Chapter Thirty-two
Inna Grace
A dream woke me up. I sat up fast with my palm pressed flat against my chest, waiting for my breathing to catch up with my body.
It felt real, the way the worst ones always do.
The kind of dream that borrows directly from your fears, so you can’t tell where the thought ends and the dream begins.
I saw some men moving through the hotel corridor, and suddenly, my father disappeared.
When Dmitri told me the old man, Iker, still wanted my father, my mind kept replaying scenes on a loop.
And when I fell asleep, it finally played it all the way through.
Reminding myself it was just a dream, I pushed the sheets off and sat at the edge of the bed for a moment.
The light outside had the quality of a morning already half gone.
I overslept, but anyone could, after how hectic yesterday was.
Well, except for Mr. Machine, who wasn’t anywhere in the room. Did Dmitri value sleep at all?
Thinking of him brought a smile to my lips, a reminder that he brought my father back to us.
My father was alive. After all the years I spent building a version of him, never coming back, he came back.
I still had too many questions. For my father to take that many bullets and Dmitri to get shot too meant whatever Iker wanted from him was serious.
But those answers could wait. My father getting well was the only problem I was willing to carry this morning.
I got up and went through the morning routine.
After taking a warm shower, I stepped out with a towel wrapped around me.
If Dmitri had nothing planned for me today, I would spend it with Cole.
For the first time in a long time, I could sit beside him without fear of him asking where our father was.
He stopped asking as frequently as he used to, but that never stopped me from rehearsing answers. Now, I had one worth giving.
As I stepped into the walk-in closet, the bedroom door opened, and Dmitri stepped in. He stood by the door with his hands shoved in his pockets and stared at me. His eyes moved over me in an unhurried and unashamed way.
“Hi.” A sensible person would have gone to get dressed, but I stood there like I wanted him to check me out. “I was about to dress up.”
Where was my sense?
“I see.” He started walking toward me, and my body reacted. Something pulled tight low in my stomach, reminding me to move because I was almost naked.
“Okay,” I pointed toward the closet. “I will just get in and dress up.” The words made complete sense, and yet I stood there for a few more seconds. My brain finally caught up with my mouth, and I stepped inside.
I stood in front of the clothes, making no actual progress.
“Need help?” Dmitri asked, and I turned to him. He leaned against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. He wore an expression that said he found the situation entertaining and had no intention of pretending otherwise.
A laugh escaped before I could shape it into something more composed. “No. I’ve been dressing myself for years without supervision.” He said nothing. “Could you excuse me?”
“Why? Are you shy?”
“I am,” I started, but when he pushed off the doorframe and walked further inside, I lost the rest of the words.
I reminded myself of what happened the last time this man walked toward me in this closet.
Remembering that was a mistake because it was vivid.
My feet moved backward until the shelf met my spine, but Dmitri was already in front of me.
I closed my eyes when he lifted his hand, bracing for his touch, only to hear the soft scrape of a hanger instead.
“Wear this,” he said, and I opened my eyes. He was holding a blue dress.
I took it, already embarrassed. “Thanks.” I pulled the dress on. “I’ll just dry my hair and—” His hand settled on my hip and held me in place.
His other hand came to my neck, fingers pushing the wet strands aside. He leaned in, and my eyes closed again. This time, I was sure he would kiss me. My lips parted, waiting for his own, but they landed on my neck instead.
His lips started light, tracing my neck, and my body answered immediately. When I shifted, he held me in place and deepened the kiss. The sound I made was embarrassing, and I was glad it was quiet. He kissed my neck as if he were learning it and was taking his time about it.
I swallowed a moan when he did it again. This time, he sucked me so hard that my skin felt slight pain.
My hands moved up to his shoulders because I needed to hold on to him while my body melted. He moved to the other side of my neck, and the kiss there was closer to a bite than anything polite. The moan I was trying to swallow didn’t quite stay swallowed.
He kissed me along my neck, up to my jaw. I tipped my head back and gave him the angle because apparently I had stopped pretending I wanted otherwise. His mouth finally rested on mine, where I wanted. I waited for him to kiss me, but he didn’t.
