Chapter 12 Take Off Your Clothes
Isabella’s POV
The car ride back to the penthouse was a study in suffocating tension.
The city lights blurred past the tinted windows in streaks of neon, but inside the SUV, the air was thick and heavy, like the moments before a summer storm breaks.
Alexander sat on the opposite side of the leather bench, his silhouette carved out of shadow.
He didn’t say a word, but I could feel the heat of his gaze on me, tracking the nervous movement of my hands as I twisted my ring.
Every time the tires hit a bump, my heart jolted. The schedule starts tonight. The words looped in my brain like a death sentence.
When we reached the top floor, the elevator doors slid open into the dark, cavernous silence of the penthouse. Alexander tossed his keys onto the marble console with a sharp clack that echoed through the foyer.
“Ten minutes, Isabella,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that sent a shiver down my spine.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I turned and fled toward the master suite, my heels clicking frantically on the hardwood. Once inside the bathroom, I leaned against the door, gasping for air as if I’d just run a marathon.
I fumbled with my clutch, my fingers trembling so hard I nearly dropped it.
I pulled out the small, foil-wrapped square Sarah had given me.
Plan B. My insurance policy. My way out.
I stared at it under the harsh vanity lights, my mind racing.
If he saw me take this, the deal was dead.
If I didn’t take it, my life as I knew it was over.
I heard a heavy thud from the bedroom , the sound of his shoes hitting the floor. Then, the slow, rhythmic pace of his footsteps. He was waiting.
Panicked, I shoved the pill deep under the marble sink, hiding it behind a bottle of expensive moisturizer. I’d take it after. I just had to get through the next hour.
I turned to the mirror and splashed cold water on my face, staring at my reflection.
What am I doing? I looked at my curves in the white silk dress.
My mind began to spiral into a dark pit of insecurity.
What if he hated my body? What if I was...
bad at this? It had been years since I’d let anyone this close.
Between the three jobs and the soul-crushing weight of my father’s debt, my dating life had been a ghost town.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t wanted; it was that I hadn’t had the luxury of being a woman.
“Stop it,” I whispered to my reflection, my jaw tightening. “You’re Isabella Russo. You’ve handled the worst the Bronx has to throw at you. You can handle one billionaire who thinks he’s a god.”
He probably was a god in bed. He moved with too much confidence for him not to be. But I was the one holding the cards. I was the one he needed.
“I can do this,” I muttered, straightening my shoulders. “I look good. I’m smart. And he’s just a man.”
I took a deep, shaky breath, straightened the silk of my dress, and finally turned the handle.
The bedroom was bathed in the soft, amber glow of the bedside lamps.
Alexander was there, sitting on the edge of the massive bed.
He had stripped off his shirt, and the sight of him made my throat go dry.
His chest was a landscape of hard muscle and smooth skin, the light catching the powerful lines of his shoulders.
He didn’t look up right away.
He simply sat , thighs spread, forearms braced on his knees, the posture of a man who could wait forever because the outcome was already decided.
When his head finally lifted, those silver eyes had darkened to molten slate, pupils blown wide with something far beyond clinical interest.
Hunger lived there now, naked and unapologetic.
I stopped three paces from the bed, fingers twisting together until the knuckles bleached white. My pulse slammed so hard I felt it in my teeth.
“You took your time,” he said. The words rolled out low, velvet over steel.
“I was… getting ready.” The whisper cracked halfway.
Silence stretched. His gaze crawled from the tangled mess of my hair, over the rapid rise and fall of my chest, down to where my knees trembled beneath the thin silk.
“Nervous,” he observed. The corner of his mouth curled , just enough to show teeth. “Don’t be. We both signed. We both know the price.”
He leaned back slightly, knees widening another deliberate inch. In the low amber light the shadows carved deep grooves across his abdomen, bracketed the heavy slabs of his pectorals, traced the thick vein that ran along the inside of his forearm. He didn’t need to move. The room bent around him.
“Come here, Isabella.”
My name in his mouth felt like a hook behind my navel. My legs obeyed before my brain caught up , slow, dreamlike steps until I stood between his spread thighs. Heat poured off his bare skin in waves; his scent hit me harder up close , clean sweat, cedar, something darker and animal underneath.
