13. Isabella #2
“Dinner,” she says with no emotion in her tone, and her face is flat. “Mr. Volkov is downstairs, waiting for you.” Then she turns, low heels tapping on the ground and her hands behind her back, walking out of the room.
“Close the—” I start to remind her that she left the door ajar when it dawns on me that I was the one who did it. I left the goddamn door open because I was too tired to be bothered with it.
Groaning, I drag myself into a sitting position, sweeping my hair away from my face. Dinner with Roman? Count me out.
If I could trade half a decade of my lifespan so I didn’t have to see him anymore, I would. Even if I had five years left, I’d do it with no regrets.
“Bad riddance,” I mutter as I flop back on the bed, yanking the covers over my head. As I close my eyes again, my stomach lets out a loud grumble.
Nuh-uh. I’m not hungry. I am perfectly capable of going till morning without eating, even though I’ve only had water all day.
“It’s a mindset,” I mutter, attempting to convince my mind. My stomach grumbles in protest, louder the second time. “Please,” I moan, slapping both hands over it. “Could you just spare me for one night?”
Another grumble.
Maybe if I lie still and act like I can’t feel anything, it’ll go away.
I last seconds, maybe minutes, before I leave my bed and head downstairs in a sweatshirt and loose-fitting shorts. It’s just dinner, I tell myself. I don’t have to make conversation with him or acknowledge his presence.
I can simply sit at the table, eat, and leave.
From a few feet away, I see Roman hunched over his phone.
His eyebrows are drawn tight in concentration, and his fingers are supporting the phone while his thumb dances on the screen.
His other hand sits on the table, tapping idly.
He doesn’t notice my presence, giving me ample time to slip in, but my steps slow the closer I get.
He looks like he just got in, and it shows in the way his brown dress shirt clings to the hard lines of his chest and arms. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbow, showing off more skin…or enough skin for my thoughts to make a hard left in the wrong direction.
Firm. Warm. Hard.
My mind floods with a vivid recollection of being cradled against his chest and held in his arms, the heat from the body slowly replacing the cold clinging to my clothes. My gaze dips back to his hand on the table…and I remember that hand grabbing my hips and marking my skin.
Heat floods my face, and I slap my hand on my cheek, shocked at how warm it actually feels.
Sensing my gaze, Roman looks up from his phone, quietly assessing me with eyes that drift from my sweatshirt to my shorts and back in a slow, unhurried motion.
There’s nothing sexual about the way he looks at me.
It’s detached, like I’m something to be observed without much interaction, but it lights the end of a fuse in my mind, fogging it up quickly.
I hear myself inhale audibly, and his eyebrow quirks with mild curiosity. “Is there something wrong?”
“No,” I reply sharply, breaking out of my very aware trance. “Nothing.” Berating myself silently, I look away as I hurry to the table, taking the seat furthest away from him.
Whose idea was it to have dinner together, anyway? Not his, I’m sure, because he’s gotten what he wanted. A wife.
And an heir.
Never. I’m not going to be a breeding tool.
It has to be Polina’s idea, and she’d only do something like this because she’s trying to play mediator.
“Dinner’s ready,” she announces, bringing in covered dishes. I watch as she places them gingerly, taking her time to adjust their position.
Huh. I tilt my head, watching her with questions brewing in my head. Why would she play mediator? To appease me, after I asked her why she’d agree to work for someone like Roman? Or maybe she’s trying to show me what she sees in him?
If it’s the former, her efforts are about to go down the drain, because I know what I think about Roman Volkov. Manipulator. Selfish. Greedy. Egocentric. Entitled. Brute.
“I could think of more words,” I mutter under my breath as I glance at him through half-lidded lashes, “but I’ll run out at some point.”
“What?” he asks, looking up at me.
I ignore him, digging into my food. He doesn’t push for a response, turning to his food instead. For some reason, watching him eat annoys me. I know it’s because of how unbothered he is by everything. I’m here, seething, and he’s at ease.
It should be the opposite.
“I went out,” I say, dropping my spoon. He nods half-heartedly without looking at me.
“You must know, because you have Sergei reporting to you. He probably told you everywhere we stopped and who I spoke to. And then you went and interrogated them, probably to find out if they know anything about my father.”
His prolonged silence to my statement only infuriates me further.
I cross and uncross my arms, glaring at him.
“You might as well put a tracker on me,” I say, “or a communication device under my skin so you can record every single conversation I have with anyone who isn’t you.
I’m sure it’ll help find my father since I’ve had no luck getting through to him. ”
I realize my slip a little too late, and panic floods me, but I bite my tongue, hiding it away.