Confused, I opened my eyes, only to find him smirking, looking at me as if he had proven a point he had never stated out loud.
“Why?” No, why would I even ask that?
“Breakfast should be ready.” He stepped back and walked out of the closet as if nothing happened.
He just teased me, and I allowed it, looking desperate. I touched my neck, and the heat still lingered on my skin. What was his problem?
I turned to the mirror to check how the dress looked. The mirror confirmed the dress was fine, and it also confirmed the marks on my neck.
Dmitri left my neck covered with visible hickeys. It wasn’t just one but several, as if he knew exactly what he was doing. One of them was so deep that, when I touched it, the tenderness made me frown. Was this man part animal? What kind of person left a mark like that?
His voice caught me as he came from the bedroom. He was probably on a phone call, but I took it as a nudge to finish up and get out. I needed to dry my hair and find a scarf to hide the marks on my neck.
Once I was ready, I stepped out, my hand securing my scarf, and looked at Dmitri. He was still on a call. His eyes moved to my neck and stayed there for a moment, as if he had never seen a lady wearing a scarf.
He said something about a meeting to someone on the call as he moved towards the door.
I followed him. We moved through the wing and down the stairs.
He was a step ahead of me, but when he ended the call, he slowed and tapped the screen.
I walked past him and continued, only for his hand to grab the scarf off my neck.
“Hey.” I faced him. “I need that,” I said, moving closer to reach out for it, but he pushed his hand away from my reach. “Come on. I am going to think you did this on purpose.”
He folded the scarf over his palm and continued down the stairs.
I stood there for a second, confused, before I followed.
“Did you see what you did to my neck?” I kept my voice low. “Grandma is going to think we…” I paused, “She is going to get ideas.”
He said nothing and walked with absolute serenity.
Grandma’s voice floated out from the dining room before we even reached the door.
My hand moved to my neck on instinct, fingers pressing there like I could rub the evidence away in the remaining three seconds I had.
Grandma was sharp. One look at me, and she would assume we had sex before joining her for breakfast.
I caught a male voice coming from the dining room as well, and I slowed. Did we have a visitor?
Dmitri walked in ahead of me, and I followed, looking toward the table where Grandma sat across from a man whose back was to me.
“Oh, you two are finally here,” Grandma said with the excitement she always carried.
The man at the table turned, and I stopped before I reached the chair Dmitri pulled out for me.
“Romeo?” The name left my mouth in pure reflex, and I stood there with my brows pulled together. Roman was the last person I expected to find sitting at this table in this house.
“Grace.” He leaned back in his chair, looking at me with the ease of someone who already knew I was coming.
“You two have met?” Grandma’s eyes moved between us.
I turned to answer her, and my gaze crossed Dmitri’s first. The look he gave me was specific. It reminded me that I just called Roman by the nickname I gave him years ago. Back then, Roman told me his name, and I happened to be reading Romeo and Juliet, so Romeo ended up suiting him.
The explanation I had assembled dissolved somewhere between my brain and my mouth.
“She’s a good friend,” Roman said to Grandma, rescuing the moment without making it look like a rescue.
I sat down beside Dmitri.
“How so?” Grandma pressed, still curious.
“Ask her,” Roman said, and everyone looked at me.
I pulled a smile and looked back at Roman.
He was looking at my neck with a smirk that communicated everything he had the decency not to say out loud.
My smile died. I spent the walk down worrying about Grandma noticing the marks Dmitri left, only to find out that Roman would be the problem.
Seated here, I began to think the hickeys weren’t accidental timing.
But what was Roman doing here? “What are you even doing here?” I asked him.
“What do you mean?” Grandma’s voice carried a note of mild surprise. “He is Dmitri’s brother.”
“Brother,” I repeated, reaching for my cup of coffee. The word sat normally in my mouth for exactly two seconds before my brain caught up with it. I faced Grandma. “Wait. Dmitri’s brother?”