Anatoli’s gaze follows her, and his lips press into a thin, angry line. “Feeling a little more docile now?” he sneers.
Alessia says nothing.
He snorts and reaches for their luggage. Alessia glances around. They are in a parking lot in the center of a city. An imposing hotel looms in the near distance. It’s several stories high and lit up like a Hollywood movie with the word WESTIN crowning its façade. Abruptly Anatoli grabs her hand and tugs her toward the entrance. He doesn’t break his stride, so she has to scurry to keep up.
The foyer is all marble, mirrors, and modernity, and Alessia spots the discreet sign: they are in the Westin Zagreb. Anatoli checks them in to the hotel in what sounds like flawless Croatian, and a few minutes later they are riding up to the fifteenth floor in the elevator.
Anatoli has booked them a luxurious suite that is furnished in creams and browns. There’s a couch, a desk, and a small table, and through the sliding doors Alessia can see one bed.
One.
No!
She remains standing, tired and helpless, just within the threshold.
Anatoli shrugs off his coat and throws it onto the couch. “Are you hungry?” he asks, opening the doors of the dresser beneath the TV. Eventually he finds the minibar. “Well?” he snaps.
Alessia nods.
Anatoli motions with his head toward a leather-bound book on the desk. “We’ll get room service. Choose something. And take off your coat.” Alessia picks up the book and leafs through the pages to the in-room-dining section. The entries are in Croatian and English; she scans the selections and immediately chooses the most expensive item on the menu. She has no compunction about having Anatoli spend his money. She frowns, remembering how she resisted Maxim’s attempts to pay….Anatoli has retrieved two small bottles of scotch and is unscrewing the top from each in turn. Yes, Alessia has no compunction at all. She’s a kidnap victim, and he’s meted out enough physical abuse on her body already. He owes her. But with Maxim…the balance was all wrong. She had owed him. So much. Her Mister. She lets him slip quietly from her mind, to be mourned later.
“I’ll have the New York steak,” she declares. “With an extra salad. And fries. And a glass of red wine.” Anatoli turns to regard her with surprise.
“Wine?”
“Yes. Wine.”
He considers her for a moment. “You have become very Western.”
She stands taller. “I would like a glass of French red wine.”
“French now?” He raises a brow.
“Yes.” And as an afterthought she adds, “Please.”
“Okay, we’ll get a bottle.” He lifts his shoulder in a nonchalant shrug, and he sounds so reasonable.
But he’s not. He’s a monster.
He pours both whiskeys into a glass and watches her as he reaches for the phone. “You know, you’re a very attractive woman, Alessia.”
She freezes. What now?
“Are you still a virgin?” His voice is soft, cajoling.
She gasps and feels a little faint. “Of course,” she breathes, attempting to look outraged and embarrassed at once.
He cannot know the truth.
His gaze hardens. “You seem different.”
“I am. I’ve had my eyes opened.”
“By someone?”
“Just…by my experiences,” she whispers, wishing she had never responded. She’s antagonizing a snake.
Anatoli dials room service and orders their meal while Alessia removes her coat and sits down on the couch to watch him warily. When he finishes his call, he grabs the TV remote, switches on the local news, and sits at the desk with his drink. For a while he watches the news, ignoring her, occasionally sipping his whiskey. Alessia is relieved that his attention is elsewhere. She watches the TV as well, trying to understand the newscaster, and she catches a few words. She concentrates; she doesn’t want her mind to wander. It will only wander back to Maxim, and she refuses to grieve his loss in front of Anatoli.
When the program is over, he turns his attention back to Alessia. “So you ran away from me?” he says.
Is he talking about yesterday?
“When you left Albania.” He takes a last swig of scotch.
“You threatened to break my fingers.”
He rubs his chin, thoughtful for a moment. “Alessia…I—” He stops.
“I don’t want excuses, Anatoli. There’s no excuse for treating another human being the way you have treated me. Look at my neck.” She pulls down her sweater, revealing the bruises he left yesterday, and raises her chin, making them conspicuous.
He flushes.
There’s a discreet knock on the door, and with a frustrated glance at Alessia, Anatoli retreats to open it. A young man dressed in Westin livery is outside with a dining cart. Anatoli beckons him in and stands back as the server transforms the cart into a table. It’s covered in a white linen tablecloth and plush place settings for two. There’s a jaunty single yellow rose in a ceramic vase, striving to represent a little romance.
Ironic.
Alessia’s sorrow surfaces, eating at her insides, and she has to fight back tears while the waiter opens the wine. Placing the cork in a ceramic dish, he pulls several plates from a warming drawer beneath the cart and removes their metallic covers with a flourish. The aroma is tantalizing. Anatoli says something in Croatian and slips the waiter what looks like a ten-euro note, for which he seems extremely grateful. Once the young man has left the room, Anatoli summons Alessia to the table. “Come and eat.” He sounds like he’s sulking.
Because she’s hungry and tired of fighting, Alessia sits down at the makeshift table. This is how it will be, a slow, grinding erosion of her will, so that in time she will submit to this man.
“This is most Western, yes?” he says as he sits opposite her and picks up the bottle of wine. He pours her a glass.
Alessia mulls over his earlier statement. If Anatoli wants a traditional Albanian wife, then that’s what he will have. She will not eat with him. Or sleep with him, except when he wants sex. Surely that’s not really what he wants. She stares down at her dinner as the walls of the room close in, suffocating her.
“Gëzuar, Alessia,” he says, and she looks up. Anatoli has raised his glass in a quiet salute to her, his eyes wide, his expression warm. Her scalp tingles. She wasn’t expecting this…honor! Picking up her glass, she offers it in a reluctant toast to him and takes a sip.
“Mmm,” she says, closing her eyes, seduced by the taste of the wine. When she reopens them, Anatoli is watching her, his eyes darkening, and in his gaze she sees a promise of something she doesn’t want.
Her appetite vanishes.
“You won’t run from me again, Alessia. You will be my wife,” he murmurs. “Now, eat.”
She stares down at the steak on her plate.
Chapter Thirty
Anatoli refills her glass again. “You’ve hardly touched your food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“In that case I think it’s time we went to bed.” The tone of his voice makes her look up sharply. He’s sitting back in his chair, watchful. Waiting. Like a predator. He taps his bottom lip with his index finger as if deep in thought, his eyes gleaming. He’s had at least three glasses of wine. And the whiskey. He tosses the remaining contents of his glass down his throat and rises from his seat, slowly. His eyes on her, intense, darker. She’s paralyzed by his stare.
No.
“I don’t see why I should wait for our wedding night.” He steps closer.
“No. Anatoli,” she breathes. “Please. No.” She clutches the table.
He runs a finger down her cheek. “Beautiful,” he whispers. “Get up. Don’t make this hard for both of us.”
“We should wait,” Alessia whispers, her brain churning through her options.