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Rurik walks away and unlocks the elevator with his key. “Remind Dominika to be kind. Tell her to treat the girl like her favorite dog. That will work.”
“I will,” I reply. “Did you find a phone in the limo?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I told my men to check the gallery as well, but this girl isn’t lying.”
I smile as Rurik leaves and then head back upstairs. He’s right—treat her like a guest. The door to her bedroom can remain unlocked. The ladder that she used to reach the terrace has been removed. She will need a key to the elevators to escape, and the fire exit is inaccessible unless she’s in my bedroom.
Which will never happen.
I turn my gaze back at the door, and my cock shamefully swells at the memory of her body close against mine. How can I be the serpent in the story if she is the one who tempts me by her very existence?
13
EDEN
I wake up,and it takes me a while before I realize I’m staring up at the ceiling.
My hands feel something soft underneath me, and I wonder if everything was a dream. A few seconds pass, and I take a deep breath. It doesn’t smell like my room. Blinking against the darkness above, I reach over to the curtains, draw them back, and see the glittering lights of New York sprawled out before me as the dying embers of a sunset paint the western horizon with a splash of pink and gold.
Memories of the roaring wind whipping around me rush back to the forefront of my mind. I try to sit up, and pain greets me like an old friend.
Not a dream, definitely real.
Wincing, I lie back down, body aching but miraculously intact. I try to figure out just what the hell happened. How am I still alive and not splattered across the pavement?
Despite the pain, I can’t help but reflect on the irony. I ran away from my controlling father, desperate for a chance to live my own life. And where did I end up? Kidnapped by a maniac before I even had a full twenty-four hours to myself.
It’s a cruel twist of fate that would have my face covered with tears if it didn’t hurt to cry.
It takes me a moment to realize that I’m not alone. An older woman is sitting in a chair near my bed. I quickly scoot back despite the pain throbbing in my body and look at her warily.
Her lips are in a tight line, and her eyes betray no sympathy for anybody, not even herself, if I had to guess. Her dark blonde hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail. She wears a crisp white dress, and I wonder if she’s a nurse.
The moment she notices me, she stands up and glares down.
“Nikolai Gennadyevich saved you,” she explains before I can even ask. “Or rather, his safety nets did. Have you ever seen a body hit the ground from this height?” She doesn’t wait for an answer. “It’s gruesome. Don’t try it again,koshka.”
Try it again? I gawk at her. Does she even know that it wasNikolaiwhodroppedme after he forced me to tell him that I’d rather die? But before I can retort, she curls her lips and walks away through the door.
I wait to hear the lock click, but the sound never comes.
Not that it matters.
I’m too sore to move. I curl up beneath the plush blanket, hugging it tightly around me as I try to stifle my crying. The harrowing events of yesterday rush through my head again and I shudder at the realization that I almost died.
And the worst part of it all? These people don’t even care. They don’t care that I’m being forced to marry Nikolai against my will.
I can’t think about Dad. But I do, and it makes me sob harder, knowing that he was right all along. Gasping from pain, I force myself to stop crying. There will be time for tears later. But right now, I need to find a way out.
God knows what other twisted ordeals Nikolai has in store for me.
This isn’t over, and I’ll need every ounce of strength to survive his twisted game. I’ll find a way to escape him and this accursed marriage. But next time, I’ll be smarter and more cunning.
I won’t make a mistake.
And he won’t catch me.
I’m grateful to be alive, but also haunted by the memory of dangling over the edge, seconds away from death.
