Page 150 of Beautiful Cruelty

THE NEXT MORNING

I tracemy fingers over the angry marks on my thighs, each one a reminder of yesterday. The bed feels too big, too empty without Vadim here. My body aches in ways that should make me recoil, but instead send shivers of desire through me.

What terrifies me most isn't what we just did on the stairs.

It's how desperately I wanted it. How Ibeggedfor it.

I close my eyes but immediately snap them open again. The images are too vivid—my teeth drawing blood from his hand, his tears as he tried to resist hurting me, and the way his control finally shattered.

"You knew," I whisper. "You knew exactly what you were doing to him."

I goaded him, pushed him,madehim hurt me. I forced him to become everything he fears and hates about his father.

After everything I learned about him… I thought I would want to protect him from his own dark past.

Instead, I used it—and him—for my own needs.

I can't help the tears leaking from the corner of my eyes. Deep down, I know the truth.

The monster isn't Vadim.

It's me.

Our time in the shower afterwards proved that. His gentle touches, him asking permission, and his lips tracing over every mark he left in apology. There was a tenderness in his eyes that I didn't deserve.

He made love to me like I was something precious, and not the manipulative bitch who forced him to cross a line he never wanted to cross.

I roll onto my side, burying my face in his pillow. His scent surrounds me—that mix of spice and something uniquely him. The same scent had filled my nose when he held me under the shower spray, whispering praise I didn't deserve as he moved inside me with such excruciating gentleness.

More tears slide down my cheek. I don't deserve his tenderness after what I made him do.

It'snoon by the time I emerge on shaky legs and nothing but a robe, my skin still flushed and tender. My body is still thrumming from the memory of everything that happened yesterday.

The hallway feels too bright, too exposed.

I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold the broken pieces together.

My heart nearly stops when I see Olga waiting in the hallway, face arrayed into an unreadable mask. Her eyes drill into mine with an intensity that makes my skin crawl.

My heart stutters in my chest and fear coils in my stomach.

"Come," she commands in that cold, aristocratic voice.

Every instinct screams at me to run. But where can I go? Defeated, I follow her through Pankration's maze of corridors. My bare feet make no sound on the polished floors behind her. Each step feels like walking to my own execution but I don't dare to stop.

All along us hang paintings of stern-faced men. Their eyes seem to follow me, judging.

She leads me to an ornate sitting room I've never seen before. Heavy curtains block most of the light, and everything is enshrouded in shadows. The furniture looks like museum pieces, nothing but dark wood and deeper shadows.

By the looks of it, nobody's been in here for years.

"Sit." She gestures to an antique chair across from her chosen seat.

I perch on the edge of an antique settee, pulling the robe tighter around myself and feeling small and exposed under her piercing gaze.

She studies me for a long moment, eyes cataloging every inch of my skin. When she finally speaks, each word hammers at my heart:

"Pyotr's bastard raped you."

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