Make Me Beg, Daddy

Chapter 39

She doesn’t talk much, which I appreciate more than I can say, because I just need a moment to recalibrate right now.

She sections my hair with clips and starts at the back with a big round brush and the dryer, rolling each piece under and holding it there until it cools.

Then she goes through it with a curling iron, wide barrel, wrapping and dropping and never touching the ends.

When she’s done, she flips me upside down, shakes everything out with her fingers, and mists it with an almond-scented spray. It comes out looking like beach waves that took no effort at all.

I’m starting to think Galina might be a witch.

For my face, she starts with a moisturizer that she warms between her palms first. Then a foundation she mixes on the back of her hand, dabbed on with a sponge instead of brushed.

She does concealer under my eyes in a triangle. Cream blush high on the cheeks, patted in with her ring finger. Brown liner smudged along the top lashes only, no wing, then two coats of mascara with a tissue tucked under my lower lashes so nothing prints.

Last is the lip. She skips red and picks a brownish rose, lines it, fills it, blots it on a tissue, and does it again.

Then she stands me up and points at the garment bag. “Now, the dress. Clothes off.”

I hesitate, for obvious reasons. I’m wearing the leggings and long-sleeve tee I put on in the dark at four in the morning, and underneath that is a bra that’s older than my marriage.

But Galina waits patiently. So, swallowing down my uncertainty, I pull the shirt over my head, step out of the leggings, and stand there half-naked with a stranger.

“Ah,” she hums. “I get his interest now.”

“Pardon?” I squeak.

She unzips the bag and lifts the wine-colored dress out, holding it by the shoulders. “With hips like that, you should be walking around this city with a marching band behind you.”

“Oh, uh, that’s very nice of you⁠—”

“Nice? Not nice. Just true.” She crouches and holds the dress open at the floor. “Step in. Hold my shoulder.”

I do as she says. She works the fabric up over my legs and my hips. It goes without a fight, which is not something I’m used to.

I kinda think Ekaterina might be a witch, too.

When it’s all cinched up, Galina settles the sleeves off my shoulders and tidies up the back, then tugs things straight at my waist so all the fabric flows correctly.

“Mr. Makov chose well,” she says as she steps back to appraise me. “He knows what he has.”

“He doesn’t have anything. It’s a business thing. He’s my—” I stop, because there’s no term for it that isn’t an outright lie. “It’s complicated.”

“Mm.” She turns me by the elbow to face the mirror so I can see her handiwork. “You know he never brings anyone here? Twenty years I work for that man. Not once.”

“That’s probably a coincidence.”

“Hm.” She smooths my hair over one shoulder, steps back, and gives me a feisty little wink, like we’re sharing some inside joke. “Does that look like a ‘coincidence’ to you?”

She directs my chin toward the mirror, and I suck in a startled breath.

My shoulders are bare.

My waist curves inward.

The skirt falls around my hips instead of fighting them.

The wine color warms my skin. My hair looks soft. My eyes look bigger.

For one strange second, I see myself before I can remember all the reasons I’m supposed to dislike what I see.

Pretty.

The word almost, almost fits.

Galina walks me down the hall and stops me at the top of the staircase with a hand on my elbow. Then she lets go and goes back the way we came.

Seems kinda cruel, honestly.

Because now there are forty feet of stairs between me and the party.

I grip the railing and start my descent. With every step down, I consider a fresh new way that this evening could turn into a disaster. Every possible insult that could be flung my direction.

Off-the-shoulder sleeves? She’s built like a linebacker.

High heels? She’s lucky the stiletto doesn’t snap off.

Boobs too big, hips too wide, hair and makeup too audacious? w***e. Pig. Thick girl.

Too much in every direction.

Then I see Kane at the bottom, and all of that changes.

He’s standing with two men in dark, neat suits. They’re talking, but as soon as he turns to lock eyes with me, the conversation dies on the spot.

He doesn’t blink.

Neither do I.

My mouth parts.

So does his.

Just slightly. Barely enough to count.

