Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
SLOANE
“I bet you can’t wait until your boyfriend gets here.” Mandy bumps my hip with hers as she passes the coffeepot.
I roll my eyes while I reach for a mug on the warming rack.
“Stop. Kirill is not my boyfriend,” I mutter, keeping it low so the guy in booth three can’t listen in.
“Oh, please.” She grabs another pot, filling it with fresh brew. “I see the way he looks at you, and I don’t just mean your face. I’ve seen that man’s eyes all over your ass, and honestly, who can blame him? You’ve got a great ass.”
“Mandy.” Heat creeps into my cheeks.
“Please! Don’t act like Mother Teresa.” She tosses her reddish-brown hair over her shoulder and gives me a look that says she’s not letting this go.
“You’re a woman, same as me, and women have needs.
That man would have no problem fulfilling whatever fantasies you have in that little head of yours. ”
I grab the sugar caddy so I have something to do with my hands. “I don’t have fantasies.”
There I go lying. There’s definitely one I can’t stop seeing whenever I’m alone doing things to myself that I’m definitely not telling my only friend about.
It usually starts with Kirill finding me at a bar.
Some stranger is talking to me, flirting a little, before he appears behind me, his body strung tight because he’s jealous.
He says my name, all deep and raspy, then grabs my hips and turns me to him, his eyes so intense that I shiver.
He runs the back of his hand over my cheek, so soft that I melt into it.
Then he leans down to my ear, his body pressed to mine as he says, “If I see you talking to another man again, it won’t be good for him.”
His hand wraps around my throat and his mouth hovers right over mine before he drags me into a dark hallway and takes me hard against the wall.
My thighs press together and I clear my throat, dragging myself back into fluorescent lights, sticky menus, and the scent of burnt bacon.
I really need to stop doing that.
When I glance at Mandy, she’s watching me, those dark eyes narrowed like she can see straight through my skull.
“You were picturing him fucking you, weren’t you?” She grins. “You little slut.”
“Oh my God, Mandy, we’re at work.” I laugh under my breath as I head toward the kitchen window to grab the cheeseburger for table four.
Of course, she follows. “I knew it! I bet you’re freakier than me.”
“I promise you, that is not true.” I shake my head and reposition the plate. “I’ve only had sex once.”
She stops short like I just told her the sky is green, and her hand lands on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I promise we’ll fix that.”
A snort slips out. “I don’t want it fixed.”
“Lies,” she calls after me as I weave between tables, and a smile pulls at my mouth despite everything.
We couldn’t be more different, and I love her for that.
I head for table four, balancing the cheeseburger plate in one hand and the mug in my other, then set everything down in front of the man in a suit who’s talking on his cell and ignoring me.
“I told you I need that report right now!” he shouts. “And that means right. Fucking. NOW!”
Okay, then…
I’m already turning away when his voice snaps like a whip.
“Hey. You!”
My stomach drops before I even face him. He holds the mug away from his body like it’s contaminated.
“What is this?” His lip curls. “I told you a splash of cream. A splash. Do you not understand what that means?”
The air thins around me. “I’m so sorry. I can remake it. It’s not a problem.”
“Oh, it is a problem.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Are you stupid? How hard is it to pour a splash? You people can’t even do the simplest thing right.”
The words slide right through my skin like they’ve been here before. Table four instantly dissolves, and I’m back in Mom’s kitchen with the hiss of her cigarette, her voice tearing through the house.
Look at this mess! Are you blind? How many times do I have to tell you? Dumb girl. Always messing up and ruining everything.
My throat goes dry. “I’ll get you a new one.”
I reach for the mug, but he jerks it out of my hands so fast the coffee sloshes over the rim and splatters across the table. A few drops hit my wrist, hot enough to make me flinch.
“Look what you did.” He jiggles the mug toward me like I’m the one who spilled it. “Christ, how incompetent can you be?”
My chest constricts. The room becomes smaller. The scrape of forks, the clatter of plates, Mandy talking somewhere near the counter…it all folds into a single buzzing blur.
I force my voice steady. “Let me clean that and get you a fresh cup.”
“You actually think your small brain can get it right this time?” He shoves the mug aside.
That old echo rises again.
Idiot. Why can’t you do one thing right? What’s wrong with you?
My hands quiver.
Hold it together. People don’t need to see you falling apart. The last thing you need is to lose this job.
But Mom’s cunning voice doesn’t go away.
Stupid. Clumsy. A waste of breath.
The bell over the diner door chimes behind me, but my attention stays on the customer. On the volume of his voice, on the way every second he keeps going raises the chances of my boss hearing or someone pulling out a phone and recording this.
That’s the part that I dread the most. The idea that it could travel farther than this diner and land in the hands of people who can’t ever know where I am.
“Unbelievable,” he mutters loud enough for the whole place to hear. “They hire anyone these days.”
My stomach twists, but I force myself to wipe the spill. “It won’t happen again.”
He snorts like he already knows it will.
My cheeks warm and tears burn in my eyes as I pray he stops drawing more attention to us. As I reach for the mug, it shakes and a few more drops spill.
He laughs. “God, you really are stu—”
The rest of the sentence dies in his mouth, like he forgot how to speak all of a sudden. His eyes lift over my shoulder, and all the color drains from his face while his jaw hangs slack and he barely blinks.
For a second, I think he might be having a stroke, and I wonder if his life is even worth saving.
Then a voice behind me, heavy with a Russian accent, burns into the space between us. “Choose your next words carefully, Benjamin, or you may find yourself unable to speak at all.”
Kirill.
I don’t turn around, like I’m incapable of it.
The diner goes still, all eyes on him, that commanding aura of his taking up all the air in the place. Even the clatter from the kitchen halts and the old coffee machine stops its rattling like it knows better than to interrupt.
Now the customer who was yelling won’t even look at me. His wide and nervous gaze stays locked behind my shoulder.
“I…I didn’t mean anything by it, Mr. Marinov,” he stammers.
Kirill doesn’t answer at first, and the silence stretches tight enough that my heart starts pounding in my ears. When he finally speaks, his words are calm and even, but there’s something in it that screams danger.
“Apologize to her.”
The man swallows while I try to hide my tears.
“Yes. Of course.” He peers at me. “I-I-I’m sorry. I had a bad day and I took it out on you.”
“It’s okay.”
I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, but it’s fine. I just want this to end.
“No, it is not okay,” Kirill says.
That’s when I turn. The second his eyes catch mine, the whole world seems to draw in around us, tightening until there’s nothing left but the heat crawling up my neck and the heavy beat of my pulse.
He holds the look like he’s searching for something, trying to read what I won’t say out loud, and it turns my insides into a mess.
His son, Lev, watches everything. His attention stays on the man, then his eyes lift to me, and I don’t want him to see me cry. I force a smile, hating that he has to witness any of this.
Pivoting back around, I stare toward the table, not knowing what else to do, my face growing hot under the weight of everyone watching. I can still sense Kirill behind me, and I can’t quite believe he’s actually defending me.
“Get out,” Kirill says. “And I’d better never see you here again. We understand each other?”
“O-of course. Not a problem, Mr. Marinov.” The man scrambles up so fast, his chair legs scrape the floor.
He throws cash onto the table, then hesitates when Kirill’s glare pins him in place. Something passes between them. Something I don’t understand, but still feel in my bones.
The man’s hand shakes as he digs in his wallet, fumbling three hundred-dollar bills free, and shoves them into my hand without meeting my eyes.
“For your trouble,” he says, like that makes any of this acceptable.
Then he’s gone, hurrying out the door as if the air inside this diner has suddenly turned poisonous.