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I ignored his self-deprecation, guiding him back to an easier topic. “Was psychology your favorite subject, then?”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” He scraped the sautéed vegetables into the bowl with the whisked eggs and stirred it together before pouring it all into a shallow pie tin and putting the whole thing in the oven.
“It’s never too late to go after what you want.”
“Oh yeah?” He set the timer and finally looked in my direction, his dark gaze narrowed and his smirk challenging. “Then what’d you want to do? I’m sure being abar managerwasn’t at the top of the list.”
I smiled to myself at the way he said it. He knew there was more to the story but he wasn’t going to ask outright, which was precisely why I nominated him to Sergei over any of the others at Delirium. Well, mostly. If he took the promotion, it also meant he had a reason to stay and I had a feasible excuse to see him. Any way you looked at it, it seemed like the most logical choice.
“I wanted to be a doctor,” I replied, dusting the crumbs off my hands. “Like my grandfather.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“After university I served my time in the military, then I stayed,” I replied with a shrug.
“Hence the killing of countless people?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the counter, directly across from me.
Even though the body count had probably increased tenfold since working for Sergei, I nodded anyway. He didn’t need to know any of that. Murder was murder, whether it was state-sanctioned or criminal. Beneath the custom suits and perfectly managed appearance, that’s all I was. A prostitute of a different kind, selling my services to organizations that didn’t give a shit about me. All they wanted was for the job to be done. Period.
“And yet somehow you wound up here,” Marek said, gesturing widely before folding his arms again. “Instead of back home in St. Petersburg.”
“I like where I am.”
“Chicago?”
“No.” I slipped off the counter and moved to his side slowly. He uncrossed his arms and stood straighter, watching me with those dark amber eyes, a shade brighter with the kitchen lights, as beautiful as ever. “I mean right here. With you.”
“You don’t even know me.” His voice came out rough, but not with derision. It was laced with uncertainty, the same tone he had outside the Cow Shed before he finally agreed to come back to Delirium. A sign that another piece of the wall cracked and fell away.
“Don’t I?” I stroked the side of his face with my fingertips, letting them drift downward before I pressed my palm to his chest. His heart beat steadily, picking up speed as his breathing grew shallow. “I know you’re good, Marek. And strong. Kind and brave, with a sharp mind and a sharper tongue. You’re hard because the world made you that way, but there’s so much more to you than what you let on.”
His gaze dropped to my chest and he swallowed before speaking. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
Catching him beneath the point of his chin with my knuckle, I tipped his face up again, meeting his eyes with a small smile. “One of these days, I hope you see what I see.”
He drew in a breath like he was going to argue with me, but then he held it. Taking a step forward, he slipped his arms around my waist, cementing our bodies together. He rested his cheek against my shoulder but turned his face away, a compromise between letting me in and protecting himself. After everything he’d been through? I’d take it. Like Nadia, I was thrilled with any speck of affection he’d give me for the simple fact that it gave me hope, hope that eventually the wall between us would crumble for good.
I couldn’t help but smile as I tightened my arms around him. I didn’t know when he became the center of my world but somehow he had and that changed everything. My new mission was clear. I’d do whatever was necessary to deliver him from the life he knew, even if it cost me my own.
17
MAREK
“I was serious, by the way,”Misha said over bites of frittata. “Last night.”
Great to hear—except the whole night was pretty much a blur. The chaos of the morning and polishing off a bottle of vodka pretty much overrode anything that might have been hanging out in my short-term memory bank. “About what?”
“The general manager job. It’s yours if you want it. It offers sick time,” he said with a small smile, as if that little perk was going to sell it.
“Uh…” A wave of unease rolled through me. I looked down at the frittata, picking pieces of onion out of the baked eggs with my fork. “Shouldn’t it go to someone who’s been there longer? Like,anyone? Literally, anyone. Or maybe someone who’s more qualified?”
He took a sip of tea, setting his mug down delicately. “Sergei tasked me with finding a replacement. I’ve found a replacement. You may be new to Delirium but you’re not new to bartending.”
“Yeah, but I’m not exactly what you’d call management material.”
“Can you count?” My gaze darted to his, narrowing at his awful attempt at being funny. Chuckling, he kept going. “There. You can read, write, and do math. You’re qualified.”
“C’mon, man! You know what it’s going to fucking look like!”
