Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (31)

“What did you mean?”

She looks down at her plate. “I have a father,” she says. “And he was around my whole life. He was just…”

“Not the kind of father you wanted,” I say, helping her out.

That seems to strike the right chord. She looks up at me and nods. “Sure. Yeah.”

“I know a little something about that.”

“Who could’ve guessed that you have daddy issues?” she seethes sarcastically.

I pull up my sleeve and brandish my silver scars in her face. “These were some of his gifts to me.”

At once, the feistiness dissipates. “Oh my God!” she gasps. “He… he did that to you?”

I shrug and lower my arm. “He was teaching me.”

“Teaching you what?” she asks incredulously. “How to be a fucking psychopath?”

“Teaching me how to be the leader I needed to be,” I explain. “And it worked. I learned my lessons. I’ve never forgotten.”

“How could you?” she scoffs. “When they’re ingrained into your literal flesh.”

I smile somberly at her outrage. She seems to sober a little. “He’s dead now. So it doesn’t really matter anymore.” I jut my chin at her full wine glass. “You should drink. It’s a Domaine Leroy Aux Brulees from 1993.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“It means you should drink.”

She crosses her arms and leans back in her seat. “No.”

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“Only when my principles are involved.”

“And you have a lot of those, do you?”

“Every person should.”

“You must be lots of fun at parties.”

Her eyes narrow into slits. “Did you force me to have dinner with you so you could fling insults at me all night?”

“I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing.”

“Please—you always know what you’re doing.”

I have to resist the urge to laugh. She’s just as sharp as I remember her. Just as caustic. Just as funny.

There were moments over the last six years when I’d managed to convince myself that I’d idealized our night together. I’d been fascinated with an unknown woman, and before my curiosity had been properly sated, she’d been plucked away.

Of course it makes sense that I’d thought about her since then.

I’d never gotten the chance to get her out of my system.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Like you’re imagining what I look like naked.”

I smile. I can’t fucking help it. She’s more entertainment than I’ve had in a while.

“I don’t have to imagine anything,” I remind her. “I’ve seen you naked.”

The blush is immediate. And it’s as fierce as her stare when she decides she has something to be angry about. She kicks at the table to scoot her chair back. The cutlery rattles angrily.

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Sit down,” I tell her calmly.

“Why don’t you make me? Since that’s what you seem to be into.”

I take a sip of my wine and breathe for a long moment. She’s testing my patience, my composure. She won’t win, of course. But part of me relishes the challenge she presents.

Setting my glass down, I fold my hands on the table and look Cami square in the eye. “Sit down in your fucking seat or I’ll have a dozen men in here at the snap of my fingers to put you there for good.”

She stiffens and gawks for a moment. Wondering just how serious I am. My threat hangs in the air, exactly as ominous as I intended. She doesn’t know that it’s actually an empty threat—sort of, at least.

In truth, if push comes to shove, I’ll sit her ass down and chain her to that chair with my own two hands. I’d never let my men lay a finger on her.

Cami looks deep into my eyes. And what she sees there confirms it. I’m a man of my word.

And she sits.

Good little kiska.

“Was this manor bought from blood money?” she asks quietly.

I resume eating. The lamb is a marvel tonight. “No.”

“But you’d probably wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway, would you?”

“Probably not.”

“That night when we met, you told me you were dangerous. I should have believed you.”

I try not to let the regret in her voice get to me. “You did believe me,” I tell her. “You just wanted me too much to care.”

She opens her mouth as if to argue, but then she turns her attention back to her plate instead.

Her shoulders are forced back, like she’s trying her best to keep her composure and her head. A thick lock of her hair has escaped the messy bun to drape down her back. I imagine collecting that wealth of hair between my fingers again. Bunching it together so that I can steer her from behind.

I’d done it before.

But the memory is somewhat faded now.

I wouldn’t mind a refresher.

“Promise me that you didn’t hurt Eric,” she says, bringing the conversation back around to the beginning.