Dangerous Games

21

It’s all white, blindingly white, from the coffered ceiling down to the glossy marble floors. All the furnishings, the statuaries and art, even the velvet draperies that frame the windows are the shade of fresh snow. Not a touch of color mars the uniformity, not even a single plant or magazine.

I look around, blinking. “How cozy and welcoming. Like an ice cave.”

Dimitri sends me a sideways look, one corner of his mouth lifted. His tone turns sardonic.

“I wanted the bridal suite to reflect the purity of our love.”

The bridal suite. I could vomit. “I hope your housekeeper knows how to remove bloodstains.”

He eyes me, unsure if I mean mine or his.

I take a step forward, but he stops me with a curt “Wait.” When I look at him, confused, he bends and picks me up in his arms.

I say to his profile, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You know I’m old fashioned.”

“Sure. Like the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Clever, but you’ll regret that.” He steps across the threshold and carries me inside.

Stefan stays just outside the doors, but his eyes track me like a pair of lasers. I try not to think of how avid his gaze was when he thought he’d be getting a front-row seat to my punishment in the cellar. I can focus on only one devil at a time.

Dimitri crosses the suite and enters the adjoining bathroom, which is as large as a hotel lobby. He sets me on my feet near a porcelain soaking tub the size of a seagoing vessel and straightens, which is when I notice how pale he’s become. And there’s a fine mist of perspiration on his upper lip that wasn’t there moments ago.

Interesting. His physique is lean, but he’s extremely strong, with the endurance of a marathon runner. That bullet must’ve done more damage than I guessed.

Naz’s bullet.

I press a hand over my heart to stop its sudden throbbing.

“Get cleaned up. I’ll send a maid to help you. You’ll get a visit from the doctor later today. In the meantime, rest. You need to replenish your energy.”

I look away from his suggestive smile and focus on the room. There must be something I can use as a tool or a weapon, a razor maybe. A pen. I noticed there were no bars on the windows—

“Don’t bother trying to escape.”

Dimitri rests his hand on the small of my back. It’s a dominant gesture, one of ownership and warning despite the soft touch.

“The windows are shatterproof, and there are cameras in the walls. Your behavior determines your amount of freedom. If you displease me, you’ll never leave this room.”

“I understand.”

He examines my expression closely, but I know my face is blank, because I feel nothing. Inside me is desolation, a barren wasteland as leached of life as the room is leached of color.

“If you need something, use the house phone.” He nods at a small digital console on the wall beside the mirror. A blue touch screen awaits my command.

I need arsenic. I need a machete. I need a sharpened stake to drive straight through your unbeating heart. I turn to him with my blank face still in place. “And the wedding? When will that happen?”

He considers me in silence for a moment, his gaze lingering on my mouth. “I suppose you’ll need time to select a dress.”

“I . . . have a request.”

He lifts his pale brows but says nothing.

“I don’t want to sleep with you until then.” My tone is conversational, as if I’m haggling over the price of a scarf at one of the stalls in my beloved Cozumel market and not my own desecration.

Dimitri’s expression turns dangerous. “You presume too much.”

“You have me now. What does a few weeks’ difference make, except to whet your appetite?”

“Weeks? Oh, my love, you mistake me.”

When I see the look in his eyes, my mouth goes dry.

He grabs my ass and yanks me against him, closing his other hand around my throat. He crushes his mouth to mine, biting my lip so hard he draws blood. When he pulls away, he’s breathing hard and snarling.

“We’ll be married in three days. If that was enough time for Christ to rise from the dead, it’s enough time for us to prepare to be joined in holy matrimony.”

He shoves me away and walks out, straightening his tie. The suite doors slam, a key turns in the lock, and finally—mercifully—I’m alone.

Three days. Lord help me.

I use a downy white hand towel to dab at my lip, morbidly pleased when it comes away smeared with a s***h of crimson. Then I shrug off his suit jacket and kick it into a corner.

True to his word, a maid appears shortly thereafter, knocking hesitantly on the door before being let in by a glowering Stefan. The maid is young, perhaps twenty, a mousy brunette with rounded shoulders and darting eyes who flinches when I ask her name. She doesn’t respond. With a lowered gaze, she gets the bathwater running and adds the contents of one of the sweet-smelling vials plucked from a mirrored tray on the counter.

Then she makes a series of incomprehensible hand motions, her fingers flashing like lightning.

“I’m sorry,” I say gently. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She approaches me as you would a wild animal: slowly, with caution, her hands up. She glances at my unbuttoned jeans and points at the zipper.

“Oh. You want to help me out of these?”

She nods. I’m bizarrely relieved, and more than a little grateful.

“Okay. I can undo the zipper, but could you please pull down the waist?”