What’s scarier is he doesn’t claim to love me—and I don’t think he does. What he feels for me is more of an obsession. With a jolt, I remember Alina warning me about this the night we smoked weed together, telling me her brother isn’t my white knight.
“Molotov men don’t love, they possess,” she said. “And Nikolai is no exception.”
Wrapping a towel around my wet hair, I stare at my reflection in the mirror, noting the puffy redness of my lips, still bruised and swollen from his kisses. Near my collarbone is a hickey, and on my hips are faint dark marks in the shape of male fingers.
No, this isn’t love. Not even close.
At best, it’s a mutual fixation—because even now, as I stand here looking like I’ve been assaulted, the memories of how each mark got on my body make me throb deep inside.
* * *
It’s as I’m getting dressed that I decide on the best course of action.
Alina.
She helped me once; maybe she can do so again.
I don’t even know what kind of help I have in mind—after my near miss with the assassins, the idea of another escape attempt holds little appeal. Nonetheless, I feel a spark of hope as I knock on the door of her bedroom, and she opens it for me, dressed in her peignoir. Before I have a chance to apologize for waking her up, she glances around the hallway and swiftly ushers me inside.
“Are you okay?” she demands, stepping back to give me a thorough once-over. Her gaze zeroes in on my puffy lips, and her dark eyebrows pull together. “Did Kolya—”
“No, no, I’m fine.” My face burns hot, making me grateful my bronzed skin conceals my flush—and my high-necked T-shirt hides the hickey. “He wouldn’t— It was all consensual, believe me.”
She blows out a breath. “Okay, good. I figured that was the case. It’s just… my brother is not entirely sane when it comes to you.”
“You can say that again,” I mutter under my breath.
She hears me anyway, and her frown returns. “What happened?” Grabbing my hand, she leads me over to her unmade bed and makes me sit next to her. Since she’s just woken up, her face is bare, like that fateful time she ambushed me in my bedroom, but her jade-green eyes are clear, clouded only by concern. “What happened? Tell me, Chloe. Please.”
I take in a deep breath and brace myself for her reaction. “Nikolai proposed.”
Zero response. Not so much as an eyelash flicker.
Did she not hear me?
“He asked me to marry him,” I enunciate, in case it wasn’t clear. “Last night, he asked me to be his wife.”
Now her long lashes sweep over her eyes. “I see.”
“Why aren’t you more surprised?” I demand, stunned and more than a little disquieted by her calm acceptance. “Did you know he would do this?”
“Know? No. Suspect? Yes.” She sighs, pushing back her hair with one hand. “From the moment I saw your keys in his drawer, I figured this is where it might be heading. But of course, Kolya doesn’t talk to me about these matters, so I can’t say I knew for sure.”
My disquiet increases. “I don’t understand.”
“Chloe…” Facing me fully, she clasps my hands in both of hers. “My brother is obsessed with you. I saw signs of it from the first day we hired you, but I thought—I hoped—it was just a passing attraction on his part, that you’d just be another girl he’d fuck and forget.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It’s nothing against you. It would’ve been a good thing, believe me.” She squeezes my hands. “Look, Nikolai is… He’s a lot like our father. And our grandfather. And from the stories I’ve heard, other Molotov men before them. Konstantin and Valery—they’re a little different, but Nikolai… he’s a Molotov male through and through.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, frustrated. “He’s what? Prone to proposing after knowing a woman for a month?”
She shakes her head. “To the best of my knowledge, he’s never proposed to anyone else—or become this obsessed with a woman.” She takes a breath. “You’re the first, and if I had to guess, the last. Which is how it often happens with the men in our family. Our father saw our mother at a party, swept her off her feet by showering her family with presents, and married her two weeks later. And his father—our paternal grandfather—literally kidnapped our grandmother when she was sixteen, stole her from her village when he happened upon her tending a field with other schoolgirls.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish.” Her face is somber. “Our grandmother passed away when I was ten, but I remember the stories she told me about her life with my grandfather, the way he’d control her every move and demand absolute obedience. She was deeply unhappy with him, but she was just a poor peasant girl and he was a powerful, well-connected man, so there was nothing she could do. He wouldn’t let her leave him.”