“Take off the dress,” he said. It wasn’t a request; it was a command, cold and unyielding, that sent a stuttering tremor through my pulse.
My nerves were fraying. My fingers flew to the back of my neck, fumbling blindly with the tiny, silk-covered buttons that suddenly felt like a complex puzzle. “You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”
“A bastard who keeps his promises,” he countered, his voice grazing my ear like sandpaper on velvet. “Strip. Now.”
I was shaking so violently that the faint, frantic snip-snip of my nails catching on the silk echoed in the quiet room.
The sassy, feisty girl I pretended to be had vanished.
In her place stood someone who hadn’t been touched in years, trembling before a man who looked like he could devour me whole and enjoy the wreckage.
“Having trouble, little cat?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave into a predatory growl. “Or are you just trying to delay the inevitable?”
“I’m not delaying anything,” I snapped, my voice thin. “These buttons were clearly designed by someone who hates women.”
He rose from the chair, the sudden movement making me catch my breath.
“Turn around,” he murmured. His large hands settled on my waist, the heat of his palms soaking through the fabric as he spun me slowly.
He pressed a kiss to the nape of my neck , a brand of fire , before his fingers found the button.
He didn’t just pull me closer; he anchored me.
“Breathe, Isabella,” he whispered against my skin. “You’re trembling so hard I can feel your heart beating through your spine.”
“I’m fine,” I lied, my teeth nearly chattering.
“You’re a terrible liar.” His knuckles grazed the sensitive skin of my vertebrae as he finished unfastening the dress. Each button that gave way felt like a seal breaking on my old life. The silk finally surrendered, pooling at my feet in a shimmering white heap and leaving me in nothing but lace.
I stood frozen. My heart hammered so hard I was certain the vibration was visible beneath my skin. He didn’t touch me again. He just stood there, his gaze a physical weight against my bare back. The silence stretched, suffocating and heavy. My mind raced , did he hate what he saw? Was I not enough?
I started to stutter, the air leaving my lungs in a sharp, panicked rush.
The room was spinning, and I was desperate to break the suffocating tension, but he suddenly gripped my shoulder and spun me around to face him.
His expression had shifted from a cold, controlled command to something dark, volatile, and utterly unrecognizable.
“What the fuck is this tattoo, Isabella?”
I blinked, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. “What? It’s just a tattoo, Alexander. You’re acting like I have a second head.”
“This isn’t just a tattoo,” he rasped. His voice sounded strangled, stripped of all that predatory heat from minutes ago. It was the sound of a man who had just watched the ground open up beneath his feet. “Where did you get this? When?”
“I was fifteen!” I snapped, my Bronx sass finally surfacing as a defense mechanism to cover my mounting confusion.
“Me and Sarah were obsessed with this old fantasy flick. I thought the lettering looked cool, okay? It’s just some geeky Hylian script. I was a kid and it was a basement parlor in Queens. It’s not a crime.”
“Fifteen,” he repeated, the word sounding like a ghost caught in his throat. He let go of my shoulders, but only so he could run his thumb over the base of my spine where the symbols flared out. The touch wasn’t sexual; it was haunted.
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Isabella.”
“Why the hell would I lie about a tattoo? What’s the big idea? I just liked the aesthetics. It was supposed to mean ‘courage’ or ‘strength’ or something,” I said, finally pulling away and grabbing a silk robe from the chair to cover myself.
I felt suddenly, sharply exposed in a way that had nothing to do with my lack of clothes.
“Why are you looking at me like I’m a ghost? There is no way a piece of ink is making the great Alexander Kingsley lose his mind.”
He stood there, chest heaving, his silver eyes wide and searching my face as if he were looking for a stranger hidden behind my skin.
“This can’t be real,” he whispered to the empty air, his voice cracking. “There is no way that’s you.”
“What do you mean ‘that’s you’?” I demanded, my confusion turning into a sharp, prickly fear. “I’m Isabella. I’m the girl who’s here because you bought her life to pay off a debt. Who else would I be?”