Page 13 of Craving Dahlia

Evelyn shakes her head. “It doesn’t ring a bell. There’s one guy on Dimitri’s security who has hair kind of like that, but he’s not even into women, so it definitely wasn’t him.” She laughs. “I think tattoos aren’t specific to a family, though? I don’t know. I’ve never looked at any of the other men’s tattoos that closely. I wouldn’t want Dimitri to shoot any of them, thinking I’m checking them out.” She laughs again, but I’m not entirely sureshe’s joking. Knowing Dimitri and how possessive he is of her, she might not be. And my heartbeat picks up in my chest as I remember Alek’s voice, rough as he put the blindfold over my eyes.

I might even feel like I can’t let you live.

“I can ask Dimitri, though—” she starts to say, and I shake my head.

“No.Godno.” I feel my cheeks burn. “Please don’t. I’ll never be able to come over again if I know Dimitri knows I fucked someone from the Bratva, one of his men or not.”

Genevieve and Evelyn both laugh at that. “It’s probably for the best,” Evelyn says, her expression sobering a bit. “With the funeral coming up for Dimitri’s father, he’s been more withdrawn than usual. There’s a lot to handle. I’ve been trying to give him space.”

“I’m so sorry,” Genevieve says, and Evelyn and I exchange a glance. I know the truth of what happened, but very few others do.

“It was sudden,” Evelyn says, which isn’t a lie. “We’re dealing with it.”

Genevieve takes that as a hint not to ask any further questions, which I can tell Evelyn is grateful for. Dimitri’s father has been gone for over a month and a half now, and his body won’t be what makes up the ashes in that urn. Evelyn swore me to silence, though, and I’ll never say a word to anyone. Dimitri has been spreading the word among his connections that his father faded into the background of the business due to illness—an illness that finally, according to his version of events, claimed his father’s life. Now a funeral is being held, more than six weeks after his father’s actual death, to bolster the story.

“How are you feeling about whatyourfather asked, after the other night?” Genevieve asks, and Evelyn looks at me curiously. I hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Evelyn about it yet.

“I don’t know,” I admit, reaching up unconsciously to rub at the mark Alek left on my throat. I covered it up as best as I could with concealer, but I’m not sure I did that good of a job. I saw Genevieve look at it with a smirk when we sat down.

“What’s going on?” Evelyn asks, and I explain to her what I told Genevieve at Hush—including my father’s threat to cut me off if I don’t agree.

“That’s awful.” She frowns. “I can’t believe he’d do that.”

“I know.” I take another sip of my drink, my appetite fading, but I cut into my eggs all the same. “I wouldn’t have thought so, either. But he’s serious. He thinks it’s time I ‘stopped playing around in New York’ and came home. Did what’s best for the family.”

“Getting a degree in museum science and becoming a curator at the Met isn’t ‘playing around,’” Evelyn says with a snort. “That’s ridiculous. And you’re supposed to give that up so you can go back to D.C. and play politician’s wife?”

“That’s the idea.” I push a piece of salmon into the hollandaise sauce miserably. “I don’t want to marry him. He’s boring in every possible way. How he looks, the things he talks about—I met him briefly this past week while I was home, and he hasn’t improved since I last saw him. Grown up or not, he’s still not someone I want to even spend all that much time around. Let alone marry.”

“Do you think he’d let the two of you live separately?” Genevieve takes a delicate bite of her salad. “If he has so much money, you could just fly home when he needs you on his arm, and enjoy your freedom the rest of the time. Easy.”

“Maybe.” I want to believe that she’s right, desperately. It’s the same thought that I had. But I know men like Jude. They’re proud, and they believe the world kneels at their feet—and that anyone who doesn’t, should. Spoiled, rich boys, not men. He’llwant to feel that he owns me, and that illusion doesn’t include me having my own apartment and life in a different city.

The memory of Alek comes back sharply, flooding my veins with heat. For one night, he treated me like he owned me. He demanded things of me. He didn’t take no for an answer. He made me suck his cock, pinned me against walls, wrung orgasms from my body like they were his right. Demanded that only he get my pleasure for that one night. Fucked me raw and marked me with his cum, even when I begged him to use a condom.

But with him, Ilikedit. He was a man. A brutal, primalman. Jude could never hope to be half of what Alek was.

If I were going to let any man own me, it would be one like Alek.

I shove the thought away the moment it comes into my head, shocked at myself for even thinking it. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m never going to see him again.

“If your father cuts you off, you could come live at the mansion,” Evelyn suggests, but I can see the doubt in her eyes. Dimitri wouldn’t be pleased with it, I know. For all that I know he cares about me like a sister, I’m notreallypart of the family. And his world has rules, ones that sometimes even he can’t break, or shouldn’t. Letting his wife’s best friend just move in, suddenly privy to secrets that can slip past walls and with access to information that should be kept private, would be crossing a huge line. I know Evelyn would fight to talk him into it, but I don’t want her to do that. I don’t want to be the cause of friction in their marriage.

“I’ll figure it out,” I promise her. “Don’t worry about me. I’m going home in six weeks, and I’m going to tell my father I can’t do it.” But even as I say it, I feel doubt slither through me. It’s easy to say here, in this bright New York cafe, with my life all around me. Far away from D.C., and my father’s influence, my bank account still comfortably padded.

But when I think about facing him, telling him no, my stomach quivers. My father loves me, but he’s stern, and I’ve always known when not to push him too far. The idea of telling him no in regards to something he’s said he so firmly wants me to do makes me feel like a little girl again, wanting his approval. Wanting him to be proud of me, not disappointed. He won’t take that no easily. And I don’t want to have to upend my life. I love my apartment, my nights out, my brunches with my friends, my designer wardrobe. I love everything I have here.

I won’t even get to keepthislife if I marry Jude, though. I’ll have to go back to D.C.. So what’s the point, in the end? I should just accept that I’m going to have to finally be on my own, and go from there.

“I’m going to tell him no,” I repeat, more decisively this time. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”

Evelyn and Genevieve just nod, clearly relieved to hear it. But I can feel a ball of ice settling in my stomach, and I wish I could be so sure that it will all work out in the end.

5

ALEK

Idon’t recognize the reflection in the mirror in front of me.

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