Page 58 of Beautiful Cruelty

Lenka's words about Vadim’s mother echo in my mind:hers was the saddest and cruelest story these walls have seen. Coming from someone who's been here for decades, that has to mean something.

The luxury all around me feels like a thin veneer over darker truths. I shift on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position for my ankle, but I can't.

Like everything else in Pankration, the beauty masks a deeper pain underneath.

And something tells me Vadim's story is much darker than anything I can imagine.

There's real horror lurking in these halls, written in the tension of his shoulders in that dining room.

What happened here? What happened to his mother?

I shift against the silk sheets and shut my eyes, but it's no use. Every time I close them, I see Vadim looming over me. In Nathan's apartment. In the woods. On that table. I canfeelhis powerful body pinning mine beneath him.

The memory of his weight sends an electric current through my body.

Stop it, I scold myself.

But my body betrays me, remembering how his powerful hands felt on my bare ass, how his cock had pressed between my legs. The raw desire in his storm-gray eyes...

I squeeze my thighs together, trying to quell the ache building there. This is ridiculous. I'm supposed to be his fake fiancée, helping him steal some bible from a cathedral.

Not fantasizing about him taking me where he wants, when he wants.

But God, I want him to.

And I know he does too.

There's no way he didn't feel it. The current crackling between us, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife. Every time his eyes drill into mine, I see the same hunger staring back at me.

How can I prepare to walk away at the end when just being near him sets my body and blood on fire?

I swing my legs off the bed, wincing at the throb in my ankle. Sleep isn't coming anyway, not with my mind racing and my body still humming from Vadim's proximity at dinner.

The dress form stands in the corner with its half-finished alterations. My fingers itch to work, to lose myself in the familiar rhythm of needle and thread.

I ease myself onto the chair beside the dress form and pick up my needle. My hands move automatically, adjusting the drape of the bodice. The neckline needs to be lower, more daring. Would he like it? Maybe…

I stab myself with the needle and curse under my breath. "Fuck!"

This is temporary, I remind myself. We'll go to Paris, get the bible, and then...

My breath catches. Then what?

If he asked me to stay after Paris... If those storm-gray eyes looked at me with that same intensity and he told me he wanted more than an arrangement for a ruse…

Another pricked finger. Another muttered curse.

I press my palm against my racing heart. I should say no. Iwillsay no.

Won’t I?

The scary part is, I'm not sure anymore.

17

VADIM

I pouranother glass of whiskey, watching the amber liquid catch the dim light. The burn of alcohol does little to erase the memory of what I almost did to Lacey before her question about my mother stopped me.

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