4

Katya

There was a stupid saying about success and how addictive it was. I couldn’t remember the whole thing as I found my way back home, straight into my room.

Dad was out working as usual, and since it was past ten, all the live-in employees were fast asleep in their rooms. I practically skipped to my room.

Not literally, but there was an extra bounce to my step, and I felt the adrenaline in my blood. Maybe this was why Alessandro had been so annoying. First, taking my building and then getting me kicked out of my favorite restaurant.

Maybe now he understood very well that I could keep up with him and his cheap tactics.

First, I took a long, honeyed soak to wash all the grime that dealing with that man had accumulated on me.

Only to myself, I admitted that calling his suit tasteless had been a bold move on my part. An inch taller than me, Alessandro was a six-foot-tall devil with raven black hair and blue eyes like a harpoon swimming through the sea. That pale brown suit had fitted his build so perfectly. My knees weakened when that elevator door slid open. Leaning against the wall had been me trying to save face so he wouldn’t know what the sight of him was doing to me.

And his scent.

That smile that he kept trying to use to smother me.

A very dangerous man indeed, the cool air around him was evident enough. I could be very threatening. Too many times, in fact, I have. Yet that man had chuckled like I was a schoolgirl trying to sell him candy.

Clearly, he was used to danger.

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.

“Basta!” he swore in my ear, hot breath flushing my face. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

I kicked to flip us again, and we fumbled on the bed. For all his largeness, Alex was thoroughly swift, dodging or catching everything I threw at him.

“Stop it!”

“No!”

We ended up on our feet, standing a bit apart from each other, our clothes and hair messed up. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. We were both breathing hard.

“Stop dodging and fight.” It was a challenge. “If you come into my house to insult me, you should be ready to fight me as well.”

Alex closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “I did not come here to fight, I don’t need to start something with the Petrenkos, my family has enough on its plate already.”

I took steps towards him so that I could sneer in his face. “Then what did you come for? Huh?” In our tumbling, there’d been no weapon on him—no gun or knife.

Officially, my family and his weren’t enemies, but we also weren’t allies. Usually, we just ignored each other as best we could.

Still, there was no proof that I wouldn’t kill him. It was foolishness to have come without a weapon.

But a part of me trusted him slightly because of it. The same part of me that was still hot with the feeling of his hands on me…that firm grip.

He stared down at me. Eyes hot like liquid fire.

“I’m not a good man,” he said, taking a step to get closer to me. “I am the most dangerous person in this damned city. My attention is not a good thing for anyone.”

And? Whatever he wanted to say, he needed to say it fast enough because something I didn’t appreciate was happening to my body and mind.

He stared at me and drew me into the deep blue sea of his eyes. I couldn’t register much other than the heat that radiated off him, seeping into my skin through my sheer dress. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I mindlessly pressed in, savoring the sound he made when my breasts pressed against his chest.

Then he put his hands on my arms, his mouth only a breath from mine, and stepped aside, stealing away the heat I had been getting used to. Without another word, he walked toward my door, cast me back a look, and left.

My mind was in a puddle.

A very dangerous man, indeed.