13. Thirteen
THIRTEEN
HARLOWE
Islept for two dreamless hours, then woke at dawn and showered, washing away the sticky residue of cum and rainwater.
Downstairs, I smelled eggs and smoke. Frank never cooked, but he was at the stove with a spatula.
He heaped scrambled eggs onto a plate, poured a mug of black coffee, and set both on the island.
He didn’t look at me while I ate.
“You’ll need a sober head and at least three hundred calories if you’re going to outlive your wedding planner today.”
Chewing silently, I felt my mouth working around the food like I’d forgotten how to swallow.
It tasted of nothing. I finished half the plate and pushed the rest away, sliding the mug after it until the rim tilted just past the granite ledge.
I watched it tip and stay there on gravity’s mercy, resisting the urge to let it fall.
Frank leaned back against the fridge, arms crossed. “Mr. Rovanov’s coming at ten.”
“Why can’t you drive me?”
“He insisted.”
His lips folded tight over the words, and for a moment, he looked old, the years spent mopping up other people’s violence raw on his face.
I snorted. “I don’t care what he insisted. We’re not married yet.”
Did that bastard think I’d roll over and take it? That I would just let him dictate the last days before I became a prisoner?
He shook his head. “Don’t make it harder on yourself, Principessa.”*
Frank didn’t say more because there wasn’t anything left to say, not between the two of us, not with the day of reckoning finally clawing its way into the light.
Upstairs, I dressed, and then I left before Arrow showed up. He was out of his mind if he thought I’d get in a car with him.
Fuck Arrow Romanov.
I stormed the block after ditching Frank, using some strong expletives. My breath was visible in the morning gloom.
The first train out was half drunks and half ghosts, nobody looking at anyone. I wedged myself into the seat by the window, crossing my arms so tight my nails bit into my skin. Arrow was a goddamn fool if he thought I’d ever forget what his family did to my brother.
But the city was an enemy, too, and it conscripted me right back into routine, hyperaware that one of his goons was probably reporting back to him right now.
Three stops away, I ducked into a donut shop and ordered black coffee I didn’t want.
The city clerk behind the counter, some sad-eyed college student, flinched at the bruises on my face.
“Rough night?” he asked.
I smiled. “The rougher, the better.”
He flushed bright red. He liked it, grazing my fingers when he handed me the cup, and for half a second, I wondered what it would be like, just for one day, if I ran off with someone like that—let the city swallow us both. Exist in a universe where no one’s name was a death sentence.
I savored the fantasy as long as it lasted, but my phone lit up before the first sip went down.
Arrow.
Except, I’ve changed his name to Fucking Limp Dick Asshole in my contacts.
Ignoring his call, I threw my phone back into my purse. When my phone started ringing again, I ignored it again.
Then, a text:
What part of me picking you up at 10 didn’t you understand?
I texted back.
What part of go fuck yourself didn’t YOU understand?
A minute later, my phone vibrated with a photo. It was the outside of the donut shop, Arrow standing on the curb with a cigarette in his hand. The next text was just:
Come out.
I text back.
Make me.
Three dots.
I hurriedly calculated an exit route—there was an alley in the back, and the M train was only eight minutes on foot—when the shop door dinged.
Arrow didn’t glance around. He knew I’d spot him first, that every molecule in me is calibrated to watch for him.
He wasn’t wearing the suit today, but he was in black denim jeans and a T-shirt that hugged his biceps and was too thin for this weather.
The fucker looked like something you’d find chiseled in granite, and he moved through the donut shop like he owned the place.
The barista nearly dropped the coffee pot, clocking him instantly, then straightened up and stopped pretending to wipe the countertop.
Arrow slid into the booth seat across from me. He leaned forward and locked me in. Up close, his eyes were raw concrete, a gray that knew what it was made of.
“Are you having fun? he asked, his voice frustratingly calm.
I glared at him over my coffee cup. “I was until you showed up.”
“I told you I’d pick you up,” he said.
The student returned with a box of maple bars and set them on the table, hands trembling so hard he nearly dropped the lid.
Arrow’s gaze flicked to him for a nanosecond, then back to me, as if to say, “See how powerful I am.”
The poor kid vanished into the kitchen. Possibly for life.
“I don’t remember inviting you.” I chewed slowly, savoring the taste of cinnamon and grease.
My lipstick smeared across the napkin like blood.
“How do you think this is going to go, Harlowe?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “With you bleeding out before the honeymoon, if I’m lucky.”
He made no move to laugh me off. He regarded me with the patience of a scientist observing mold on a petri dish and decided the best way to win was to stop playing altogether.
The silence between us was so taut I could pick it apart, thread by thread.
“Is that a threat or a wish?” he asked finally, mildly, as if discussing the weather.
