15. Tori #2
I didn’t understand. It was exactly what I had accused him of last night—he was hot and then he was cold.
What did he want from me? Despite Grace’s reassurances, I was getting nothing from Stefan but either sexy, soul-searing kisses, or a cold shoulder and total lack of interest. Was this normal behavior for new relationships?
“You look nice,” I said, wanting to keep the peace.
He didn’t say anything, his attention focused on his phone.
“A little formal though,” I teased.
Nothing.
I was starting to feel that everything with Stefan was one step forward and two steps back. Would I ever know where I stood with my husband on a day to day basis? Would I ever know what he wanted from me?
“I just ordered up breakfast, but I’ll get ready after that,” I told him. “Are you going t—”
Before I could finish, there was a knock at the door. Stefan lifted his head lazily, as if he’d been expecting the intrusion. He headed toward the front of the suite, while I followed behind him, wrapping myself with a robe.
“Is that my room service?” I asked.
He opened the door, his body blocking whoever was on the other side.
“Pree-vyet,” a woman’s voice rang out, her tone cheerful and warm.
“Pree-vyet,” Stefan echoed, before stepping back enough for the woman to come into view. “Thank you for coming.”
But before I could get a good look at her face, she was kissing Stefan. First on one cheek and then on the other. All I could see was a thick curtain of shining black hair.
“Yak spravy?” she asked, stepping into the room.
Her face was still turned away from me, focused on Stefan, but I could see that her body was pretty spectacular.
Much like the woman I’d seen with Stefan in Vienna, and all the girls at the casting call yesterday, she was tall and slim, with a narrow waist and full breasts.
I tightened my grip on the robe, feeling self-conscious.
I had no idea what she and Stefan were saying. I was pretty sure she was speaking Ukrainian, but I didn’t understand any of the rapid, guttural phrases. Meanwhile, Stefan seemed fairly fluent. The information both surprised and impressed me. It was pretty hot that he knew multiple languages.
I cleared my throat, unsure if she realized I was standing there.
Immediately, the woman swung around to face me. There was an enormous smile on her gorgeous face.
Before I could really react to her beauty, though, she had pulled me into her arms and was kissing me exactly as she had kissed Stefan, with a kiss on each cheek. To make matters even worse, she smelled just as good as she looked. Like some exotic, expensive perfume made of roses and sex appeal.
I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t help but smile back. It was the first time someone had really smiled at me since we arrived in Budapest. A real smile, that is, not the perfectly polite, slightly distant smiles I got from the hotel staff.
She was also vaguely familiar and as I stared at her, I realized that I’d seen her in the ads of magazines. She had to be a KZ model.
She started chattering to me, but I had no idea what she was saying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t speak the language.”
“Oh, of course!” she said, with a laugh and only a slight accent. “Stefan mentioned that you were a, how you to say it, a scholar of languages? I shouldn’t have assumed.”
I nodded. “Linguistics is all about languages, yes. But I’ve mostly studied the roots of words, and their histories. I’d love to speak more languages, but so far I’ve only taken Latin.”
“But that is wonderful,” she said, still smiling warmly. “Stefan has chosen a smart girl.”
I didn’t know how to feel. On one hand, I was extremely embarrassed that Stefan had told this beautiful creature that I was “a scholar of languages” only to have me stare blankly at her when she tried to converse with me.
On the other hand, this meant that Stefan had told her about me.
And not only that, but he clearly also knew exactly what I was planning on studying.
I shot him a look, but he was back to typing on his phone. Of course.
One step forward. Two steps back.
“You’re Victoria, yes?” the beautiful woman asked me. “I am Oksana.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, still confused as to why she was in our suite so early in the morning. I’d seen Stefan’s schedule—there wasn’t anything about a model meeting at this time.
My confusion must have shown on my face, because Oksana’s smile slipped as she looked between me and Stefan.
“I am here for you,” she told me, a wrinkle appearing between her perfect brows.
I turned to look at Stefan. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s your babysitter for the day,” Stefan told me, a little smirk appearing on his face.
I wanted to smack that smirk off his lips. Or kiss it off. I couldn’t decide between the two at the moment.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I told him.
“I’ll be back late,” he told Oksana, completely ignoring me.
Wait. He wasn’t even coming sightseeing with me? Was that blocked-out section of his itinerary just for me?
But before I could say anything, he was heading out. I wanted to grab him, tug him back into our room, finish what we started last night—but I was barely dressed and in no state to go running after him. Instead, I had to watch him leave, the door slamming behind him.
When I turned back, Oksana was wearing that same big smile on her face, her hands clasped together.
“What should we do today?” she asked. “Stefan to take you wherever you’d like.”
I studied her, the wheels in my head turning. “What is it that you said to Stefan when you first arrived?” I asked. “Pree-vyet?”
“Oh, you’d like to learn Ukrainian? Duzhe dobrey.” She winked at me. “That means ‘very good.’”
“And pree-vyet—is that hello?” I prompted.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
I was confused. That wasn’t the first thing she’d said to me. “Then what does dobrey-dyen mean?”
There was a pause. “That also means hello,” she said. “Just…more formal.”
I understood. She had greeted Stefan with the more familiar form of ‘hello,’ which meant they were informal. Friendly.
I felt a twinge of jealousy. How friendly were they, exactly?
“The rest of it was just me asking how he was,” Oksana said with a wave of her hand. “He told me he was doing well, just very busy.”
I nodded, but I was only half paying attention.
“Why don’t you get dressed?” Oksana said, clapping happily. “I will love to show you my beautiful city.”
It was an offer I would have appreciated the day before, but now I was mostly just annoyed. With Stefan. Again.
“I don’t need a babysitter, you know,” I said, my tone more bitter than I intended.
Oksana’s smile faltered, as if she didn’t quite know how to respond.
“Stefan would like me to spend the day with you,” she finally said. “He’s a good man. He cares very much for you.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” It was hard to believe that Stefan cared about anyone other than himself. But clearly my derision wasn’t acceptable, as Oksana shook her head passionately.
“No, no, no,” she said. “He is a very good man. A very good boss. It is my great joy to give him…how do you say…favors?”
I stared at her, hoping that this was just another example of the language barrier. That when she said ‘favors’ she didn’t mean the carnal kind.
Oksana put her hand on her chest, over her heart. “I owe him a debt,” she said.
This surprised me. What exactly did she owe him? Money? Or something more intangible? How did a man like Stefan, so cold and distant, earn the devotion of someone as beautiful—and seemingly nice—as Oksana? It only made me want to understand Stefan better.
So even though I felt bitterly jealous over the idea of spending the day with a woman who felt great joy in giving my husband ‘favors,’ I also had a feeling that I would get more information about Stefan from her than from the man himself.
Maybe I should just look at this day as a fact-finding mission.
Besides, Oksana was so friendly, surely it wouldn’t be that hard to get information out of her.
With that goal in mind, I pushed aside my frustration and discomfort.
Quickly, I showered and got dressed, prepared to spend the rest of the day grilling her for details about my extremely private, extremely closed-off husband.