Page 44 of Bloody Lace

“We’ll talk when we get home.” His voice is flat, emotionless, and it sends a charge of fear through me. At any other time, I might have retorted that his penthouse isn’t really my home, but this time, I press my lips tightly together instead, staying silent.

The tension in the car is thick enough to cut with a knife. I try to breathe, try to push down the fear that clogs my throat, that makes my heart race in my chest, the uncertainty of what’s going to happen now. Dahlia was right—I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. And what I thought was a tiny act of meaningless rebellion against a life that no longer entirely feels like it’s my own, has turned into something much more.

The car pulls into the parking garage beneath Dimitri’s building, and he steps out without a word. When I follow him, he nudges me in front as we approach the doors, his hand firmly on the small of my back as we step into the lobby. There’s nothing forceful about his touch, not yet, but the firm press of his hand against my spine is a reminder that if I try to run away, he’ll catch me. If I try to go anywhere but straight ahead to the elevator, as I know he wants me to, he’ll stop me.

It’s different from every other time he’s touched me like this, when we’ve danced, when we’ve walked into a party, intothis same exact building just last night. There’s a tension in his touch, a stiffness—a warning.

The elevator doors open and Dimitri urges me forward, slipping the black keycard out as the doors close behind us. “I want my other key back,” he says flatly, not looking at me as he slides his into the slot to send us up to the penthouse, and my heart knocks against my ribs.Does he want it back just because he doesn’t trust me? Or because he’s going to annul our marriage, and all of this is over? Did I fuck it up that badly?

I hadn’t thought he’d be so angry that he’d want me gone. That it might be the end of our agreement, and the future of my boutique. I’d thought that surely, he needed me badly enough to stand in as his wife that one little disobedience wouldn’t matter that much.

But now, I’m starting to think I’m wrong. That he’s so angry he’s done with all of this, and that I’ve made a huge mistake in inadvertently calling his bluff.

Dimitri says nothing else as we go up, as the elevator doors chime open, as his hand lands on my back again and he steers me into the penthouse. He keeps nudging me forward, past Buttons who bounds off of the couch and runs towards us, and my stomach drops again when Dimitri barely seems to notice that my dog was on his furniture. He steers me towards the back of the penthouse, towards the smaller rooms off of the main open space of the living room and kitchen. I know one hall leads to the theater room and the downstairs bathroom, but he pushes me towards the right, a door that I hadn’t noticed before and hadn’t bothered to try.

“What’s in there?” I squeak, balking, but Dimitri keeps moving forward, his momentum keeping me stumbling towards the door even as I try to stop.

“My office,” he says in that same flat, toneless voice as he unlocks the door, opening it for me to go in first.

My heart trips in my chest again.He’s going to pull out the contract. Show me where I fucked up. Explain the paperwork for an annulment.I feel tears prick at the corners of my eyes, and I start to try to think of how I can excuse this, what I can say that will make him understand that I wasn’t trying to make him this angry. That I underestimated how big of a deal this is.

Numbly, I step into the office as Dimitri flicks on the light. A warm glow fills the space, illuminating a room filled with dark furniture, from the desk near the large window that overlooks the city beyond, to the tall bookshelves, to the chairs near a bar cart on one side of the room. A thick rug is in the center, stretched over the gleaming wooden floor, and the heels of my boots sink into it as Dimitri closes the door behind us, flicking the lock with aclickthat makes my heart drop all over again.

The room suddenly feels too hot, and I unbelt my coat, sliding it off and dropping it onto one of the nearby chairs. Dimitri’s eyes track my movement, his jaw still clenched so tight I have half a mind to tell him it might stay that way if he keeps it locked any longer, but I bite back the words. I shouldn’t bait him right now. I shouldn’t say anything exceptI’m sorry, and I’m not sure even that will be good enough.

Dimitri walks past me, stopping just in front of the desk. He pushes one of the chairs in front of it to one side, then the other, leaving a space just in front of it, the top of the desk almost bare except for a few books and papers neatly stacked to each side. There’s a large expanse of gleaming, bare wood, and I frown, unsure of what’s going on.

“Dimitri?” I venture again, and he gestures to the desk, his hand dropping, for some reason, to the buckle of his belt.

“Bend over the desk,” he says, his voice still flat, and my eyes go so round that I feel like they might pop out of my head.

“What?” I don’t understand what he’s saying. Nothing about the request makes sense, unless…

No. That’s not possible. He can’t mean…

Dimitri tugs his belt free with the sharp sound of leather against wool, and folds it in his hand. “You disobeyed me, Evelyn,” he says evenly. “You knew you shouldn’t go out alone, and you did it anyway. It’s clear to me that explaining the danger you’re in isn’t enough. That my requests for you to take the situation seriously aren’t enough. That everything I’ve done for you so far, isn’t enough. So we’re going to do this differently.” He folds the belt over in his hand, and my mouth goes dry. “You’re going to take down your pants, bend over that desk, and I’m going to punish you. And when I’m finished, hopefully, this lesson will stick.”

I stare at him as if, at any second, he’s going to laugh, astonished that I believed him for even a second. But his face remains impassive, and irritation flickers through his eyes, as if he’s tired of waiting for me to obey him.

“Evelyn.” His voice is a warning, and with a flare of panic, I realize he’snotjoking. “Bend over the desk. I won’t ask again.”

“No.” The word flies from my lips, and I shake my head, taking a step back. “No. What the fuck? Absolutely not. I won’t—” I can’t even think of how to finish the sentence, this is all so ludicrous.

Dimitri doesn’t so much as flinch. “Then leave,” he says evenly. “But if you walk out of those doors, Evelyn, we’re done.”

17

DIMITRI

Ican see the shock in Evelyn’s face. Of course she’s shocked. I can’t imagine she ever thought the day would end like this, when she decided to sneak out without her bodyguard.

But I meant everything I just said to her. It’s clear she doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. It’s clear that talking to her, trying to explain things to her, has done nothing.

So I’m going to get my point across in a different way. A more old-fashioned way, one that I know she thinks is barbaric, from the way she’s looking at me and the folded leather in my hand. But if words won’t work, in my experience, then punishment does.Disciplinedoes. And Evelyn is badly in need of discipline.

I will myself not to think about how she’ll look bent over that desk. About how I’ve never seen her creamy, perfect ass bare before, and in a few minutes, I just might. I can’t think about any of that, because if I do, I’ll be painfully hard in seconds. And this isn’t about desire. It isn’t about sex.

It’s about making sure Evelyn understands the consequences of her actions.

---