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I furrow my brow. “How? I just agreed to your offer a few hours ago.”
His eyes slide down my body slowly, sending a new kind of shiver down my back. I’m used to Luka’s glares. To his vitriol and disgust. But this look is different. It iswanting. I want to climb into the armoire and close myself inside.
“I expected you’d come around,” he says, looking me over once more before his gaze turns disinterested and shifts to the door. “Everything should be in your size.”
“It might be my size, but it isn’t for me.” I reach in and pull out the first garment I find, holding it up in front of myself. It is a black dress the size of a dinner napkin with a neckline so low it might show off my belly button. “I would never wear this.”
Luka snatches the dress out of my hand and brushes past me, sliding the clothes one by one to the right before settling on a pale pink lace dress. He turns and holds it out to me. It is short and tight, but the neck is high and it has sleeves. It isn’t terrible. When I grab it out of his hands, however, I realize the back is basically nonexistent. It plunges all the way down to my butt. I wouldn’t be able to wear a bra or, most likely, underwear with it.
“I’m not your doll,” I say, holding the dress out for him to take back. “You don’t get to dress me up and order me around.”
Luka turns away, grabs a pair of brown heels from the shoe rack on the bottom of the armoire, and drops them on the floor at my feet. “I get to do whatever I’d like with you.”
We stare at one another, the full meaning of his words sinking in. It feels like my entire body is blushing when I lift my chin and shake my head. “No, you don’t.”
I let the dress fall on the floor, and I swear, before it even touches the ground Luka is in front of me. In an instant, I’m pressed against the armoire, his body flush against my front. He is towering over me, breathing heavily, his green eyes wild with fury.
This time, I can’t control my fear. Adrenaline pulses through me, desperate to fight or flee, but I can’t do anything except shake and cower. He is a solid wall of muscle pinning me in place.
All at once, the fury that seemed to come over Luka is gone just as quickly as it came. He takes a sharp breath and then steps away, putting distance between us, his head shaking slightly. He looks towards a window with a view of the back yard and points to the dress on the floor. “Put it on.”
I want to argue, but I also don’t think I can handle his anger again. Not while I’m still shaking from the last outburst. Besides, Luka’s outburst served a purpose. It reminded me of why I’m here in the first place: to save lives.
Luka and the rest of his family are ruthless. They are violent and merciless, and if I don’t uphold my end of the bargain, they will hurt more people. Maybe Chiara. Or my coworkers at The Floating Crown. Or my father. Luka would hurt whoever he needed to in order to make his message clear. He owns me.
He doesn’t. Not really. I’ll never allow myself to be owned by him. But I can let him think he does. I can play my part. And maybe that is the true show of strength. To do the thing that terrifies and humiliates me to save the people I love. I’m sacrificing myself for the sake of others, and I think that makes me stronger than Luka. So, I can handle whatever he throws at me.
I grab the dress and slide it off the hanger. It was Luka’s command, but even he looks over at me, surprised. And he keeps looking at me as I reach behind my back and unzip the white dress my father made me wear. The dress has a wide neck and the shoulders slip down my arms, revealing the straps of my bra and my chest.
I expect Luka to look away. Not because he is a gentleman but because he wouldn’t want to give me even the slight satisfaction of knowing he likes what he sees, but he doesn’t. His eyes are wide and glued to me as I shimmy out of the dress, pushing it down my body and over my hips. When it falls in a puddle at my feet, Luka’s lips part. His green eyes look almost black as he studies me, standing in front of him in nothing but a matching set of delicate lacy underwear. It is the kind of undergarments a bride would wear for her groom, and Luka is so focused on me—quiet for the first time since he came home—that I can almost forget he hates me. Certainly, there isn’t love in his eyes, but there is lust. And that is something.
I kick the white dress aside and step into the pink dress Luka picked out, pulling it up over my body. I need to take off my bra, but I can’t expose so much of myself to him. So, I turn away and face the armoire while I reach around and undo the clasp. My fingers are shaking and nervous from the feel of his eyes on me, and I fumble with the clasp. When his warm hands push mine aside, I jolt in surprise, my hands flinching away like he burned me.
My entire body stiffens as his finger traces a line across my skin. His fingernail scratches against the muscles on either side of my spine and the dip in the center, and goosebumps rise across my back. It only takes him a second to unclasp my bra and step away, but it seems to stretch into minutes and hours. My heart hammers in my chest while I stand frozen, wondering what is going to happen next.
Then, before my mind can go there, I feel Luka step away.
“Be downstairs in twenty minutes,” he says, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard it.
I don’t move until I hear the door latch into place. As soon as it does, I grab the door of the armoire for stability, afraid I might collapse.
* * *
Iwait twenty-one minutes before I leave my room—my small attempt at rebellion—but when I get to the dining room, Luka isn’t there. Two spots at the far end of the long table have been set, one across from the other, with dinner plates, silverware, and glasses of red wine. A glass casserole dish sits on a hot pad in the center, filled with what looks like a take on lasagna, with a loaf of focaccia next to it.
Apparently, Luka didn’t think my blackened chicken and avocado sauce was a good enough dinner option for him. I want to be petty about it and refuse to eat this meal in the same way he refused to eat mine—or even let me finish cooking it—but I’m too hungry. Even the sight of the warm bread with sprigs of rosemary cooked into the top makes my stomach growl.
Where is Luka, anyway? I headed down late, which means he is even later than I am. As the host, he should have been here early to wait for me. It is for this reason I feel no guilt cutting into the lasagna.
As soon as the knife cuts into the casserole, steam billows out, and it takes all of my self-control not to stick my face in it and breathe deep. Cooking is my passion, but that all stems from a love of food, and I’ve eaten less food today than any other day in recent history. I spoon a large square of pasta, sauce, and cheese on to my plate and cut a slice off of the focaccia. There is freshly grated parmesan on the table, but I’m too hungry to use it. The food is still steaming when I shove a forkful into my mouth.
And immediately wrinkle my nose.
I swallow the bite, but I use my fork to dissect the rest of the food on my plate, trying to work out all of the ingredients. Lasagna has always been like pizza to me—even a bad pizza is still a good pizza. But this lasagna is bad. Bland with overcooked noodles and an under-seasoned sauce. I’m starving, and I still don’t want to eat another bite.
Luka still hasn’t shown up, and I don’t hear footsteps upstairs or anywhere else in the house, so I assume I have a few more minutes to myself and sneak down the hall and into the kitchen. I grab the garlic powder, salt, pepper, and dried parsley and hustle back to the dining room. It is best to season a dish prior to cooking, but since that isn’t an option, I sprinkle a bit of each powder over the top of the casserole and use my clean knife to work it into the layer of melted cheese on top. Then, to hide my handiwork, I grab the block of fresh parmesan and begin grating it over top.
“What are you doing?”
