Page 56 of Beautiful Cruelty

"Remember,zvyozdochka," I whisper. "You asked for this."

Her breath catches and she looks back at me. "Is that what Pyotr told your mother?"

Those words send ice flooding into my veins. My hands freeze. The room spins and suddenly I can't breathe.

I flip Lacey over and step back, my hands shaking as I tuck myself back into my pants. The room, despite its immense size, now feels too small as I take sight of everything in front of me.

The smashed plates and glass all over the floor. Lacey sprawled across this table, her dress a crumpled mess around her waist. Her fingers clutch the edge of the table, knuckles white with tension.

All of them remind me of something awful.

Of the endless sounds of torment that once echoed in all corners of this vile mansion. Of the shrieks and tears. Of the way people and things were broken.

Ofhim.

My stomach churns. For a moment, I was about to take her right here on this table. Just like Pyotr would have done.

The thought roils my stomach. I take another step back, keeping my distance from Lacey. Rage builds inside me. Not at her words or what she said, but at how easily I succumbed to my own desires.

At how easily I almost became just like him.

My hands clench into fists as I fight the urge to put them through the nearest wall. To destroy something. Anything. To prove I'm different from him.

But wouldn't that just be more proof that I'm exactly the same?

I've spent years telling myself I'm different. That I'm better than him. That I would never become the monster that he was.

But I almost did.

The defiant spark that burned in Lacey's eyes mere moments ago extinguishes, replaced by something else.

She scrambles to sit up, and yanks her dress back down over her thighs.

The silence between us stretches, heavy and oppressive. A deep flush creeps up her neck—not from desire, but from something else.

“Where did you learn that?”

“Lenka said that your mother?—”

"My mother is not a topic for discussion." I reach for the champagne flute, needing something to do with my hands.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" She swallows hard, those amber-flecked eyes now unable to meet mine.

The softness in her voice catches me off guard. For a moment, I'm transported back, not to the cold day my mother refused to lift a finger as Pyotr ripped me from her arms, but to earlier memories. Faint impressions of gentle hands and a lilting voice singing lullabies in Russian. And a single old picture: the only one in which she ever smiled.

Before Pyotr extinguished that smile forever.

"I thought?—"

"You thought what?" I force myself to meet those amber-flecked eyes. "That you can bat your eyes at me, spread those lovely legs, and make me spill my heart to you? We're not that close, Ms. McKinney, arrangement or not.”

The words hang between us, raw and honest in a way I didn't intend.

I drain the flute with one gulp. The bubbles fizz against my throat, buying time to steady my voice.

"Be ready at nine tomorrow morning," I tell her. "We'll be visiting my jeweler."

"Another ring to get stuck on my finger?” Her attempt at our earlier playful banter falls flat, weighed down by the information of what we just shared with each other.

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