Page 126 of Cruel Demands

TAYLOR

It’s only eight thirty in the morning when Mikhail tells me that he wants me to move in with him.

A sharp inhale sends my coffee down the wrong pipe, and it blisters all the way down. He offers me water, and I shake my head, but when I’m done choking, he doesn’t take it back. “Um, doesn’t that seem a little early? I mean, I only just⁠—”

“Just temporarily,” he says calmly, and he gestures at a folder on his desk. “For security. Orlov has learned about you. We knew it was a matter of time.”

I close the report. “Why would Orlov care about me?”

“Because I care about you,” he says, the answer so plain. Like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. My mind flashes back to that time, to the unwinding we did together, to him saying I have you while he looked me in the eyes and I came around him, afraid of what it might feel like, vulnerable on the edge in front of him.

I open the folder and try to keep my face neutral. Looking back at me are photographs of a man I recognize from my research into Viktor Orlov. He appeared in enough photographs beside Orlov that I remembered his face, always a few steps behind him, always looking bored. In these photographs, he’s sitting in a car on the street by my apartment while I take out the trash, on the street by the grocery store I shop at while I’m arm in arm with Anya, outside the bar I frequent while Dima and Viktoriya and I twirl each other down the sidewalk.

This man has been watching me for a while, figuring out everywhere I go, waiting for the perfect moment.

He hasn’t found it yet.

I close the folder and look up at Mikhail. I slide it toward him. “So, you haven’t stopped surveilling me either, then,” I say quietly.

The breath he exhales is heavy and long, and I see concern so tender etched into his face that I forgive him instantly. “No, I have not. I am sorry.”

I shake my head and look at my fingers in my lap. “It’s okay. But I can’t move in with you, Mikhail, not even temporarily. I don’t want to. I don’t want your guards and your rules.”

“You are in danger.”

“And moving into your house would make me safer? Or easier to supervise?”

“Both.”

At least he’s honest.

“I guess you’ll have to kidnap me again,” I snap and stand up, snatching the photographs from his desk.

His jaw tightens. “You would really prefer to remain in an apartment with a broken exterior camera and one lock than to be with me?”

Phrased that way, it sounds so sad that I almost relent. Almost. “I would prefer to remain in my home where I am in charge.”

His voice drops. “You are moving tonight.”

I open his office door and from the doorway I say, loudly enough that heads turn, “No.”

If he could tie me up with just his eyes, he would. He growls, “We will discuss it later.”

“We just did,” I say happily and close the door on him.

I leave work at six with one of Mikhail’s drivers trailing me. I notice the car after two blocks. Black sedan. Slow enough to match my pace. I call Mikhail. “You’re following me.”

“I am not in the car.”

“You know what I mean. Make him leave.”

“No.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

I hang up. The sedan follows me all the way home. Anya is sitting on the sofa when I enter, eating cereal directly from the box and watching something on her laptop. “Some guy came looking for you,” she says.