“What kind of woman is that?”
“The kind who knows her own mind. The kind who can stand on her own two feet. The kind who doesn’t need a man to survive.”
“And you don’t think that’s who you are?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared that I want a love story too much.”
Nikita raises her thin eyebrows. “Two things can be true at the same time. You don’t have to sacrifice who you are in order to fall in love.”
“Don’t you?” I ask.
Silence steals in between us. I know immediately I’ve said too much.
Nikita Vorobev is not my friend. She’s the mother of the man that abducted me. Shopping sprees, helicopter rides and fancy dinners aside, I am his prisoner.
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you. I just couldn’t walk past this room when I saw what was in it.”
“It’s quite a big library,” Nikita replies. “Feel free to explore it.”
With that, the air shifts. She’s the kind of woman who can end a conversation with merely the arch of an eyebrow.
But we both turn when we hear a voice at the door. “Camila?”
It’s ridiculous how fast my heart rate picks up. My only consolation is that no one can hear it pounding in my chest.
“You’re back,” Isaak says coldly.
“I… Yes, I was heading to my room when I…”
“Ran into my mother?”
I glance towards her. She hasn’t moved or said a word.
“Saw the library,” I correct.
Isaak steps into the room, looking cold and impatient. He looks at Nikita. “Mother, tea is being set up for you on the terrace,” he says. “You should head there now.”
It’s more of a command than a suggestion.
Nikita gives me an enigmatic parting smile and whisks out of the library without saying anything. Isaak steps forward. The door swings shut behind him. I take an instinctive step back.
I should be wary of him. I should want to fight back. Yell. Shout. Scream.
I should be thinking of all the ways I can attempt to escape him.
But all I can think is: if the Beast has a library like this, he can’t be all bad.
Can he?
22
Isaak
Five Minutes Earlier
Lachlan comes to my office as soon as he, Edith, and Cami return from their shopping. I’m already irritated that they’d exceeded the allotted time for the errands.
“Well?” I ask when he knocks and comes in. “How’d it go?”
Lachlan’s got a smile on his face that I’m not sure I care for. “I can certainly see why you married her.”
Bogdan snorts with laughter until I glare at him. “Go on,” I tell Lachlan.
“The first two hours of the trip were… difficult,” he says. “She refused to participate. But I loosened her up.”
I clench my jaw. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
I know Lachlan. I’ve known him for over a decade. We know each other’s history. We’ve fought side by side.
And I trust him implicitly.
Which is why I’d asked him to accompany Camila on this shopping trip outside the Manor. But despite all that, his words make me feel intensely territorial.
The smug Scottish bastard is probably doing that on purpose.
Lachlan shrugs. “Just that we talked. I made her see that enjoying herself was more important than making a point.”
I sit back in my chair. “And did she enjoy herself?”
“Aye, I think so. She’s not thrilled with the general turn her life has taken,” he says. “Can’t blame her for that though, can you?”
“Whose fucking side are you on?”
He smiles. “After today? Hers. Definitely hers.”
Bogdan doubles up with laughter again. I roll my eyes at the both of them. “You two mudaki can sort out the logistics for the meetings coming up,” I say. “I’m going to go find some intelligent people to talk to.”
“Hey, boss?” Lachlan calls to me over his shoulder as I head out of the office.
I pause. “What?”
“All joking aside, I get it now. She’s your perfect fucking match.”
“How do you figure that?”
His grin has a spark of mischief. “She fights back like you do.”
Growling, I leave the two of them in my office. I have other business to attend to. Meetings I’ve postponed. I need to reschedule and get my empire back on track.
The list of people that rely on me are long.
The list of people that are going to be vulnerable if this fight with Maxim breaks out into the open is longer.
But as I pass by the library, I hear voices. I stop, double back, and step inside.
My mother is standing close to Camila, a book in hand. They’re eyeing each other—not angrily or confrontationally, but almost more like two souls who recognize each other’s suffering.
I don’t fucking like it.
“Mother, tea is being set up for you on the terrace,” I say. “You should head there now.”
That’s a lie and she knows it. But she doesn’t argue. She just takes the dismissal in stride and exits swiftly.
I step aside to let her go, then shut the door behind me.
Camila stands in the center of the library. She’s dressed in a high-waisted skirt, a tight black tank top, and a pair of studded flats. Her blonde hair is swept off one shoulder, but falls off the other.
She looks like she belongs here, surrounded by books and sunlight. Before she saw me enter, she’d looked almost… at peace in this space.
Now that I’m here, though, that’s changed. The atmosphere is hot and crackling. Our last encounter is ever-present, reminding us both of the connection neither one of us is willing to acknowledge.
“This is some library,” she says, breaking the silence.
She’s tense. Eyes cautious, spine erect.
“It’s one of the few places in the manor that I’ve left alone,” I tell her. “Even the staircases up to the lofted nooks haven’t been restored. So tread lightly when you’re on them. They creak.”
She almost smiles. “These are all your books?”
“Some,” I reply. “Some belonged to the people who owned this home before me.”
“What were they like?”
“Condescending Brits with a stick up their ass.”
“So only the British part has changed, I guess.”
I smirk, but don’t answer.
“I used to work in a library,” she admits softly a moment later.
I could feign ignorance. But what would be the point? Deception was Maxim’s forte.
Brutal truth is mine.
“I know.”
One of Cami’s eyebrows twitches upward in surprise. “You know?”
“I knew you worked in a library,” I tell her. “You stopped working there a week before you wedding.”
Her jaw tightens into sharp lines. She’s pissed, but she’s trying to contain her emotions. Letting them free hasn’t worked out for her that well thus far.
“You spied on me,” she accuses.
“Not me personally.”
“Oh, of course not. You have your henchman do your dirty work,” she says bitterly. “Was Lachlan the one spying on me on your behalf?”
“No.”
“Bogdan?”
“You don’t know their names. You never will.”