Chapter 13
Irelynn
When I see the massive room with the massive table, I think that’s where we’re headed. Then I’m proved wrong when we bypass it altogether, continuing into another room I quickly realize is the kitchen. Like the dining room, there’s a very large rectangular table sitting perpendicular to a very long countertop that moonlights as another table, with a row of wood stools tucked under the granite overhang.
The counter is part of a very large u-shaped kitchen, where an older couple currently work together. Pots bang, flour dusts the surface of the countertop, and a double fridge bigger than any I’ve ever seen stands on the wall opposite the counter. Adjacent the fridge, that could surely feed an army, is an open door that appears to lead into a butler’s pantry. At the far end of the pantry, I see another door. It’s small and simple, and from the half pane of glass, I see daylight.
I can escape through there, too.
I wonder where the dogs are…
The man spins a pan in one hand, a cheeky grin on his face as he taunts the woman. She clucks at him, and I don’t have to be able to speak Russian to know, for a fact, she’s scolding him.
He only grins wider, before he sets the pan on the stove. The woman says something else with a sharp shake of her head as she moves to the big fridge, her steps stuttering to a full stop when she sees us.
“Oh! Mr. Volkov!” Her eyes drift to me and she smiles far too wide for comfort. “Good morning. We’re making—um, omelet.”
She speaks English. Hallelujah.
“Good morning, Polina.” Ilya’s hand presses into my back again, pressing me closer. “This is Irelynn, my fiancée.”
My head whips to him. What-now?
I look back to Polina, my eyes imploring. “I’ve been kidnapped. I’m not his anything. I don’t know him. At all—and I want to go home.”
Polina’s wide eyes shift from me to Ilya, back to me, then him.
I look from Polina to the older man who stands at the stove. He’s stiff as he stares between us all. I think—I think he looks—amused?
Slowly, I dare a look at Ilya.
My insides liquify. He’s staring down at me with a smile curling the corner of his lips that, I’ll admit, twists my heart. Not only does he look amused, but he looks like he wants to laugh. A full belly, rich and unrestrained, laugh.
Suddenly, I want to hear that laugh.
“Polina and Daniil have worked for me for close to twenty years. They both speak English and will be glad to assist you when they can. What neither will do is help you escape me.” He leans down to press a kiss to my temple. “You can stop trying.”
“Never.”
Daniil says something to Ilya in Russian that I can’t even begin to comprehend. Ilya responds with a grunt that makes Daniil chuff a laugh. Then, to me, he says, “It’s good to meet you.”
I want to tell him that it’s not good to meet him. But I’m not petty, and I can’t make myself be mean to the monster’s staff. I just can’t. “It’s good to meet you, as well. It would have been nicer if I were here by choice, but…” I follow up the words with a small, helpless shrug.
Daniil gives another laugh that has his wide chest bouncing. Polina swats him with the back of her hand, leaving a dusting of flour on his shirt. He doesn’t seem to mind as he turns to the stove. He slaps a square of butter into the pan with garlic and onions to sauté. Then he sets to cracking eggs into a bowl.
While Daniil whips the eggs, Polina offers, “Coffee? Tea?”
I almost moan at the mention of coffee. If there’s something I need to clear my mind enough to plot my escape, it’s caffeine.
“Coffee would be lovely, Polina.” I give her a smile that she is eager to return.
“Coffee.” I try not to be affected by Ilya’s deep voice as I move away from him to a massive window that peers over a snowy land.
I take the chair at the table that gives me the best view outside, and marvel at how I came to be here. It’s like something out of a book. A world that is so far from my own, I’m having a difficult time comprehending it.
Polina sets a small tray with our coffee, cream, and sugar onto the table. Ilya is sitting closer than I’d like, and even though I’ve done my very best not to look at him, I can feel his eyes on me.
I pour a generous amount of cream into my coffee, foregoing the sugar. I take a big sip. Then, because it feels like it’s been an eternity, I moan.
It just slips out. A pure pleasure response I am incapable of containing.
I take another sip and give a shuddering sigh of pleasure as I let my eyes fall closed.
I. Love. Coffee.
When I open my eyes, I find Ilya looking at me with a sharpness that steals the breath from my lungs.
“You like coffee?” His voice is impossibly deep and a little raspy. I—I like it.
“Mmno.” I shake my head, then take another long sip. Sigh. “I love coffee.”
He sits back in his chair, blue eyes attempting to strip away the layers of me. “You didn’t have any in your apartment.”
It shouldn’t surprise me he knows this, considering his comment about the peanut butter, but it does. “Coffee is expensive. At home, I drank tea.”
A muscle in his jaw throbs. “Tea is less expensive?”
“If you buy it in bulk and drink it black, like I did, yes.”
I think I’ve displeased him. Maybe, realizing the severity of my poverty might have him changing his mind about keeping me, after all.
A girl can hope. Until then, I’ll just sip the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life.
I think I’m happy in silence until Polina returns to the table with two plates. I shift uncomfortably as she slides an omelet in front of me, muttering, “Thank you so much.”
The fire of embarrassment burns my cheeks and the tips of my ears.
I’m not used to having someone serve me. I don’t think I like it.
“You’re very welcome, my dear.” With a pat of her hand on the table, she turns to leave me to eat with Ilya. Alone.
I clear my throat. “You know I’m going to lose my job, right?”
Blue eyes fix on mine. He chews, swallows, and replies, “I will provide for you.”
Tension spreads through me. “What am I supposed to do with myself?”
“What do you like to do?”
Well…
“Ilya, that’s not the point.” I wave my hands, before bringing them together in a sign of prayer. I implore him to understand. “This is my life you’re messing with.”
“Your life is now with me.”
I close my eyes for a beat, willing myself to center. My calm is quickly disintegrating. Inhaling through my nose, I release from my mouth. I open my eyes. “What happens when you tire of me?”
His eyes sharpen on my face. His head cocks to the side, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, he takes me in. He cuts another chunk of his omelet, sliding it into his mouth. He chews and swallows, all the while studying me. When I think he’s not going to reply, he says, “I won’t.”
I grit my teeth, but since there’s no reasoning with him, I’m simply going to have to resolve myself to the fact I’m going to have to drive the lunatic even more loony than he already is. As an introvert, that’s not an easy feat. I find it excruciating—the idea of presenting myself so wildly that he’ll decide I’m not worth the trouble, and return me and Lucy to our previously glum, soggy ceiling, peanut-butter-eating, existence. But at least it was an existence where we had free will. Or I did.
Poor Lucy never did get to chase his birds.
“So, I’m supposed to sit here all day while you—” I frown at him. “What do you do?”
“I own multiple businesses across Russia, the United States, and Europe.”
I feel my eyes bug. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I have many men to oversee these businesses for me, but I travel a lot. I like to be a—presence—within my companies.”
My mind can’t process the magnitude. I swallow another bite, washing it down with a sip of my nearly finished coffee. “Again, what am I supposed to do while you’re off galivanting the world?”
He appraises me for a long moment. When he rolls his lips, my heart quickens. “I’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future. Until you’re—more accepting of your place in your new life.” He tips his head to my cup. “More coffee?”