Page 37 of Ivory Oath

“Try harder not to,” I bite back. My wasted fear morphs into aimless anger. My heart is thundering against my rib cage so hard it’s almost painful. I press a hand there and force myself to take deep breaths. “Here’s a tip: don’t sneak into my room in the middle of the night.”

“This is my room,” he points out calmly, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark gray sweats.

Does he ever not look good? I wonder idly. I’m grateful that I woke up a few hours ago and took a shower. I wanted to take a bath just to spite Mikhail, but he made a good point—it would’ve been embarrassing to survive a kidnapping and imprisonment just to drown in a tub because I couldn’t stay awake.

“Another reason I should have slept in my own room. You just rescued me from a psychotic kidnapper, so having anyone lurking around my bed in the dark is definitely a bad idea.”

“I didn’t come here to lurk.” He holds out a hand to me. “Come with me.”

I’m still annoyed, but I slide my hand into his on pure instinct. It’s the way you try to catch a baseball that’s flying towards your face. When something dangerous comes your way, you react.

Lord knows there is certainly something dangerous about the shimmer I feel under my skin when Mikhail touches me.

“It’s late. Where are we going?”

He grabs a flannel shirt from the closet and holds it out for me, stopping only to let his eyes slide down my body. Well, I don’t need to worry about getting chilly if he keeps looking at me like that.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he observes.

I can’t get a read on him. He saves my life and then tells me that I can never leave his house with my son. He gives me a shirt to wear, but when I put it on, he looks at me like I killed someone and am wearing their skin around as a suit.

“They’re the clothes you gave me earlier.” I tug on the hem of the shirt as if I might be able to make it magically fall to my knees instead of barely grazing mid-thigh. “I took a shower and changed. I hope that’s okay.”

He drapes the flannel over my shoulders. “I wouldn’t have given it to you if I didn’t want you to wear it.”

Mikhail takes my hand and leads me into the dark hallway. I expect him to head towards the stairs, but he moves to the end of the hall and opens a door I’ve never noticed before. It’s paneled with the same wainscoting as the lower half of the wall and is painted the same warm white as the upper half.

“A secret door?” I sound casual, but there’s a twinge of panic low in my gut.

He told me he wasn’t going to lock me up, but what if he’s changed his mind? Am I willingly walking into a Jane Eyre scenario? I cannot be locked in some attic somewhere while Mikhail marries and lives with another woman one floor below me.

“Relax.” I didn’t notice Mikhail turning towards me, but his chest is a solid wall in front of me. He pulls me close, his lips next to my ear. “You’re safe here, Viviana.”

Of course he noticed my fear. Nothing gets past Mikhail.

When my breathing evens out, he squeezes my hand and opens the door.

We step out onto a deep balcony. It’s shielded by the house on three sides, which might be why I never noticed it before. Not even when Dante and I would play in the backyard. It’s tucked away, hidden from view and the wind. But the view looks down over the lawn and the tree-lined property beyond the fence.

“A balcony?” A soft night breeze blows through my hair and I still don’t believe it. “You have a secret balcony?”

“It’s not a secret. It’s just… private.” He closes the door to the hallway behind us. “I don’t tell most people about it.”

“But you’re telling me?”

“You’re not most people.”

I frown. There aren’t many ways to interpret what he’s saying, but I still won’t let myself believe any of this is happening.

Instead, I twist away from him and look around the balcony. It’s not elaborate the way the rest of the house is. There are no Adirondack chairs or large umbrellas to lounge under. It’s empty, except for a thick duvet spread out in the middle of the patio with a telescope set up on the corner.

“You do a lot of stargazing out here?”

“Never,” he laughs.

I gesture to the telescope. “Then how do you explain this?”

“Good question.” He drags a hand through his hair and for the first time since he peeked over the blankets at me, I realize… Mikhail is nervous.

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