Except this is Kane Makov. That tiny little gap between his lips says everything.

One of the men beside him whispers to him, but Kane shows no signs of having heard a word the man said.

His green eyes climb up my body.

Shoes.

Dress.

Waist.

Bare shoulders.

Face.

The room swirls around us, but we’re both perfectly still.

I start to go down one more step—but then, with my foot dangling in midair, I see his fist tighten at his side.

White knuckles, gleaming through the ink.

Tension.

Turmoil.

Oh.

I resume walking, still slow, but never looking away from him. When I finally reach the final step, the heels and the stair put us at eye level for once.

It’s a nice change of pace.

Kane lifts his hand toward me, then stops and retracts it. “Lilah…”

Only my name. Roughened beyond recognition.

“I guess this will work?” I tease self-consciously.

His gaze combs over me once more, from face to toes and back again. “You were always in there, weren’t you?” He offers his arm. “Now, everyone else gets to see what I do.”

Well, if that isn’t the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard…

I feel a little faint. I take the arm, mostly so I don’t fall over in these shoes.

Then he walks me through the archway into the ballroom proper, and I stop trying to have thoughts.

The gilded ceiling curves two stories high over our heads.

Candles burn everywhere. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand.

An ice sculpture of an eagle stands taller than I am near the center of the room. Tables overflow with silver bowls of caviar nestled in crushed ice, towers of blini, whole roasted fish, glazed pork, pickled vegetables, fruit, breads, cakes.

A pyramid of oranges rises three feet in the air.

I understand in theory that rich people can consume food without first arranging it into fancy displays, but in reality, they seem to need it stacked into monuments first.

One-percenters sure as weird.

A man in his sixties peels off from a group and grabs my hand before Kane can say anything. His handshake is damp but enthusiastic.

“Delilah!” He seizes my hand and pumps it twice. “Finally.”

Finally? I literally just got here.

“Well,” I say, “here I am.”

He laughs like that was hilarious, bows deeply, and then disappears back into the crowd.

I stare after him, wondering what the hell that was all about.

But apparently, it’s just the first of many.

A younger man approaches and says, “Miss Dorsey,” salutes Kane, and then vanishes just as fast as the first guy.

Someone hands me a plate I didn’t ask for, already loaded. Pork. Blini. Mushrooms. Pickles.

A woman appears with a caramel-colored shawl over her arm and drapes it on me. “For the chill,” she explains. “They keep the doors open all night.”

“Oh. Uh… thank you…?”

“Anna,” she supplies with a happy smile. “It’s my pleasure, Miss Dorsey.”

Five minutes later, I meet Mikhail.

Then Vera.

Then Artyom.

People keep using my name, even though we’ve never been introduced.

Nobody leans toward Kane and asks who I am.

They already know.

Which creates the deeply disorienting sensation of entering a room where I have somehow arrived before myself.

And the entire time, Kane looms huge at my side, silent but smirking just the tiniest little bit in the corner of his mouth. I keep glancing at him for answers, but he provides not a single one.

How did he know? How could he possibly have known how nice it is to be expected? To be wanted? To be greeted like an equal, a friend-in-the-making?

After a lifetime of being welcomed in and ushered out of my family’s life like I’m the hired help…

… this warm greeting is damn near enough to make me cry.

While I’m gawking at him and trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into words, a man in a gray suit comes up on Kane’s other side and murmurs in his ear.

Kane’s jaw tightens. He answers in two blunt words.

In response, the man in gray tips his head toward a set of doors on the far side of the room.

Kane looks down at me. “I have to go talk to someone.”

“That’s fine!” I say. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Five minutes.”

“Seriously, it’s fine. I’m not going to wander off and get lost.”

“You couldn’t get lost in here if you tried.” He puts his hand at the small of my back and leans in so his mouth is near my ear. “If anyone bothers you, just tell them you’re with me.”

“That feels like overkill.”

“‘Overkill’ is exactly what I’ll do if you’re bothered.”

Then he’s gone, cutting through the crowd with the man in gray hurrying to keep up.