Chapter 4 Sofia #2
Oh, shit. So much for escaping his notice at all. Coming here to spy implied blending in, and his comment was the opposite of that.
“Because I’m not scared of a little blood? Because I’m unafraid to help someone when they’re clearly wounded?” I shrugged. “I guess I have a big heart.”
He shifted in his seat, peering at me. “I’m more hung up on how you’re not afraid of having to witness me killing someone in my office.”
I gulped. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t realize that room was off-limits and that I shouldn’t have been in there or—”
He held up his hand, preventing me from panicking and spewing out any more verbal diarrhea of a lie.
“It is usually off-limits. But in terms of last night…” He rubbed his cheek, pensive. “I’m glad you happened to be there.”
I smirked, standing before this could devolve into a stranger connection between us. Like we could be friends, even. “I’m sure you would’ve survived without me there to assist you,” I quipped wryly.
“Where are you rushing off to?” he asked, that low-burning intrigue shining in his dark-blue eyes.
Am I amusing you?
“I’m here to work.” I lifted my hand vaguely to gesture at, well, at the air. “I need to check in with Renee and begin my day.” Clearing my throat and hoping that I looked semi-professional, I dipped my chin. “I am glad that you look like you’re recovering well, Mr. Orlov.”
Before he could say anything else, I turned and left the room.
It wasn’t long before I spotted him again. He strolled up behind me while I wiped the windows in a lounge.
“Here,” he suggested, toeing the leg of a chair and easing it closer.
I looked down and frowned, my hand still on the glass. “What’s that for?” I laughed once. “Renee won’t be happy if I’m sitting and taking a break from the chores she’s delegated to me.”
“You’re so short.”
I scrunched my nose. “I’m not standing on that to clean the windows. Then I’d get the chair dirty.”
He shrugged. “How tall are you, anyway?” His slow once-over had me blushing.
“That’s rude.”
He smiled. “I’m six, three.”
I resumed wiping. “Congratulations.”
I heard the smile in his low chuckle. When he didn’t leave—either bored or, um, bored—I groaned. “Five, one,” I muttered.
After that odd encounter, I was spared his presence. Being in the laundry room meant he wouldn’t pop in, but once I came up to the kitchen area after lunchtime, he trailed after me again. That time, he tried to engage with me in small talk about the summer heat outside.
Later, he sat near where I was sweeping and struck up another conversation about coffee.
Then he tried to get me to talk about my pet peeves. Further on through the morning, he found me in the conservatory as I dusted, where he asked for my opinion about the waterfall structures out there.
I lowered my duster to my side and huffed. “Don’t you have things to do?” I asked.
He stepped closer, almost smiling as he watched me. Inches separated us, but I couldn’t feel intimidated or scared. All morning and day long, he’d been a pestering presence. But a good one.
“That man in my office last night was the solution to a problem I’d been working on.
” He brushed some of my hair off my shoulder, eying it as if he wanted to feel the strands between his finger and thumb.
“With that done…” He raised his dark gaze to my eyes.
“It seems I have some leisure time off now.”
Well, fuck.
If he was going to be hanging around here more often, I’d have some trouble sneaking around and sending anything to my uncle.
I nodded once. “Oh. And you have a favorite pastime of doing… this?” I flicked my finger between us, indicating how he’d been following me and inserting himself into my space.
“This?” He stepped closer, watching my lips. “What would you call this, Sofia?”
Madness. Insanity. Wild excitement I can’t have in my life. Swallowing hard, I tried to talk myself out of the idea that he could be interested in me.
Fear for my cousin’s declining well-being kept me in check. I wasn’t here to swoon or flirt with him. I wasn’t supposed to be smiling back at his persistent “visits” as he acted like he wanted to get to know me.
“I’m not the only one who’s feeling this, am I?
” He inched closer yet, placing his foot between mine and wedging near me.
Practically flush together, I was within his reach.
He acted on that proximity, too, addling my mind and making my body wake up with desire as he banded his uninjured arm around my waist. “This pull,” he whispered, lowering his lips toward mine so slowly that I could’ve trembled with anticipation.
“I…”
“Mr. Orlov.”
A man’s voice from the doorway had me jumping back. As I jolted away from Andre, shocked to have been caught red-handed in an intimate position with the boss, I knocked my hand against his arm. The wounded one. He hissed with a wince.
“Oh, shit.” I steadied his arm, my hand on his elbow. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He nodded, looking at me one last time. “I know.” He didn’t know me, but I wagered that he could connect the dots that I hadn’t intended to make him feel any more pain when I’d been so careful to nurse him last night.
And in that moment, I was struck with how naughty of an adventure it would be if he knew me—all of me.
“Your father’s here,” the guard announced at the door.
“Thanks,” Andre replied, never taking his eyes off me.
I lowered my gaze, trying my hardest not to be disappointed that the moment—whatever it was—was now over.
The mood was killed. The privacy we’d fallen under here was shattered.
In the back of my mind, a nagging, niggling voice insisted that I couldn’t actually want anything from him.
That it would be against the rules to want him to lean close like that again and kiss me.
He set his finger under my chin and tipped it up, prompting me to face him.
Under the heat of his attention zeroing in on me, I accepted that this man, this killer, this stranger who was so obsessed with me, was a side quest I didn’t have time for. He unsettled me, and I had to wage a war with myself to know whether it was a trick. Or real.
Real?
Get a real grip, Sof.
Nothing’s happening here.
With an Orlov? Are you nuts?
I had to be, because when he almost smiled and leaned close to press a chaste kiss on my cheek before striding away, it took conscious effort not to let out a swoony, lovesick sigh.
You know why you’re here.
Furrowing my brow as I watched him exit the room, I bit my lip and dreaded how much more complicated this supposed spying exercise was getting to be.