21. Delilah #2
“And you’re still doing their work for them, even after you threw them out of your life?” He doesn’t move an inch. “Why?”
I don’t answer. How could I? There’s nothing to say.
“Look at me, sladkaya.”
I look at him. That, it turns out, is a mistake. Up close, in this light, those eyes are downright unfair. So is his scent. He’s cold air and woodsmoke and cedar, and he’s radiating heat that seeps into my skin.
“We’re not going any further tonight,” he says, “until you say it correctly.”
“Say what correctly?”
“‘I am not too much.’“
That’s it? That’s so simple. That’s five pitiful little words. They’re one syllable each, for goodness’s sake!
… So why can’t I say them?
My mouth is open and my throat is working, but no sound is coming out.
Say it, dummy, I scold myself. How hard can it be?
I.
Am.
Not.
Too.
Much.
A kindergartener could do it. Why can’t I?
Kane’s hand floats up. It’s as if he wants to touch my face but he won’t let himself, so his fingertips stay just half an inch away. “There is nothing wrong with you, Lilah. You are not damaged goods. You are not broken. You are not wrong. You are not too much.”
My eyes sting. “This is stupid.”
“Then say it and be done with it.”
“You’re really going to make me?”
“I really am.”
I take a deep breath, summon all my willpower, and say, “I’mn’t’much.”
Close enough, right?
Not for Kane Makov, apparently.
His fingertips land on my throat. Light as butterflies, but they might as well be railroad spikes pinning me in place. “Again.”
“I’mn’t’much,” I mutter again.
“Again.”
“I’m not t’much.”
“Again.”
“I’m not too much! I’m not too fucking much.
There, it’s done, okay?” I shove him in the chest and he lets the momentum, as sad as it must be to a man of his size, carry him a step backward.
“Can you leave me alone now, please? I didn’t sign up for fucking psychotherapy.
This is a business arrangement, remember? ”
If my angry outburst bothers him, he shows no sign of it. He just nods once, slow.
“Good,” he says.
Then he steps back, and all the air in the room comes back at once. I have to put my hand on the pressing table to steady myself. He takes the garment bag off the hook and holds it out.
“Put this on.”
Then he opens the door, calls down the stairs for Ekaterina in Russian, and sits back down in his chair like nothing happened.
I retreat behind the curtain, breathing hard. That was so silly. Who does he think he is, lecturing me like that? I don’t want his feedback on my life; I just want him to leave my damn bakery alone.
The sooner we get this dumb arrangement over with, the better.
Once the last of the furious fumes has stopped pouring out of my ears, I unzip the garment bag. The dress inside is wine-colored. It has a neckline that goes wide and deep, with sleeves that sit off the shoulder and no engineering in it whatsoever. It’s just cut to go where a body goes.
I wriggle free of the black monstrosity, step into the wine-colored one, and pull it up. When I step out, I don’t bother with the turn. I just meet Kane’s eyes and park my fists on my hips.
“Well?” I snap. “Does this please Your Majesty?”
Kane doesn’t say anything for a long time.
Then, finally, he nods. “That’ll work.”
It’s dark by the time we come out.
Ekaterina brings the dress down herself in a bag, along with shoes she produces from a box under the cutting table. How she happened to have heels in my size remains a mystery that I don’t think I’ll ever get to the bottom of.
She hands the whole thing to Kane at the bottom of the stairs.
Then she stands there on the step, glaring up at him with her glasses in her hand.
“Don’t wait thirty years before you come back again, m’kay?” She raps him on the chest with a knuckle. “You were just a little malyávka when you were here, clinging to your mother’s hand. Remember that? And now, you’re this. Where have you been, hm?”
Kane touches her shoulder. “Around,” he says gently. “But never too far away.”
Ekaterina doesn’t look too satisfied with that answer, but unlike me, she’s willing to leave it alone. She bobs her head, then turns and climbs back up the stairs to her shop.
Kane puts his hand at my back and walks me to the car, and I get in with my head bursting full of questions.
Because she knew him as a kid. Here. And didn’t he say that Sunset Park was “his” neighborhood? What did he mean by that?
There’s a story here, I can feel it. Maybe even one that explains a lot about this mystery man who’s crash-landed in my life.
Stepan pulls out. I wait until we’re at the light. “How much was the dress, by the way?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I turn in the seat to face him. “I’m serious. I want the number. Add it to what I owe you. I’ve already got four million on the books, so what’s another two grand? Round it up. Make it a nice figure.”
“No.”
“C’mon, don’t—”
“You’ll pay nothing,” Kane interrupts. He’s looking out the window at the shuttered fronts on Fourth. “As long as you’re with me, you won’t put your hand in your pocket. Not once.”
“That’s not—”
“It isn’t up for discussion.”
I let out a breath and slump into the seat. The stupid massagers start in on my back again like they’re on his side.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“If I say no, will you let it go?”
I laugh and then do what he expects of me, which is ask the question anyway. “You told me not to tell anybody about you. ‘Our little secret.’“ I pick at the seam of my coat. “So am I still doing that?”
Kane finally turns his head and looks at me. “That instruction is over.”
“You’re not flying under the radar anymore?”
“It’s you I was protecting, Lilah. But that’s no longer relevant.” He nods at the windshield. Up ahead, I see with alarm that we’re suddenly approaching what appears to be a massive party. “By tomorrow morning, every person in this city will know whose you are.”
“Whose I— Excuse me?”
“You’re Kane Makov’s woman now,” he explains. “Because of that, they’ll never disrespect you again.”