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“Something happened here, didn’t it?” My voice is hardly louder than a whisper, but even then, the words sound too loud—as if I’m saying something forbidden. “Something terrible.”
Dominka stares at me in silence. But the pained expression tells me everything that I need to know.
“What am I allowed to know?” I ask. “Better yet. What are you allowed to tell me?”
“You may ask whatever you like, and I will answer whatever I can.”
“Do you know what is in that room?”
“I do not know the specifics of what is in it,” she replies. “But I know Nikolai Gennadyevich well enough to have a very good guess.”
“And what is that guess?”
A knowing smile crosses over her face. “You’ll have to try better than that,koshka.”
Fine,I think as I cross my arms. “When did he make this penthouse his home?”
“A year after he became Gennady’s heir.”
“Was his brother the heir before him?” My mind races as I do my best to recall every little detail of the conversation I had with Larissa about the Starukhin family.
“He was.” There is a tone of finality in her answer, and I suspect that pushing any further down that route will only lead to her stonewalling me further. So, I decide to try a different approach.
“Who did this penthouse belong to?”
The pained expression returns to Dominika’s eyes. This time, she’s the one who blinks rapidly as she looks away. “It belongs to the Starukhin family.”
“That’s not an answer, Dominika!” My tone is harsher than I want. And when she remains silent, I raise my voice. “Tell me the truth!”
I’m so busy yelling at Dominika that I don’t even notice the door opening. And only when it slams, startling us both, do I turn and find myself staring into Nikolai’s dazzling green eyes. Those same green eyes dart back and forth between me and Dominika. Blood drains from her face when she sees him.
Without a word, she stands up from the bed, smooths the front of her uniform, bows, and scampers out of the room. And just like that, I’m left trapped here with Nikolai.
Alone.
“Don’t ever do that again, Eden.” His voice takes on the same dangerous, silky tone that it had when he dangled me over the roof.
“Nikolai …” I back up until I feel myself pressing against the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me. “I just wanted to have some answers.”
He keeps advancing toward me until he invades my space completely. Powerful arms trap me between them, and his alluring scent tumbles into my nostrils. A familiar heat begins throbbing between us as the space between us continues to disappear until I can see my own frightened reflection in his green eyes.
He’s doing his best to maintain control of a storm inside him that threatens to be unleashed. A storm that threatens to engulf me in its path. A storm that will leave nothing left when it ends.
“Come.” His hand reaches behind the nape of my neck until his fingers thread through my hair. The grip tightens and I tilt up my head in response until I can no longer look away from his fiery green eyes. “We have somewhere to be.”
28
NIKOLAI
Today was supposedto be a peaceful day of reckless and obscene spending, but not after what Eden did last night. I keep thinking about the solid steel doors that she breached, and my thoughts turn to the secrets she discovered.
The secrets that no one else can ever be allowed to know.
We wait in silence in the Tatiana Gallery, where we are meeting with our wedding planner. The well-guarded space is situated on the tenth floor of the Waverly Trust building. A bomb left outside would not touch us, but I’m alert to anything out of place. There’s nothing.
It’s filled with timeless works of Russian fine art and relics that once adorned the walls of the aristocratic palaces. Today, their beauty masks the hidden darkness, but I can sense it.
It’s something profound, something dark. Something that speaks to my own turbulent thoughts.
