Getting ready for bed when it wasn’t even past midnight was not an everyday thing for me, but since my evening plans had been ruined, I idled away, plotting.
I would have to face this shortcoming head-on when I met my father. I could already see him giving me that look, that one that was a mixture of worry and resignation.
My hair was damp from the bath, and I brushed it with my mind away, sitting at the vanity my mother owned when she’d been alive.
The window was open behind me, and the frilly curtain was dancing in the cool breeze. My room wasn’t well lit. I didn’t like too much light at night. There was just the standing lamp closer to the bathroom door, the single dim light by my bed, and the wall light hanging on the wall beside the vanity.
The shadows weren’t heavy, but they might as well have been because Alessandro Sorvino stepped out of them like he was a magician.
I gasped at the reflection in the mirror, taken by surprise only for a moment before I regained myself.
I never put my cards on the table.
“You don’t know how to use a door?” I asked through the mirror.
He wasn’t wearing that damned dazzling smile, but the amusement on his face was evident as he marched towards me, hands clasped behind him. I was not a small woman, and my room wasn’t child’s play either. I liked the high walls and plenty of space, yet Alessandro managed to seem imposing even with the suit jacket missing, and two buttons were undone from his dress shirt.
“I thought I should pay a visit, seeing as I was already walking this way to meet my driver. Have I thanked you for that?”
He stopped at the foot of my bed and patted the duvet.
“Not yet, but I think you were just about to.”
He breathed out. Maybe he smiled, not enough lights were on, and I didn’t intend to have him out of my sight even for a second.
“As thanks for that…wonderful attempt, I came here to let you off with a warning.”
One of my brows raised, and I crossed my arms, watching him through the mirror like a hawk. “Is that so?”
He walked around, and my heart skipped a beat—because, for a split second, I thought he was coming to me. Instead, Alex perched at the edge of my bed, and met my eyes through the mirror.
“I am not the kind of man you play games with, you know.”
“Oh, no? I thought clowns were for playing with.”
“I know all about the Petrenkos, your father is really admirable, but this world of ours isn’t for girls playing house and dress up.”
My head snapped around in a blink. “What did you just say?” Death was in my eyes.
“You should stay where you are with your friends—clubbing on Fridays, dating boys, spending daddy’s money. You shouldn’t get mixed up in this, Katya. With me.”
In middle school, I elbowed a boy in the face. Broke his nose and didn’t even get suspended. He’d told me girls should just stick to playing with dolls.
Maybe he’d seen it from how my muscles tensed under my sheer night dress, but Alex dodged the brush when I threw it.
Not fast enough, though, not for me. He hissed because it might have scraped his cheek, but then, I had been aiming right for that devilishly handsome face.
He caught both my wrists, and when my knee jerked, he stepped around the strike and swept me clean off my expensive carpet.
My back hit the bed, and Alex was on top of me, both hands holding my wrists above my head. He still had a foot on the ground, even though he was right between my legs.
“You shouldn’t start things you can’t finish. If we kill ourselves, it will start a war.”
I didn’t care that my nightgown had ridden up. “Don’t worry. I’m not trying to kill you.”
In a blink, I threw my legs up to wrap him around the hips and flipped.
The punch landed squarely beside his head because he’d dodged it, and before I could aim again, the room flipped, and my cheek was being pressed to the duvet. One arm above my head, held firmer than before, the other twisted behind my back.