30
CORA
Ivan is leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed. “A wife should never make her husband wait.”
He’s wearing short sleeves. For the first time, I can see his arms. The black tattoos that peek out of the collar of his shirt and snake up and down his muscled biceps and thick forearms.
I suppress a shiver and turn to saunter back across my room as if I could care less that he’s standing in my doorway.
“I knew we were pretending to be engaged. I didn’t know we were pretending to live in the Dark Ages.”
He chuckles. “What happened to the woman who was thanking me profusely in the kitchen only a few hours ago? I saved you from my big, bad father, if you recall.”
“Your father didn’t seem so big and bad to me.” I sit on the bench at the end of my bed. Sitting on a bed with him in the room feels like opening the door to a very bad idea.
“Tell me how you feel if you’re ever in a room alone with him. You might change your mind.”
He closes the door behind him and faces me.
If it’s even half as scary as being in a room alone with his son, then no thank you. Every nerve in my body is on high alert.
I thought this mansion would be more than big enough for the two of us. Now, I’m not sure there is such a thing. This planet might not be big enough.
“He seemed like an asshole.”
Ivan laughs humorlessly. “That’s because he is. A dangerous asshole, though. One you should avoid when you can.”
“Are you worried he doesn’t approve of your fiancée? I guess he was hoping for a Fortune 500 heiress or the princess in line for some foreign throne. Sorry I’m ‘just a waitress.’”
“I don’t give a fuck about his approval. It’s my time now. His reign is over.”
I shudder at the thought of King Ivan on the throne. Crown on his head, all hail, all peasants bow before him.
He’s a nightmare now. What will he be like when the coronation comes?
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter what he thinks of me much anyway.” I shrug.
“What makes you think that?”
“I’ll be gone in a few days.” Ivan stares at me. I squirm under his gaze. “What?”
“This isn’t going to be resolved in ‘a few days,’ Cora.”
“But…” I lick my lips and twist towards him. “But I have to get back to work soon. I have a life.”
“A life you won’t have if you stroll back into that restaurant like you weren’t shot at this morning.” He gestures to the room. “You’re safe here.”
My voice shakes as I respond. “I know I’m safe here. And I appreciate that, I really do. You’ve gone above and beyond to make me comfortable. That doesn’t mean I want to live here. I can’t just quit my job.”
“Yes, you can. The restaurant is blown to bits anyway. They’ll close for repairs.”
“Okay, but that—That doesn’t mean—I still need—” The half-formed sentences stick in my throat. I can feel pressure building in me. My grip on control slips as the well-decorated walls of my cage close in. “You can’t lock me up in here.”
Ivan goes deathly still and his voice drops an octave into a raspy rumble. “Need I remind you that you agreed to our deal?”
“To save my friends,” I point out. “It was under duress. You threatened me.”
His amber eyes turn molten. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize for refusing to let you go back to your apartment and get yourself killed, don’t hold your breath.”
He stalks closer. I resist the urge to shrink away.
I ran before. I ran away from my stepfather, from the life he thought he could chain me into—and yet here I am, back in the lion’s den.
Clearly, running isn’t an option.
If I want freedom, I have to fight.
He’s close enough for his breath to whisper over my heated face. “I’ve done you nothing but favors, Cora. Since the moment we met. I could have left you naked and alone in my office,” he growls. “I could have let fucking Stefanos Genakos have his way with you. He would have, too. No one else at that party would have done a thing to stop it.”
“If that’s how you feel, then God help your real wife someday. How will she be useful to you?”
He arches a dark brow. “Careful, Cora—or I may start to think you’re jealous.”
I laugh a bit too suddenly for it to sound real. “Why on earth would I be jealous?”
He walks around me, forcing me to spin like a top to keep him in my line of sight. “Maybe my father wasn’t so far off. Maybe, when all is said and done, you’ll be sad to leave the comforts I’ve provided.”
I gasp. “I’m not some gold-digger! I work for my own money and I make my own way in life. I don’t need a husband. I don’t need you or anyone else taking care of me.”
His head tilts to one side, assessing me. “Good. Because I won’t be your husband. This deal isn’t the two of us playing House. I’m going to put up with you as long as I have to until I figure out who is coming after my family. Then you’ll be gone and we’ll both be free.”
“I won’t stay here if you think you get to control my entire life. I’m not your little whore.”
He’s in front of me before I even realized he moved. His chest is pressed to mine, and he’s looking down his nose at me, rage rolling off of him in hot, violent waves. “You agreed to the job and you'll do it. You'll do it if I have to drag you back here screaming every day. You'll do it if I have to cuff you to my side every second of every hour. You'll do it if it hurts, if it feels good, if you love it, if you hate it—I don't give a damn, Cora. No matter what happens, you are going to do as I say.”
My hands tremble at my side. I clench them into fists so he doesn’t see them shaking.
“I am your boss, your judge, jury, and executioner,” he snarls. “I am the sun around which your world revolves. Do you understand?”
At the party, I caught glimpses of a man I recognized. Someone who was forced to play a role against his will. Someone who had to bow to the whims and wishes of his family and forfeit his own desires.
That man is gone. Or maybe he never existed.
Maybe, like me, Ivan was wearing a mask the night we met. And maybe the monster beneath is worse than anything I could’ve imagined.
But if he thinks that means I’ll submit to him, he’s very fucking wrong.
“What are you going to do?” I spit. “Kill me?”
Without even a second of hesitation, Ivan leans in. I feel his hot breath on my face. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Before I can find the words, he storms out of my room and slams the door closed.