Katerina
The elevator opens directly into his apartment.
For a second, I simply stand there, Roman’s jacket still around my shoulders, staring like a girl who has wandered into a palace by mistake.
The suite is not flashy. Somehow, that makes it worse.
Everything is quiet luxury. Pale stone floors warmed by thick rugs.
Tall windows stretching almost from floor to ceiling.
Dark wood shelves built into one wall, lined with books, old photographs, and objects that look too expensive to touch.
A low cream sofa faces a black marble fireplace, already lit, the flames moving behind glass.
Beyond the windows, Moscow spreads beneath a flat winter sky, cold and silver and endless.
I step inside slowly.
Roman watches me look around.
“You live here?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“When I’m in Moscow.”
“Of course,” I murmur. “Because why would a man like you have only one terrifyingly beautiful home?”
His mouth curves. “Terrifyingly beautiful?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I prefer hearing you say it.”
I glance at him, but immediately regret it because his expression has gone warm with amusement, and apparently I’m weak to that now.
A woman in a black dress appears silently from somewhere beyond the living room, takes my overnight bag from one of the men, and disappears again.
No one asks me anything. No one seems surprised to see me.
Either Roman brings strange women home from airports often, or everyone in his life has been trained not to react.
I do not like either possibility.
“This way,” he says.
I follow him down a wide hallway. There are more windows, more quiet art, more closed doors. At the end, he opens one and steps aside.
The bedroom waiting inside is larger than my bedroom at home.
A guest room, I assume, though it looks nothing like one.
The bed is enormous and dressed in white linen, with a soft gray throw folded across the foot.
There’s a seating area near the window, a writing desk, a vase of fresh white flowers, and a bathroom visible through an open door, all marble and glass and silver fixtures.
Someone has already placed my bag on a luggage stand.
My bag looks poor and nervous in the middle of all that elegance.
“This is yours,” Roman says.
I turn to him too quickly. “Mine?”
“For as long as you need it.”
“Oh.” The sound comes out smaller than I intend.
I don’t know what I expected. That’s a lie.
I know exactly what I expected, and the knowledge makes heat climb up my throat.
After the plane, after the bathroom, after the way I fell asleep beside him like a woman who had not just done something reckless enough to alter the course of her life, some part of me thought he would take me to his room.
Maybe I wanted him to. Maybe I dreaded wanting him to.
Roman studies my face, and I hate him a little for being so good at it. “You look disappointed,” he says.
“I look tired.”
“You look disappointed and tired.”
“I’m not disappointed.”
“Of course not.”
I tighten his jacket around myself. “Do you always assign emotions to women you barely know?”
“Only when they’re obvious.”
I should deny it again, but the truth sits too close to the surface. I have no strength left to wrestle it down. “You gave me my own room,” I say.
“Yes.”
“That’s very gentlemanly of you.”
“No,” he says. “It’s strategic.”
My pulse stumbles. “What does that mean?”
“It means you have had a long night, and I prefer women fully rested when they make bad decisions.”
The heat in my face spreads lower.
He says it calmly. Almost politely. As if he has not just set fire to the air between us.
I look away first. Coward. “I need to sleep,” I say.
“You do.”
“And shower.”
“That too.”
“And possibly pretend the last twelve hours did not happen.”
His voice drops. “You’ll fail, kitten. That I can guarantee”
My gaze snaps back to his.
He stands in the doorway, tall and composed, hands in his pockets, his shirt still open at the throat beneath his waistcoat. He looks like a man with infinite patience and none at all.
I want to touch him again. The thought is so clear and immediate that I take a step back.
Roman notices. “I will send for you later,” he says.
“Send for me?”
His eyes gleam. “Call you, then.”
“That sounds only slightly less medieval.”
“You came to Russia. Expect some tradition.”
Before I can answer, he leaves. The door closes softly behind him.
For a while, I stand there in the center of the room, surrounded by luxury, wrapped in Roman’s jacket, my skin still carrying the memory of his hands.
Then exhaustion catches me by the throat.
I shower first because I cannot bear to sleep with airport air and shame and airplane secrets clinging to me.
The water is hot, the towels are warm, and the bathroom mirror does me no favors.
My lips are still swollen. There is a faint mark low on my neck where his mouth was.
I touch it once, then snatch my hand away as if the reflection has caught me misbehaving.
Afterward, I put on the robe hanging behind the door. It’s soft, white, and absurdly heavy. I mean to sit on the bed for only a minute.
I fall asleep before my hair fully dries.
When I wake, the room is dimmer.
For a panicked second, I do not know where I am. Then Moscow returns. Roman. The airport. The car. The woman in the lobby with the cold eyes.
A soft chime sounds near the bed.
I sit up.
There is a small phone on the bedside table. Not my phone. His. I pick it up carefully.
Roman’s voice comes through, low and close. “Come out.”
My stomach flips before I can stop it. “What?”
