Page 63 of Ruby Mercy

“You did,” Leonid says. “And you’re a man of your word.”

I hang up and toss my phone onto the cushion next to me.

“Was that Leonid?” Rayne asks.

“Careful, maid. I might start to think you’re eavesdropping.”

If she clocks me being a dick, she pretends otherwise. “What did he want?”

I lean my head back on the couch and stare up at the vaulted ceiling. “Chit-chat. We boys just love to catch up on our gossip.”

She sighs, frustrated. “I heard you mention Sasha.”

“Would you like a gold star for perceptiveness?”

“God! You are so—”

I look up, and Rayne is inhaling slowly, eyes closed. Her chest rises as her lungs fill, straining against the thin material of her shirt. Then she releases the breath through her full lips and lets her eyes float open once more.

“I’m so what?” I prod.

She gives me a serene, utterly fake smile. “You are so aggravating. I had to employ some cleansing breaths to get you out of my system.”

“Easier said than done.”

Her smile flatlines into a scowl. “You have no idea. It took years.”

She turns around and gets back to work. But there’s a brittleness to her movement. Franticness. I watch her dust the end tables so violently she nearly snaps her duster in half.

Suddenly, she turns the duster on me, jabbing the fluffy end in my direction. “I’m not going to work in this house while Sasha Lenin is here.”

“What makes you think you have any control over when you work?”

She lays her duster on the end table, freeing up her hands. It’s the equivalent of someone removing their earrings before a fight.

“He. Attacked. Me,” she says, enunciating each word. “In your house.”

“And I handled it. Problem solved.”

I leave out the part about how truly solving the problem the way I’d like to have done it would have involved far more blood and screaming on Sasha’s behalf. Rayne doesn’t need to know just how deep that bloodlust runs. Just how far inside mysystem she is.

“I know,” she sighs. “You did handle it. You responded almost like you were… like we were…” Sighing again, she drags her eyes up to meet mine. “Like you were my boyfriend or something. But I was just a maid. Iamjust a maid.”

I breathe slowly and watch her. I’ll be damned—she really means what she’s saying. After all this fucking time, she still thinks she’s just…

“Let me get this straight,” I say. “You are upset because you don’t think I would have responded the same way if he’d attacked another of the maids working that night. Like Natalia, for instance.”

Rayne blinks at me, suspicion burning in her blue eyes. She nods.

“Then you’re right.”

She frowns. “I’m right?”

“Yes,” I say as I drop the book on the floor and stand up, “you’re right. Because he didn’t just touch ‘one of my maids.’ If he had, I’d have intervened, but there wouldn’t have been a scene. There wouldn’t have been a feud of any kind, much less one that’s lasted five years. But he didn’t just touch ‘one of my maids,’ Rayne. He touchedyou.The fact that he’s still breathing is the nicest thing I’ve ever done in my whole fucking life. If he gets within arms’ reach of you ever again, I can’t guarantee that generosity will continue.”

She gulps, her throat riding up and down. “But all of that happened when you and I were… when we were…”

She chews on her lower lip. I want to run my thumb across the swell of it. I want to kiss her mouth until it’s swollen from my touch. I take a few steps towards her, stopping myself on the edge of the carpet.

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