20. Damir
DAMIR
“I know whose dresses I’ve been wearing.”
The name isn’t spoken yet. It doesn’t need to be.
Sofia stands against the study wall with her dress torn open, her breathing still uneven, her mouth swollen from mine, and my come sliding down the inside of her thigh. Her hair is loose, her breasts bare, her eyes bright with fury and something more dangerous beneath it.
She looks like a woman who has just been thoroughly taken.
She also looks like a woman sharpening a knife behind her teeth.
“Elena’s,” she says.
Hearing Sofia say it while she is still warm from my hands does something ugly in me.
Not guilt. Not exactly. Something older. Something with ash in its mouth.
I step back from her because if I remain close, I may kiss that look off her face instead of answering, and that would not be an answer.
She notices. Sofia notices everything that can be turned into a weapon later.
“Who told you?” I ask.
Her mouth tightens. “That’s your question?”
“Yes.”
“Not ‘I’m sorry you found out like that’? Not ‘I should have told you’? Not even a dramatic confession by the fire?”
“You have been reading too many books.”
“I have been wearing a dead woman’s clothes.”
My jaw tightens.
There it is. The line meant to cut.
It does. She sees it land, and some small flare of satisfaction warms her face before she hides it again. My difficult wife is not as subtle as she thinks, but she is very determined, which can be more dangerous.
“I didn’t choose them for you,” I say.
“No. You only recognized them and decided silence was the best accessory.”
I look at her. Her dress hangs open between us. Her skin is flushed, breasts still damp where my mouth was. The torn fabric gapes from throat to waist, showing the red marks of my hands on her hips. She shouldn’t be able to look this furious while half-naked and thoroughly ruined.
She does anyway. It’s inconveniently impressive.
“You had no clothes,” I say.
“Your household has money, staff, cars, weapons, doctors, guards, fake companies, and probably a man whose entire job is making inconvenient bodies disappear. Are you telling me no one could buy me a dress?”
“That was being arranged.”
“And until then, what? Dress the new wife in the old wife’s wardrobe and hope she doesn’t notice the ghost in the hem?” Her voice wavers on the last word. Only slightly.
Most men would miss it. I don’t.
The anger is real. But beneath it, something else moves. Embarrassment. Hurt. Maybe fear. She doesn’t like being made to feel foolish. She likes it less than being threatened.
I understand that.
A threat can be fought. Humiliation stays under the skin.
“Sofia,” I say.
“No.” She bends, snatches the edges of her dress together, and fumbles with what remains of the buttons. Her hands are not steady. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to become reasonable after being horrible.”
“I have not been horrible.”
She laughs once. “You are a man. Of course you think that.”
I should end this. I should tell her the truth plainly enough to stop the dramatics.
The clothes were in a guest wardrobe after Elena’s things were sorted.
Marina chose what would fit. I saw one dress last night and recognized it too late, and yes, I said nothing because the dead have already stolen enough from this house and I refused to let a piece of silk claim the living woman standing before me.
I should say that.
Instead, I say, “You should change.”
Her eyes flash. “Excellent idea. Into what, Damir? Another tragic relic?”
Sofia is angry, but she’s no longer only angry. She is arranging herself. The dress. The wounded look. The chin lifted just enough. The exposed vulnerability made into accusation. It’s not false, but it’s aimed.
At me.
I know weapons. I should recognize this one.
But she’s standing there with my marks on her body, and her mouth still tastes like mine, and some primitive, idiotic part of me is more occupied with the fact that I hurt her pride than with the question of why she’s pressing so hard now.
“I want my own clothes,” she says.
“That can be arranged.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“No.” She wraps the torn dress tighter around herself, but the gesture only makes her look younger, smaller, more offended by the world than she would ever allow herself to admit. “Not tomorrow. Not by some assistant who thinks I am approximately Elena-shaped. I want to choose them myself.”
I watch her. She holds my gaze.
“You want to leave the house,” I say.
“I want to shop.”
“No.”
Her eyes narrow. “That was fast.”
“It was a simple answer.”
“Try a more intelligent one.”
“No.”
“Still not there.”
“You are not leaving without security.”
“I didn’t say without security.”
That stops me.
She sees it. Her expression shifts, just enough to become reasonable. Dangerous, that.
“I’m not asking to roam alone with a little purse and a dream,” she says. “I am asking to buy clothes that don’t belong to your dead wife.”
“Sofia.”
“No, listen to me.” She steps closer, still holding the ruined dress together with one hand.
“You married me in front of half the city. You brought me here. Everyone in this house calls me your wife, except they also dress me like a replacement haunting. If I am going to be trapped in your house, I want at least one thing that is mine.”
I say nothing.
That was better. Much better.
She’s learning how to speak to me.
Or perhaps she always knew and only needed the right wound to open.
“My own clothes,” she continues, softer now. “My own shoes. My own underwear. Things I chose. Things I can put on without wondering who wore them before me, who loved her, who watched her fall, who still sees her when they look at me.”
My hand flexes once at my side.
That one hits harder. Because I don’t see Elena when I look at Sofia.
Not once. Not even in the dress.
I saw the dress. I saw the past try to crawl into the room. Then Sofia looked at me with that sharp, furious mouth, and the past became irrelevant because the living woman in front of me demanded all the air.
But she doesn’t know that.
“You think I look at you and see her,” I say.
Something crosses her face. “Don’t you?”
“No.” The word comes out harder than I intend.
She blinks.
I step closer. “No.”