“Come out, Katerina.”
“I just woke up.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
A pause. Then, “Because I let you sleep long enough.”
That’s not an answer, but it’s apparently the only one I’m getting. I hang up, then stare at the robe.
I cannot go out like this.
Except all my clothes are in my overnight bag that is across the room, and the sweater from the plane is rumpled beyond dignity. I find a comb, drag it through my hair, tie the robe more securely, and open the door.
The hallway is empty.
I follow the low sound of voices into the living room.
Then I stop.
Garment bags lie across the sofa. Boxes are stacked on the coffee table.
A rack has been set up near the windows, filled with coats, dresses, trousers, sweaters, blouses, scarves, and things I do not even have the courage to identify yet.
Shoes sit in neat rows on the rug. Boots, heels, soft leather flats.
A tray of folded lingerie rests on a chair, and I look away from it so fast my neck almost hurts.
Roman stands near the window, speaking in Russian to Elena.
She holds her tablet like a weapon.
When she sees me, her gaze travels from my damp hair to the robe to my bare feet. Her expression does not change, which somehow makes it worse.
Roman turns.
The room seems to quiet around him.
I clutch the front of the robe. “What is all this?”
“Clothes.”
“I can see that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because normal people don’t turn their apartments into departmental stores,” I say rolling my eyes.
“Elena,” he says without looking away from me.
His secretary closes the tablet. “I will have the remaining items delivered within the hour.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes flick to me once more.
Remaining items? There are more?
Elena leaves with the smooth silence of a woman who has already decided I’m beneath every garment in the room.
The moment she’s gone, I turn back to Roman. “When did you order these?”
“On the way.”
“On the way from the airport?”
“Yes.”
“You were in the car with me.”
“I’m aware.”
“You were talking to me.”
“Not continuously.”
I stare at the rack of clothes, then at the boxes, then at him. “How do you even know my size?”
Roman’s expression shifts. His eyes travel over me. Slowly.
From my damp hair to my flushed face. Down the line of my throat. Over the robe tied at my waist. The place where the fabric strains a little over my breasts. The curve of my hips beneath the thick cotton. My bare legs. My feet against his rug.
By the time his gaze returns to mine, I feel naked. Not because I’m barely dressed. But because he makes looking feel like touching.
My mouth goes dry. “Roman,” I say, and it comes out far less irritated than I want.
He takes one unhurried step toward me. Then another. “I know your size,” he says, “because I had my hands on almost every inch of you.” His eyes hold mine, and there is nothing gentlemanly in them now. “Not enough to satisfy me,” he adds quietly. “But enough to buy you a dress.”
My fingers tighten in the robe. Heat slides through me, sudden and humiliating. “You cannot say things like that in the middle of a living room.”
His gaze drops to my mouth. “I can say them anywhere.”
I look away because if I keep looking at him, I’m going to forget that I’m supposed to be embarrassed, angry, careful, something other than hungry.
“There are underthings,” I say, mostly because panic has destroyed my ability to choose better words.
“Yes.”
“You bought me underwear.”
“I had Elena buy you underwear.”
“That’s not better.”
“It’s slightly better.”
“It’s mortifying.”
His mouth curves. “Would you prefer I had chosen them myself?”
The image hits me so fast I cannot breathe.
Roman in some elegant boutique, expression severe, choosing lace with the same concentration he probably gives to money and whatever men like him call investments.
My face burns. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Yes.”
“At least you admit it.”
“I rarely deny what I enjoy.” The words settle against my skin.
I should step back.
Instead, I look up at him. “And are you enjoying this?”
His answer takes a moment. “Yes,” he says. “Very much.”
The room is too warm suddenly.
The fire is going behind the glass. Snow presses against the windows. Moscow waits beyond the walls, strange and cold and beautiful.
“I should get dressed.”
“You should.”
Neither of us moves.
Finally, Roman steps aside and gestures to the clothing rack. “Choose something warm. I promised to show you Moscow.”
The mention of the city breaks the spell just enough for me to breathe.
I walk toward the rack, aware of his gaze on my back the whole way.
There are coats soft enough to make me forget my pride. Sweaters in cream and gray. A dark green dress that makes my fingers pause on the hanger. Beautiful boots lined with fur.
I touch one sleeve and try not to smile.
“You like that one,” he says.
“I haven’t decided. There’s so much to choose from, thanks to you.”
“You have,” he says simply.
I glance over my shoulder. He’s still watching me. Not as if he bought the clothes to own me. As if he bought them because he wanted to see me warm, dressed, comfortable, and then undressed again by his own hands.
The thought makes my knees feel less reliable.
I turn quickly back to the rack. “I need privacy.”
Roman’s voice is smooth behind me. “You have a room.”
I gather the green dress, a coat, and the boots, then reach blindly for the box of underwear without looking at it.
His low laugh follows me down the hall.
I hate that it makes me smile.