Page 22 of Poisoned Vows

“You’re hurting me by keeping me here. By touching me when I don’t want you to. By making me marry you.”

“Don’t you? Want me to, I mean.” His voice lowers, like smoke wrapping around me, seductive over my skin. Reminding me of how he touched me in his father’s study. How he tapped his finger against my clit, and I was wet for him in an instant.

Ihatethat he’s reminding me of that. I hate him for it.

“Fuck you.” I stare down at my soup, my appetite gone.

“You will.” His voice keeps that same silken tone. “But not until we’re wed.”

“Why?” I look up at him. “Why not do it right now? Why not just bend me over and fuck me while your servants bring the main course? You could even eat dessert while you do it, if you can last that fucking long.”

Nikolai lets out a sigh, as if I’m being a petulant child. “There’s no need to make this harder, Lilliana.”

“Fuck you,” I repeat and drain my glass of wine.

He goes silent, and it drags out for several long minutes, interrupted only by the clink of a spoon against porcelain and the sound of wine glasses being refilled. “Did you go to college?” he asks finally, as if none of the preceding conversation happened. As if we’re actually on a fucking date.

“No.” The idea is laughable. My father would never have let me so far out of his sight. Never risked the chance that I might see some boy I liked and let him steal away my carefully guarded virginity. “I had a tutor at home. So I’m not an idiot.”

He ignores that, as if it’s immaterial to him. “Do you have any hobbies?”

“I thought about taking some up, once I could live my own fucking life.” I narrow my eyes at Nikolai. “But no.”

He presses his lips together, and I can see he’s fighting for control again. There’s something stormy in those blue-grey eyes once more, an emotion that I don’t recognize. I wonder if he wants to hit me. I wonder if I’d prefer it if he did, over this manufactured courtesy.

“You’ve barely touched your food.” He gestures at the plate in front of me, the perfectly arranged main course of lamb chops and garlic potatoes, whipped finely with a pool of rich gravy in the center, bordered by roasted vegetables. I’ve never had anything so fancy.

I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of eating it.

“You like the wine.” He looks at my glass. “Eat your dinner, and I’ll refill it.”

I glare at him. “I’m not a child being bribed to eat my dinner with the promise of dessert.”

“Then stop acting like one.” His voice deepens, growing harsher, and I see his control slipping, the brutal man beneath the mask. “You were brought here for a purpose, Lilliana. I have decided what that purpose will be. That is the way this world is.”

“Not the world I want to live in.”

He sighs. “Eat, Lilliana.”

I want to refuse. But god, I’m so fucking hungry. I’ve been hungry my whole life. And the food in front of me looks like heaven.

I don’t think a hunger strike will sway Nikolai. So I eat. He refills my glass, as promised. And when dessert comes, a whipped mousse with strawberries, I eat that too. There’s really no point in fighting it.Maybe if I get fat, he won’t want me.

“Come with me,” he says when the dishes have been whisked away. “The night isn’t over yet.”

Oh, goody.I look at him with an expression that asks him how he possibly thinks that I wouldwantthat, but he ignores it, leading me away from the informal dining room and to the room that my father and I were first brought into to wait for the meeting. Or at least, I think it’s the same one. It’s hard to be sure in this massive house.

The fire is lit, crackling, and there’s a thick, furry rug in front of it with a tray set up on the hearth. I realize that it’snotthe same room—my mind nonsensically remembers that there was no rug in the room we were taken to—and before I know it, Nikolai has led me to the rug and is tugging me down to sit on it next to him, reaching over to the wood and slate tray to uncork the bottle of expensive whisky sitting there.

“Do you like whisky?” he asks, and I look at him.

“I have no idea,” I tell him flatly, suddenly very tired. I see the rest of my life stretching out in front of me, being this man’s wife, and I wonder how long it will take before he gets tired of playacting. Before he comes around to the idea that we’re enemies, and no amount of pretending to be the good guy will ever make me not hate him for taking away my chance at freedom.

“This is an especially good one,” he informs me, pouring a little into each of the cut-crystal glasses. “My father prefers vodka, and I like it too, but a good whisky is a treat. Don’t tell him I said that, of course—he hates the Irish, and the Scots, too, though the latter has never really set up business here, so I don’t know why.” Nikolai hands me the glass. “Notes of peat and vanilla. A little hot on the back of the throat, but it smooths out nicely.”

There’s that seductive note in his voice again as he says it, rubbing over my skin like the wrong side of velvet, and it makes me flush with a heat that I know isn’t from the fire. I resist it, trying to push back. He can force me to marry him, but surely he can’t force me to want him.

There has to be something that’s within my control.

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