Her throat moves. For once, she doesn’t have an answer immediately.
Good.
Then she looks away, and I realize I have won the wrong part of the argument.
“Fine,” she says, voice quieter. “Then let me stop seeing her every time I look in the mirror.”
I exhale slowly.
I should still refuse. There are reasons.
Too many. The attack on the warehouse. Dmitri’s humiliation.
Sergei’s silence. The dead mercenaries with weapons and no marks.
The old routes Mikhail is pulling from files.
The fact that Sofia’s name is now tied to mine, which makes her valuable to anyone who wants leverage and stupid to anyone who wants revenge.
“You will not go alone,” I say.
Her eyes come back to mine. Careful now. “I assumed.”
“You will go where I choose.”
“Then I’ll come back with three black coats and a personality disorder.”
“You will go where it’s secure.”
“Will the mall make it?” she asks, a brow raised.
“There will be guards inside and outside,” I continue. “No public street. No wandering. No calls. No slipping into restrooms alone.”
Her eyebrows lift. “You have thought a lot about women’s restrooms.”
“I have thought a lot about exits.”
“I’m sure that makes it sound less creepy in your head.”
“Sofia.”
She raises one hand. “Fine.”
“And you will take Marina.”
That seems to surprise her. “Marina?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you would assign one of your terrifying men to tell me I look acceptable in beige.”
“I would rather not shoot one of my men for looking too long while you try on dresses.”
Her cheeks flush before she can stop them.
Pleasure moves through me. Small. Undignified. I let it.
“You are ridiculous,” she mutters.
“Sure,” I say.
“And very comfortable admitting these things.”
“I’m old enough to know denial wastes time.”
She looks at me with open irritation, which is much better than the hurt from before. “You’re only old enough to make that sound like wisdom.”
I almost smile. She sees it and softens for half a second.
There. That’s where the danger is. Not in her anger. I understand anger. Not even in her schemes, though I should look harder at whatever she’s hiding behind those eyes.
The danger is this: I like giving her things.
A ring. Coffee. A phone call. A piano she mentioned as a joke. The right to choose a dress because the ones in her wardrobe made her feel like a ghost in her own marriage.
It’s not generosity. I know myself better than that.
“When?” she asks.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Morning.”
“No.”
She glares. “Why not?”
“Because I have work in the morning.”
“And you need to personally attend my shopping trip like a royal inspector?”
“Yes.”
Her mouth opens. Then closes.
Then opens again. “You’re coming?”
“Of course.”
“No.”
Now it’s my turn to lift a brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“You can’t come.”
“I can.”
“No, because then every saleswoman will tremble, every guard will hover, and I will be forced to choose clothes under the gaze of a man who thinks black is a mood, a lifestyle, and a family value.”
“I will survive your criticism of my wardrobe.”
“You won’t survive mine if you glare at me while I try on lingerie.”
The word hangs between us.
Lingerie.
She realizes too late what she has said. I enjoy that.
Her face heats again, and because I’m not a good man, I let my gaze move over her torn dress, the hint of breast still visible where the fabric refuses to close, the bare skin of her throat, the slight tremor in her thighs she’s pretending I can’t see.
“Then I will not glare,” I say.
Her lips part.
I step closer, lowering my voice. “I will approve.”
“I refuse to buy underwear with you standing there like a criminal judge.”
“Then you will buy dresses, and Marina will buy the rest.”
Her eyes narrow again, calculating.
That is the moment I should pay attention.
Instead, I’m thinking about Sofia in lace she chose herself.
Sofia in silk that never touched another woman.
Sofia in colors that don’t carry grief. Sofia standing in front of a mirror, pretending not to watch my face while I imagine taking every new piece off her with my teeth.
“Yes. Fine. Tomorrow afternoon. Secure place. Marina. Guards. You, unfortunately.”
“You agreed quickly.”
“I’m tired.”
“You are never too tired to argue.”
“I just had sex against a wall and then discussed your dead wife’s wardrobe. I believe I’ve earned a shorter argument.”
I reach for her, but she steps back. “Don’t touch me right now like this conversation is finished because you decided it is.”
I lower my hand. Her eyes flicker with something like surprise. Then she hides it.
“I’m going to my room,” she says.
“Your dress is torn.”
“You did that.”
“I will walk you.”
“Absolutely not. I can manage thirty yards of hallway without male supervision.”
“With your breasts half-visible?”
She looks down. The torn dress has slipped again. She curses under her breath and yanks it shut.
I remove my jacket and hold it out. She eyes it like it may contain a trap.
“It’s a jacket, Sofia.”
“In this house, nothing is just anything.”
“Take it.”
She hesitates. Then she takes it. The jacket swallows her shoulders. It falls nearly to her thighs, black wool over torn fabric, my scent around her. My cock stirs at the sight because apparently I am no wiser after having her.
A small, dangerous smile touches her mouth. “You are very easy for a terrifying man.”
“Only with you.”
The smile disappears.
That wasn’t planned. It’s true anyway.
She turns toward the door before I can read her expression properly.
At the threshold, she pauses without looking back. “Tomorrow then,” she says.
“I remember,” I say.
She looks back then, her face unreadable in the low study light. “They are not gifts,” she says. “I don’t want to owe you for replacing the things you should never have put me in.”
She leaves in my jacket.
I stand in the study after she’s gone, looking at the scattered buttons on the floor, the book lying open upside down beside the chair, the faint imprint of her body against the wall where I fucked her.
Mine.
The thought comes without effort.