“I don’t see the difference,” I said, refusing to blink.
Arrow leaned in, elbows on the Formica, tattooed hands laced together. “You really think you hate me, don’t you?”
“No. I know I do.” I smiled and let it hang there.
He made a noise, not quite laughter, but not quite a growl. “You’re so certain, aren’t you, little viper?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?” he asked, so softly it stung. “You spent your whole life perfecting the role.” His fingers tapped an idle pattern on the table.
The implication was a slap. I flinched, more inside than out. I wanted to upend the table, shatter the greasy plates, and grind my heel into his jaw, except a thread of something held me still. An ancient self-hatred that liked being seen, even if the witness had a knife for a gaze.
I dug my claws in. “Is that the best you can do, killer?”
His eyes flared, the first honest flicker of heat, but it shuttered down fast.
“You already know how this ends. As a matter of fact, it’s already over for you. I can see it in your hands. In your mouth. You need a god to kneel to, Harlowe, and you’d choke before you ever say it out loud.”
He was right, in the way poison is always right. It knows the shortest path to your organs. I pictured his hands at my throat, counted the ways I’d let him end me, and hated myself for how each vision made me warmer, steadier, more calibrated to the pain of being seen.
Arrow didn’t break eye contact. He reached across and took my chin in two fingers, tilting my face up. The gesture should have been humiliating, and it was, but there was a reverence to it.
“You want a leash? Say the word.” His voice was barely above the hum of the refrigeration case.
“Go to hell.”
“I own the deed.”
Letting my jaw go, he waited a breath, then brushed his thumb—slowly, almost a caress—over my lips, wiping away the icing from the donut, then sucked the residue off his thumb.
Heat rushed through me at the gesture, my sinful body betraying my hatred in an instant. I jerked back, nearly knocking over the coffee. The smirk on his face told me he knew exactly what he’d done to me.
He withdrew, and laced his hands again. “After you become my wife, the fun stops. You don’t get to run. You don’t get to hide in your little sex church, or behind Frank, or in your father’s shadow. You’re mine.”
The words landed with the slow, acidic clarity of a prophecy. I didn’t bother to argue.
I drew in a shaky breath. “You done?”
Arrow smiled, but it wasn’t amusement. It was hunger.
“If you were smart, you’d try harder to please me.” And then, he smirked. “But I’d be disappointed if you did.”
Maybe this was what Zephyr meant when he said pain was its faith—you could hate the man with the whip, but you belonged to the sensation long before he ever touched you.
“Get up,” he said. “We have a cake tasting in thirty minutes.”
“I’d rather eat glass.”
“That can be arranged too, but it would be a shame to ruin that pretty mouth before the wedding.”
He stood and rounded the table, scraping the chrome against the checkered floor until he was behind me.
He slid his hand into the hair at the nape of my neck, a show of dominance so cliché it should have bored me, except it didn’t.
It set every nerve ending in my body on fire.
He bent so his lips hovered by my ear, his breath hot and minty.
“Eat your donut,” he ordered.
I thought he was joking, but he squeezed his fist, not painfully, but as clear a warning as I’d ever received.
Slowly, I lifted the maple bar to my mouth and took a deliberate bite, gritting my teeth so hard that icing stuck to my canines.
He watched, head cocked, like a dog trainer waiting for the animal to heel or snap.
I chewed, swallowed, and didn’t blink.
“Good girl,” he murmured, a phrase I never let anyone use on me, not even Zephyr.
I ripped a bite bigger than I could chew and stuffed it in, hoping to make him flinch. Arrow only smirked and, without moving his hand, let the weight of his presence melt down the back of my spine.
“You want a leash, Harlowe? You’ll get your wish.”
Letting go of my hair, he grabbed my coffee from the table, and took a swig, leaving the ghost of his mouth on the lid. I shivered and hated myself for the thrill. Arrow wiped his hand on my shoulder, shaking crumbs onto my jacket, then straightened, satisfied.
“Get whatever defiance you want out of your system before the wedding.”
He flicked at my bruised wrist, a cool touch that made my whole body flash hot, and stalked out, just like that, leaving me alone in a donut shop with the scent of defeat smoldering in the air. I stared at the half-eaten maple bar, the bite marks ragged, and realized my hands were shaking.
The student waiter peeked out, wide-eyed.
I bared my teeth in something like a grin. “You got a doggie bag?”
He nodded, diving under the counter, and shoved a crumpled paper sack at me. I tossed the rest of the donut inside, torn between laughter and murder. I was a Virelli, after all—vengeance was supposed to taste better than sugar.
But Arrow was right, even if it burned to admit it.
All the running, the scraping for freedom, was just rehearsal for the real humiliation.
* Princess