Roman lifts his head slowly, his spoon dangling from his fingers.
I can barely tell what he’s thinking. “I didn’t assign Sergei as your driver to spy on you,” he says calmly.
“It was to keep you safe. As for Marco Ricci, I’m aware you have no idea where your father is.
If you did…” His mouth twitches with a ghost smile. “I’d have found out already.”
“How?” I ask. “You’ve only asked, what, once? And I never said I didn’t know where he was. You assumed that because you think of me as weak and incapable.”
He looks down at his spoon as silence passes between us. Then he lifts his head again, and his eyes are different. It’s almost inexplicable, but they dig into mine, unwavering, as if peeling back every layer I’ve spent years perfecting.
It’s the same way he knew how to touch me the right way. It’s how he had me crumbling in his arms when I should’ve been fighting against his touch.
“I don’t think of you as weak,” he says, his voice quiet but dense with intensity. “Not once. Not even for a second.”
The words make my breath catch. There’s no arrogance in his tone. No smirk. Just raw, searing honesty.
“You’re the one underestimating yourself, Isabella,” he adds, his voice roughening slightly. “And if you think I don’t see every damn crack in that armor you wear, you’re wrong.”
I swallow hard, but the lump in my throat doesn’t move. I should say something—fight back, push him away, deflect—but the way he’s looking at me has every word dying on my tongue.
“I know you have no idea where your father is because if you knew, you wouldn’t have run to some farm.
You’d have gone to him. And…” He lifts one shoulder in a shrug.
“I know he’s a terrible father. He was willing to give you away for the sake of an alliance, and when it didn’t work, he wasn’t rushing to save you from my hands.
Know this, printsessa—any other man would burn down my house to free you. ”
It’s cruel.
It’s so cruel that he manages to praise me and then make me feel horrible in a span of seconds. He didn’t have to talk about my father. He didn’t have to remind me how much I’ve been betrayed by the man I gave everything to.
And god, I hate him for it.
“You know nothing about my father.”
Roman chuckles under his breath, the sound full of disdain. “You think you do? Tell me, Isabella Volkov?—”
“Don’t call me that.” I grit my teeth as my eyes flash with anger. “Don’t you dare call me that. I didn’t agree to take your last name. You forced it on me.”
“It doesn’t make a difference,” he continues smoothly. “You’re mine. I can call you whatever I want. But tell me, do you know that we took him in after he fled from Italy?”
He leans forward, and the black in his eyes turns to slits. My breath slows, the air turns heavy, and a shiver runs down my spine.
“He ran to us for help, pledging his life alliance. If you say you know your father better than I do, you should know about these things. Then you also know that the price for breaking a blood oath is death.”
I didn’t.
I had no idea my father sought refuge from the Volkovs and swore his life to them. It explains why he never agreed when I asked, as a child, if we could return to Italy.
Even for a summer.
His response was a stiff no , and that was the end of it.
“There are rules, Bella,” Roman adds quietly as he settles down, “and he broke them. If you think he doesn’t deserve to face the consequences, then you’re as much a hypocrite as your father is.”
His words cut me to the quick, and the urge to defend myself crawls through my chest.
But I remain silent. I don’t know if I can trust the words that come out of my mouth, because everything I know no longer holds true.
How much more did my father hide from me? How many times did I believe his words, unaware that he was feeding me lies?
My stomach churns, and the food makes my stomach sick. I push my chair back noisily and stand up.
“Isabella.”
“I’m sorry.” I shake my head, the words catching on a sob. “I have to go.”
I hurry away from the dining area, my steps picking up pace as I get closer to the stairs. I take them blindly as my vision blurs, fighting back tears as I race to my room. I kick the door open and slam it behind me before my knees give out, plunging me to the ground.
God.
I bite down on my knuckles as my shoulders shake. The sobs dig through my body as they force their way through my fingers. It feels like death. Like I crawled through mud, and it got under my skin and into my blood.
Bile creeps to my throat, and I taste it on my tongue—it’s desperation for an exit.
I crawl to the bathroom, bracing my arms on the toilet seat as I throw up.
It comes out over and over until my insides feel hollow and my limbs feel like jelly.
Then I let go, curling into my arms as my clothes soak up the dampness of the tiles.
I don’t care anymore.
My father. His plans. Reaching out to him. I don’t care what he intends to do if his plan for Roman involves saving me from a hellhole.
If this ends, I know where I’ll be going.
Far away from everything I’ve known to begin a life of my own.