Chapter 17
Ishouldn’t have been able to sleep. Nonetheless, I come to on my side, blinking in the harsh light of dawn. At first glance, I assume Mischa’s gone: I don’t see him nearby.
Then I feel it. Warm breath on the nape of my neck. At the same moment, I sense the slight pressure over my waist, just enough to avoid jostling my injured ribs.
He isn’t awake. I realize that the second I flinch and he doesn’t issue a mocking taunt. He groans instead and the mattress shifts as he withdraws his arm—only to fully turn toward me, releasing a heavy sigh.
He smells strange like this. There’s no vodka. No musk of hate. Just the heady scent of his breath tainting the air. Watching him, I subconsciously tally up all the differences between him and the figure I know him as most often, stricken with rage. The lines of his face are softer now. He looks younger.
He looks…tired. Like someone who’s lived a long, hard life and deserves every ounce of sleep to be found. But the second I let myself think as much, his eyes fly open and he’s transformed. So much of his appearance hinges on his mouth. Flattened in the peacefulness of sleep, he’s almost beautiful. Hardened and cautious, he’s an enigma, impossible to decipher.
Especially in silence.
Without a word, he stands and redresses in the clothes he left on the floor overnight. Then he turns to me and rips the sheets from my body. I’m in his arms with no warning, forced to cling to him during the trek into the bathroom.
After he sets me on the bench, I watch him run the water and gather his supplies with clinical precision. His focus makes it harder to reconcile the harsher, violent pieces with a man capable of unfurling a roll of bandages and lining up a row of soft rags to clean me with.
Perhaps talking to him is the only way to shatter the awkward thoughts going to war in my head. “The little girl Nicolai gave you…” I cringe at my own word choice, though I’m not sure how else to phrase it. “Does she have a name?”
Mischa stiffens, still crouched, his head bowed. “Why the fuck would I know or give a shit about something like that?”
I swallow hard at the grit in his tone. He’s not bluffing—or so I would believe if I hadn’t seen for myself the different side of him. A man who can braid a child’s hair and teach her how to hold a knife. In some alternate universe, I assume the act would be equivalent to showing someone how to ride a bike. Parental.
“Because I saw you with her,” I admit.
Predictably, he stiffens, his gaze shooting up to mine. His eyes narrow and I can see the word aching to leave his tongue:snake.
“You were good with her. Do you have children?”
Given his lack of protection with me—the wife of his sworn enemy—I have no doubt that a child must have come into play at some point. His quick smile, however, is too feral. Only now do I realize that I’ve opened myself up to his new favorite line of attack.
“Do you?”
I turn away, blinking rapidly. “Why you and not Vanya?” I ask, changing the subject to one even more lethal. He simply can’t resist the bait: the mentioning of another man. “Why did you care for me?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Little Rose?” His hand captures my chin, forcing me to face him. He observes me closely, nodding as if finding the answer to a puzzling question in my expression. “You would. You’re a tough woman to crack, I will give you that.” His fingers curl, stroking along my jaw, raising goosebumps. “But you are easy to read too. Too easy. I just have to know where to look. And it’s this…” His finger creeps down to my collar, brushing my throat with a teasing swipe. “I’ve decided that this is how I’ll break you.”
“How?” I rasp as air sticks to the inside of my lungs. A complication from my injuries? No. It’s him, poisoning every breath I take, invading my bloodstream in place of oxygen.
“With warmth. With that gentleness you fucking crave so much.” He stands and cinches the hem of my nightgown in his fist. Then he raises it, forcing me to lift my arms or get caught in the motion.
My cheeks flame as I watch the fabric hit the floor. His scrutiny is a razor, slicing through my thin resistance.
Maybe he’s right. I don’t know how to protect against him when he’s like this. But I’m quickly learning how exactly to fight back.
“How many women have you had?” I wonder, my voice rasping. Licking my lips, I try again, willing my tone to be stronger. “A wife? A mistress? Someone like you…” I trail off pointedly, surprised by just how wild my imagination runs. I can see them all. Tall women. Thin women. Empty, moldable, breakable women. “I’m sure you have a harem somewhere.”
“A harem.” He seems to taste the word and then grunts, dissatisfied. “Weak men surround themselves with scores of easy whores,” he says. “Just as weaker men surround themselves with one—”
“So a wife, then,” I assume, curious despite myself. A wife, with a mistress or two on the side. “Where is she?”
“Who says I have one?”
He sounds so smug. Damn it. I’ve misread him again. Going off his voice alone is too risky—I have no choice but to chance observing him directly. He’s standing before the tub, his expression confident. But something in his eyes draws my attention. A hostile, defensive gleam.
“You don’t have a wife,” I say. “You don’t keep a woman at all.”
It’s a strange way to put it, downright misogynistic. A man keeping a woman—but that’s how Robert saw it. In a way, maybe that’s all love really is. Beautiful, polished ownership.