“Have fun,” Anton calls out as I head for the exit, and I pretend not to hear as he mutters something about obsessed stalkers and poor tortured women.
He doesn’t understand why I’m doing this to Sara, and I’m not inclined to explain.
Especially since I don’t understand it myself.
26
Sara
* * *
The mouthwatering smell of buttery seafood and roasted garlic greets me when I walk into the house, my handbag hanging casually over my shoulder. As I hoped, once again the dining room table is set with candles, and a bottle of white wine is chilling in a bucket of ice. Only the food is different today; it looks like we’re having seafood linguini for the main course, with calamari and a tomato-mozzarella salad for the appetizers.
The setup couldn’t be more perfect if I tried.
Act normal. Stay calm. He can’t know what you’re planning.
“Italian night, huh?” I say as Peter turns from the kitchen counter, where he was chopping up something that looks like basil. My heart is thumping erratically in my chest, but I succeed in keeping my tone coolly sarcastic. “What’s tomorrow? Japanese? Chinese?”
“If you wish,” he says, walking over to the table to sprinkle the chopped basil on the mozzarella. “Though I’m less familiar with those cuisines, so we might have to order in.”
“Uh-huh.” My gaze falls to his hands as he brushes the remnants of the basil off his fingers. A warm, shivery sensation curls through me as I remember how those fingers touched me with devastating pleasure, making me unravel in his arms.
No. Don’t go there.
Desperate to distract myself, I focus on his outfit. Today, he’s wearing a black button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and my throat goes dry at the sight of his tan, muscular forearms, the left one covered by tattoos all the way down to the wrist. Inked guys aren’t normally my thing, but the intricate tattoos suit him, emphasizing the power flexing under that smooth, hair-dusted skin. I’ve always been drawn to strong, masculine forearms, and Peter has the best I’ve ever seen. George worked out, so he had nice arms too, but they were nowhere near as powerfully cut as these.
Ugh, stop. Self-disgust burns in my throat as I realize what I’m doing. At no point should I be comparing my husband, a normal, peaceful man, to a killer whose life revolves around violence and vengeance. Obviously, Peter Sokolov is in better shape; he has to be, to kill all those people and evade the authorities. His body is a weapon, honed by years of battle, while George was a journalist, a writer who spent most of his time with his computer.
Except… if I were to believe Peter, my husband wasn’t a journalist. He was a spy operating in the same shadow world as the monster puttering around my kitchen.
Bands of tension loop around my forehead, and I push all thoughts of my husband’s alleged deception away, focusing on the rest of my stalker’s outfit: another pair of dark jeans and black socks with no shoes. For a second, it makes me wonder if Peter has something against wearing shoes, but then I recall that in some cultures, it’s considered disrespectful and unclean to wear outside shoes inside the house.
Is the Russian culture like that, and if so, is the man who tortured me in this very kitchen showing, in some very roundabout way, that he respects me?
“Go ahead, wash your hands or whatever you need to do,” he says, dimming the lights before sitting down at the table and uncorking the wine. “The food is getting cold.”
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” I say and go to the nearby bathroom to wash my hands. I hate how he acts like he knows all my habits, but I’m not about to compromise my health to spite him.
“Really, I mean it,” I say when I return. “You didn’t have to be here at all. You know feeding me isn’t part of your stalker duties, right?”
He grins as I take a seat across from him and hang my handbag on the back of my chair. “Is that right?”
“That’s what all the stalker job postings say.” I spear a piece of tomato and mozzarella with my fork and bring it to my plate. My hand is steady, showing nothing of the anxiety shredding me inside. I want to clutch my bag against me, keep it on my lap and within easy reach, but if I do, he’ll get suspicious. I’m already taking a chance by hanging it on my chair when I normally plop it carelessly on the couch in the family room. I’m hoping he ascribes that to the fact that I came straight to the kitchen/dining area instead of making my usual detour to the couch.
“Well, if that’s what they say, who am I to argue?” Peter pours us each a glass of wine before placing some of the mozzarella salad on his plate. “I’m no expert.”