Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
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.
“I don’t want to wait. And if I have to fight you, so be it.” He moves suddenly, grabbing her by her shoulders and yanking her upright and out of her seat so forcefully that she knocks her chair to the floor. Fear and anger surge through her body. She twists and kicks, her foot striking his shin and then the table, rattling the crockery and cutlery and knocking over her glass so that it spills the remaining wine.