Valentina's POV
My breath caught the moment Ryker stepped into the room.
He didn’t speak at first. His shoes echoed softly across the polished floors. His presence was impossibly large. It bent the space around him, made everything else feel small, even the golden chandelier that shimmered above me or the lights burning low on ornate sconces.
I couldn’t look away and then he stopped right in front of me.
The space between us felt as if it had collapsed, I didn’t dare move. My pulse stuttered, and my fingers trembled, gripping the soft folds of the pale gown they'd forced me into earlier.
He squatted slowly. Not like a man offering himself to her, no. He moved like a predator lowering itself to inspect a captured thing.
Then he smiled coldly. That smile didn’t reach his eyes. His gaze
