Page 14 of Preferential Treatment

“Deb says you’re making seventy-k a year.”

“Aunt Deb’s wrong.” She made slightly less than that. “And even if I did, seventy thousand doesn’t get you far in Chicago.”

“Gets you far enough, apparently. I don’t see you struggling like your sister does.”

“That’s because I don’t do the kind of dumb-ass shit Angel’s always doing,” Kate snapped. “For example, I never got kicked out of a job and arrested because I kept attacking my fucking coworkers!”

“So, you’re perfect?” Mom asked heatedly. “You’re just going to abandon her? Just leave her to suffer?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m going to do,” Kate said furiously. “I’m not setting myself on fire to keep Angel warm.”

“Get over yourself,” Mom groused. “She’ll pay you back.”

Kate laughed and laughed and laughed. And then she laughed some more. “Good one.”

“Well, then I’ll pay you back.”

“No. It’s not happening.”

“When did you become such a bitch?”

“A long time ago. Bye, Mom.” Kate hung up and flung her phone away. It landed on her sofa with a heavy thwack. She exhaled a long, slow, deep-bellied sigh that slowly turned into a growl and then into a primal scream. She pressed her hands over her mouth muffling the noise so her neighbors wouldn’t hear. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed into her palm until her throat ached and her temples throbbed.

When she pulled her hands away from her mouth, her breath came in ragged gasps. She tilted her head back against the door, staring up at the ceiling while she waited for her blood pressure to drop and her breathing to even out.

You’re not like them, she reminded herself. She’d left that world behind. She hadn’t spoken to Angel in over a year—hadn’t seen her face in more than three. If she had her way, she’d never see Angel again. Angel was like a Dickensian ghost of what might have been—if Kate had never left Whispering Pines, if she hadn’t gotten that abortion when she was seventeen, if she hadn’t listened to her high school math teacher’s urging to apply to college, if she’d missed any number of the diverging paths in her past that led her to where she was today. She couldn’t bear that idea.

She pushed Angel out of her mind. A line of pain was cutting across her curled fingers on one hand, and when she looked down, she saw the shopping bag full of expensive shoe boxes, still clutched in her white-knuckled fist. The shoes were a sudden balm to her frazzled nerves. She knew it was materialistic and shallow, but having nice things reminded her of who she wasn’t anymore. Who she would never be.

She went to her bedroom and sat on the bed, slowly unboxing each pair of shoes and admiring them like they were Christmas presents she’d just opened. She wasn’t totally sure what that feeling was like. Dad had never remembered Christmas. And while Mom usually had, the gifts had always been random junk that she’d clearly bought at the last second from Big Lots. But Kate imagined kids with competent parents probably felt this warm, secure, comfortable feeling when they unwrapped the Barbies and Nerf guns they’d actually wanted.

This is unhealthy, she thought as she stared at her new shoes with glowing contentment. But I don’t care.

* * *

On Monday Kate walked into the Domovoy building with a nervous edge of anticipation. He was here. The man who owned this company. The man who’d knelt at her feet and begged to eat her pussy. The very one who’d paid her five grand after she’d left him hard and unsatisfied. The five-hundred-dollar shoes on her feet, clicking briskly over the terrazzo tiles of the building’s lobby, had been bought with that money. The gorgeous coat currently keeping her warm had been, too. She was dressed top to bottom in the evidence of their arrangement.

She went through security and rode the elevator up to her work floor, surrounded by people who had no idea of the filthy things she’d done to their boss. Shame and superiority mingled in equal measure, filling her with jittery energy. She pressed her lips together, fighting a crazed smile.

When she reached her floor, she walked to her desk on high alert, scanning the rows of cubicles for the sight of a dark-haired, grim-faced Russian in an impeccable suit. She knew she wasn’t going to see him. And yet, she couldn’t help but look. When she reached her desk, she hung up her beautiful new coat on the wall of her cubicle, petting it fondly, and then sank into her desk chair.

Within the hour, she was absorbed by her work, all thoughts of Mikhail Volkov shunted to the back of her mind. Until two weeks ago, she’d never even seen him in person, despite having worked for Domovoy for three years. The odds of her running into him again were essentially nil. A few hours later, she’d almost entirely forgotten about him.

Later that afternoon, she was leaving a meeting on the ninth floor, taking the roundabout way back to her own department when she spotted a tall, broad, be-suited figure approaching from the opposite end of the long hallway. She recognized Mikhail immediately. His size, his stride, his hardened expression.

He seemed like a different person. He was dressed in a dark blue suit that probably cost more than her car. His expression was cold, hard, remote. He carried himself with a natural aura of command and control. Kate could hardly believe she’d had him on his knees.

He glanced up from his phone, gaze flicking over to her as they strode towards one another. Something hot and wicked flashed in his eyes, even as his face remained utterly stoic.

“Ms. Pasternak,” he greeted her in that deep voice, rolling the r in her name and shifting the sounds of the vowels. She loved the way he pronounced her name. Would it be weird if she started making everyone pronounce it that way? Probably.

“Mr. Volkov,” she greeted him in return, a hot flush creeping up her neck. The image of him dropping to his knees in that beautiful suit, doing whatever she commanded of him, filled her mind.

But the man stopping in front of her wasn’t that man. Not right now. His gaze ran up and down her body, but there was none of the eager servant in his eyes. Instead, she found herself caught in the sights of a wolf—a hungry wolf.

“Nice shoes,” he said, the corner of his lip curling ever-so-slightly upward.

She resisted the urge to glance down at her brand-new heels. She’d tamed that wolf, she reminded herself, tilting her chin up to glare at him. He was challenging her with that smile, with his over-familiarity. She wouldn’t have expected the dynamic of their arrangement to extend beyond the bounds of their private meet-ups, but that belligerent gaze declared otherwise.

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