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I smile back at him, but can’t help but to wonder what that really means.

My rest is fitful, but I’d expected as much once I finally made it back to the suite. It was too quiet. Too dark. Then it was too light when the sun came up and I hadn’t closed the blinds.

I’d decided to get out of bed, wash up and dress for the day, packing my tiny bag.

Petrov still wasn’t back.

Then the door had opened, and I nearly fell over with relief, running into the living room and stopping short at the sight of him.

Completely disheveled, tuxedo torn, hair a mass of tangles at the top of his head. For a moment, I think he had some kind of wild sexual encounter, and my instinct is to congratulate him—you know, after chastising him for making me worry. But when his dazed face turns to me, I know sex isn’t what happened to him. He’s submissive, but not into sadomasochism. And this wouldn’t have been a safe encounter, if he was.

He looks like he’d had a run-in with Big Beta Bert.

My lips part, brow pinching as I dumbly stare at him. “Holy shit,” I breathe. Then, my brain kicks back on, and I rush to him, help him sit on the couch, then run to the bathroom for washcloths, finding a first aid kit under the sink. When I return, I kneel in front of him, take his face in my hands to examine the damage.

This close, I see obvious signs of medical care. The butterfly bandages I’d missed from across the room, the glistening ointment on the abrasions. But his face is turning purple almost everywhere, more bruise than skin now.

Then, I do the one thing I’ve always been taught not to. I ask a question of a client.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

Petrov won’t meet my eyes, his head shaking side to side slow. “Got jumped.”

“What?”

“Got care at the infirmary.” He looks at his watch—his very expensive watch, that would have been one of the first things someone who jumped him would have swiped—then gets to his feet. “After I change, we have to leave. We don’t want you to be late getting back.”

And he’s gone, leaving me to gape after him.

The flight back to L.A. was beyond uncomfortable.

Petrov stayed on the other end of the jet, as far from me as possible. I pretend to pay attention to the television, all the while my mind is reeling. Visions of Giovanni’s battered knuckles flash through my mind. The story of this “meeting” that I’d been told by everyone I’d been able to ask.

Except for Petrov.

But really, it doesn’t involve me. Not anymore.

Going back to keeping my head down, back to the status quo of my little life, is now a welcome thing.

When we land and deplane, Petrov stands stiffly on the tarmac in front of two black sedans with tinted windows. He hold his hand out.

“The ring, please.”

“Oh, yeah.” I yank the huge sparkly thing off my finger and place it in his palm. He closes his fist over it and stuffs it in his pants pocket without ceremony. “Do you want the dress, too? It’s at the top of my bag.” I start opening the zipper before he stops me.

“No. The rest is yours.” He gestures to the second car, still not looking at me. “That car will take you back.” He says this just before handing his bag to a waiting chauffeur and disappearing into the back of the first car without another word.

A different chauffeur gives me a happy smile before taking my bag for me, and leading me to the back of the other car, which he opens for me to slide in.

Everything has changed. The energy, Petrov’s entire personality.

And I have no idea why.

“Sin!”

The shout of my name is the only warning I get before I’m crushed in a bear hug, Matty’s pleasant scent enveloping me as he rocks my body back and forth, my feet dangling just above the floor.

My relief at finding Matty happy and unharmed is overwhelming, and I’m suddenly ready to crash in my bed, all my adrenaline depleted.