Page 33 of Twilight Sins

Hope leaves and I don’t see anyone else for a couple hours. They could all be on break. More likely, though, word got around that I’m pumping them for information and trying to break into locked rooms. I’m sure they’re steering clear of me.

Not that it matters. None of them are any help, anyway. The love for Yakov runs deep. I won’t find any friends on his staff.

When the sun is directly overhead, I decide to retreat inside for some shade. I grab a water bottle out of the fridge and make my way to the library.

The sheer size of it still takes my breath away. Maybe when no one is looking, I’ll stand on the wooden ladder and pretend I’m a fairytale princess. Right now, I just want to escape. If I can’t do it literally, then I’ll do it fictionally.

But Yakov manages to ruin those plans, as well.

“An entire room full of books and not a single romance,” I mumble to myself.

It’s amazing how many people claim to be well-read, yet have never picked up a romance novel. Given the fact that Yakov only seduced me to get me back to his house so he could hold me hostage, I guess I’m not that surprised.

After scouring the shelves for a while, I grab a dusty fantasy novel and curl up on the couch.

Two hours and one hundred pages later, I’m still sitting there when I hear the familiar baritone of his voice coming down the hallway.

My insides twist.

It’s a bad habit and I wish they would stop. I’m evolutionarily predisposed to find a man with a deep velvet voice attractive. That’s all it is. Because the last time I saw Yakov, he looked me in my eyes and as good as said he didn't want me here.

I’m not any happier about this than you are.

I highly doubt that. Because the only thing worse than being somewhere you don’t want to be is knowing for a fact that no one else wants you there, either. I’m definitely the least happy of anyone in this mansion.

But if Yakov really doesn’t want me here, why did he bring me with him if he could have left me at the restaurant? Why did he wake up early and make me breakfast?

He told me last night that he never does anything he doesn’t want to do. I have no idea what to believe about so much of what is going on, but some small part of Yakov Kulikov is at least a tiny bit kind.

Hopefully.

If I can’t get him to outright let me go, I might still be able to work a few things to my advantage.

I toss my book aside and go to meet my abductor.

13

YAKOV

As I pass by the library, the double doors swing open and bang off the walls on either side. Luna is standing in the doorway in her wrinkled dress and two-day makeup. She looks like hell.

She also has a new pinkness to her skin. The guards did mention she spent most of the day by the pool.

“I want to go home.”

“Hello to you, too.” I walk past her, but I feel her trailing close behind me.

“I’m sorry—were you expecting me to be waiting at the door for you with a fresh-baked pie and an apron on?” The image of Luna in a frilly little apron—only a frilly little apron—takes up way too much of my brain space. I swipe it away just as Luna whips around and stops in front of me, her hands on her hips. “Let me leave.”

“No.”

“You can’t keep me here forever!”

“I don’t want to keep you here forever.” I turn and head towards my room.

Luna is barefoot and jogging after me. She’s even more petite out of her heels. She has to take two steps for every one of mine. “You don’t want me around, but you won’t let me leave. You want to keep me for some random, unknowable number of days and then what? You’re just going to let me go?”

“Yep. On the side of a road if you’re lucky. Off the edge of a cliff if I’m lucky.”

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