginning about who he is. Still, I’ve shoved down my reservations and thrown myself into whatever this thing between us is.
I can be okay with the fact that he didn’t kill Emily. But there is still blood on his hands. If I find out more, I won’t be able to hide from the truth. I won’t be able to live in denial.
Before I can make a decision one way or the other, my phone starts to ring. On instinct, I answer it.
“There you are,” Noelle says. “You never texted me back.”
“I never read your message,” I say honestly.
“Yes, you did. It says ‘Read.’ I know you saw it.”
“Well, I saw it,” I quickly explain. “But I’ve been busy and I didn’t read it. I was going to. Later.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
She makes a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. “What have you been busy doing?”
Timofey.The stupid joke rises up in me, and I swat it down. “There is this party—er, a work function tonight. I’m getting ready.”
“Wow, what a depressing party that must be. A bunch of social workers from CPS huddled around a sweaty cheese tray? No thanks.”
I’m slightly offended by Noelle’s assessment of what an actual work party would look like for me, but only because it’s accurate. Our Christmas party last year was just carols played on Andrea’s tinny phone speakers for the last thirty minutes of the work day. James made hot chocolate in the break room microwave and it tasted like burnt popcorn.
