Page 46 of Disguised as Love

For the first time, Ito-san actually made eye contact with me. A brief moment before we both darted our glances away again, taking in the people in the mall to assess who was watching our exchange. I forced a smile on my face, forced a laugh into the phone with no one on the other end. I wasn’t absolutely sure, but the woman in the fur coat who’d brushed past Raisa and me at the entrance had been lingering too close for too long to be anything but surveillance. There was also a man in a suit who’d been staring in the window of the jewelry shop for too long.

“You’re in love with her,” Ito-san said quietly.

I scoffed at the ridiculous notion. I didn’t even fucking know Raisa Leskov, but I did want her. My body was clamoring to sink into hers. To cover every inch of her with my lips and teeth and tongue. That wasn’t love. That was some obscene desire that was surely going to get me killed.

“She’s a tool,” I said quietly. “But she shouldn’t have to pay the ultimate price because of it.”

The words were out before I realized how apt they were to explain Ito-san’s position as well. She’d been a tool used by her father, and she’d spent her entire life paying for it. Over and over again. I wondered what she’d do when she got her revenge and there was no one there pulling her strings anymore.

Ito-san strode away, and I was helpless to stop her without calling attention to both of us. She hadn’t given me an answer. I had no idea whether she’d head straight for the Leskov apartment to uncover Yano, or if she’d slink into the shadows and cover my ass.

Raisa

BOO’D UP

“Feelings, so deep in my feelings

No, this ain’t really like me

Can’t control my anxiety.”

Performed by Ella Mai

Written by Dopson / Mcfarlane / James / Mai Howell

I felt strangely naked sitting in Alexia’s boutique with no protection, sipping on the espresso Sasha had brought me before disappearing again. I kept my eyes trained on the door and the trail of people who made their way past it as they strolled through the mall. Alexia’s boutique wasn’t one that drew window-shoppers. You had to have an appointment, and you had to know what she kept behind the curtain in her Oz-like way.

No one stopped for long near the door, but I’d seen the woman who’d brushed past Cruz and me at the entrance more than once. Her fur coat and sunglasses were hardly subtle. She didn’t blend in at all, but maybe that was the point: for me to know I was being watched.

Cruz hadn’t seemed surprised by our tail from the palace into the city. Somehow, I kept forgetting he was a trained FBI agent, especially when he held my hand and wrapped his arm around my waist in a protective way. Especially when my heart had twisted with sadness at the story he’d shared the night before. He hadn’t realized it, but as he’d told the story, it had unveiled a deep pain in him. A loss that could never be healed no matter how much you pretended to have moved on. It was how I felt about Papa’s death. I wasn’t sure the hole in my heart would ever earn a thick enough scab to not easily be cracked open again.

Alexia came back into the room with a trail of people. She looked around for Cruz.

“He had to take a call,” I explained. “He’ll be back in a moment.”

She nodded and pulled forward a girl barely out of her teens who was holding a black dress. The wrist-length sleeves were sheer chiffon all the way up to the shoulders where it turned into a halter made of black satin brocade with a velvet swirl tied at the back with a velvet ribbon. The satin and velvet ran down to a fitted waist where a strip of the same sheer material would bare my midriff before the skirt flung out in more brocade that would swing away from the hips with a pleated grace. It felt like a throwback to the ‘40s and yet modern and daring. Perfect for Manya Leskov’s daughter…except, I wasn’t her anymore. I wasn’t sure I could wear this to Papa’s funeral because it would draw eyes, and all I wanted to do was hide.

Alexia read my hesitancy. “Try it,” she insisted.

I put the espresso cup down and followed her to the fitting room off to the side. I shed the layers I’d put on in order to prevent the Volkovs from seeing or touching my skin and stepped into the dress. Alexia zipped it, and we moved back into the main room where I could see myself in a trio of mirrors angled to give me an almost 360-degree view of myself.

My bra straps glared pink through the black sheer, but other than that, it was magnificent. It fit me like a glove, as if it was made for me, and instead of feeling exposed by the sheer fabric, I suddenly felt like I was wearing armor. Like this dress could block bullets and knives.

“A black corset bra underneath, I think,” Alexia said with a smile lighting up her face. “Your boyfriend will appreciate that.”

It brought me back to where I was and why I was trying on the dress to begin with.

“I hardly think I’ll be having sex with him at my father’s funeral.” I said it as a scold for both of us, but Alexia just smiled.

“Making love?holding on to something real?can be such a beautiful way to remind ourselves that we are not dead as well, no?”

Cruz was suddenly there, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe as he took in every inch of me. I wasn’t sure what he’d heard, but there was a fire in his eyes that made me believe Alexia was right. Drowning myself in physical reactions to hands and teeth and lips might be exactly what I needed to counteract the unending sea of emotions I seemed to be wading in. Emotions that would only get stronger when I had to look into my father’s face in a coffin and then follow him to a cemetery to be buried below the earth. Lost to me forever.

I swallowed hard.

Alexia looked to Cruz. “You tell her she must have, right? It is perfect. A statement that must be made.”

“You’re stunning,” Cruz said in a tone that was deep and guttural. Like he’d sounded after kissing me. It brought goosebumps to my flesh, trailing over me and through my belly, fanning flames that hardly needed a brush of oxygen in order to jump to an inferno every time he was near.

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