16. Lacey
16
LACEY
My ankle throbs with each step as Lenka helps me back to my room. The crutches clack against the floors, echoing through the empty halls of Pankration.
"I warned you to not ask about his mother," Lenka says, her weathered features tight with concern.
"I know." My voice comes out small. "I just thought... since we're supposed to be getting married..."
"Every marriage has boundaries, devushka . Fake ones most of all." Lenka helps me settle onto the edge of the bed, propping the crutches against the nightstand. "Some wounds run too deep to expose so carelessly."
I fidget with the hem of my dress. "What about Pyotr? Can you at least tell me about him?"
Lenka's face darkens. "Pyotr Stravinsky was a monster who delighted in causing pain. That is all you need to know."
"But—"
"No." Lenka's voice carries a sharp edge I haven't heard before. "If Vadim Petrovich wishes to share these stories with you, he will do so in his own time. Do not push him."
My chest tightens at her words. I want to ask more—about the alarm in Vadim’s eyes when he looked at me on that table, about the unmistakable pain in his voce when he said that his mother was not a topic of discussion, and about what kind of monster Pyotr truly was.
But the set of Lenka's jaw tells me I won't get any more answers tonight.
"I understand," I say quietly.
"Good." Lenka's expression softens slightly. "Now rest that ankle. Tomorrow will be a long day."
I stare at the closed door, finally alone with my racing thoughts.
My fingers trace idle patterns on the silk bedspread. In my twenty-seven years, I've seen plenty of pain and alarm—in Mom’s eyes during her final days, in Dad’s confused gaze as dementia erases more and more of him with each passing day.
But none of those hold a candle compared to what I just saw from Vadim.
A chill runs through me despite the warmth of the room. What kind of horror can make a man like Vadim Stravinsky—who exudes power and control with every breath—react so viscerally?
Lenka's words about Vadim’s mother echo in my mind: hers was the saddest and cruelest story these walls have seen . Coming from someone who's been here for decades, that has to mean something.
The luxury all around me feels like a thin veneer over darker truths. I shift on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position for my ankle, but I can't.
Like everything else in Pankration, the beauty masks a deeper pain underneath.
And something tells me Vadim's story is much darker than anything I can imagine.
There's real horror lurking in these halls, written in the tension of his shoulders in that dining room.
What happened here? What happened to his mother?
I shift against the silk sheets and shut my eyes, but it's no use. Every time I close them, I see Vadim looming over me. In Nathan's apartment. In the woods. On that table. I can feel his powerful body pinning mine beneath him.
The memory of his weight sends an electric current through my body.
Stop it , I scold myself.
But my body betrays me, remembering how his powerful hands felt on my bare ass, how his cock had pressed between my legs. The raw desire in his storm-gray eyes...
I squeeze my thighs together, trying to quell the ache building there. This is ridiculous. I'm supposed to be his fake fiancée, helping him steal some bible from a cathedral.
Not fantasizing about him taking me where he wants, when he wants.
But God, I want him to.
And I know he does too.
There's no way he didn't feel it. The current crackling between us, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife. Every time his eyes drill into mine, I see the same hunger staring back at me.
How can I prepare to walk away at the end when just being near him sets my body and blood on fire?
I swing my legs off the bed, wincing at the throb in my ankle. Sleep isn't coming anyway, not with my mind racing and my body still humming from Vadim's proximity at dinner.
The dress form stands in the corner with its half-finished alterations. My fingers itch to work, to lose myself in the familiar rhythm of needle and thread.
I ease myself onto the chair beside the dress form and pick up my needle. My hands move automatically, adjusting the drape of the bodice. The neckline needs to be lower, more daring. Would he like it? Maybe…
I stab myself with the needle and curse under my breath. "Fuck!"
This is temporary, I remind myself. We'll go to Paris, get the bible, and then...
My breath catches. Then what?
If he asked me to stay after Paris... If those storm-gray eyes looked at me with that same intensity and he told me he wanted more than an arrangement for a ruse…
Another pricked finger. Another muttered curse.
I press my palm against my racing heart. I should say no. I will say no.
Won’t I?
The scary part is, I'm not sure anymore.