Her scent reaches me then. Soap from some cheap hotel. Cold air. Something faintly sweet under it. Not perfume. Her. It drags through me with more force than it should.
I keep my hands at my sides.
“You marry me,” I say, “and the debt disappears. No collectors. No threats. No men waiting outside his house. Your father lives.”
Her throat moves as she swallows. “What do you offer me?” she asks.
I look at her. “I already did.”
Anya shakes her head. “No. That was for my father. The debt disappears. His life is spared. His mess is cleaned up. What about me?” For the first time since she entered my study, her voice doesn’t shake. She’s angry enough to think clearly now. “Isn’t this supposed to be a marriage of convenience?” she asks. “Where is my convenience?”
Bruised wrist. Tired eyes. Chin lifted. A woman dragged through humiliation, fear, and blood, still standing in front of me demanding terms.
Dmitri was a fool.
“You want terms?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You get protection.”
She laughs once. “That is still survival. I asked what I get.”
“You get my name.”
“I had a Volkov name waiting for me two weeks ago. It didn’t save me from being made a fool.”
“No,” I say. “Because it was Dmitri’s.”
Her mouth tightens.
There it is. The wound. Still open. Still bleeding.
“You want something for yourself?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Then I will give you Dmitri’s humiliation.”
She goes very still.
I stop in front of her. “When this marriage happens, he will watch you stand beside me. He will watch the city whisper that his bride ran from his altar and chose his brother instead.” My voice lowers. “He will wonder if you think of him at all when you share my bed.”
Her breath catches.
Not fear. I see the difference now. I can see it in the way her eyes flicker, in the way her lips part before she presses them shut, in the way her body goes tense but doesn’t move away.
I’m too close. I know I am.
I tell myself I’m testing her. Testing her nerve. Her anger. Her capacity to understand what this marriage will mean.
That’s the lie I use to take one more step.
“He will understand,” I continue, “that he had you and was stupid enough to make you run.”
Her eyes flick to my mouth.
Her back hits the edge of my desk. She doesn’t move away.