Dimitri cries out, ripping my attention to him as the bulldog drags him away. “Let her go.”
“Dimitri!” I struggle to free myself of my captor. He’s too strong, gripping my arm tighter until I wince. The woman’s hand comes down on mine, startling me. It is soft and supple. She has never done an hour of real work in her life.
“I promise he won’t be harmed,” she says, her voice like honeyed poison. “If you don’t want me to go to the police and tell them of your little scam, then you’ll give me two minutes of your time.”
Two minutes.
I feel the gravity in her request, the unseen weight. I sense these two minutes have the potential to affect everything.
“I won’t leave her alone with you.” Dimitri elbows the man holding him, causing a grunt to burst from him. He’s almost free.
“Stop!” I cry. “Let me hear what she has to say.”
A flash of betrayal thunders across his face. He doesn’t try to hide it. He’s never been good at hiding how he feels. “Alena—”
“Just two minutes, Dimi,” I say in that soft voice I know brings him to his knees. “Please.”
Dimitri’s eyes are fixed on me, his dark brows furrowed in disapproval. “I don’t trust her.”
“I don’t either. But I don’t want us to end up in jail.” I’m not entirely truthful. I am desperate to know what the woman has to say. The way she said that I had potential makes me…hopeful. She’s the only one who’s ever seen anything more in me except for Dimitri. I can feel her gaze on me. She seems pleased. It might be my imagination.
I know I’ve won when Dimitri’s shoulders fall. “Two minutes.” He glares at the woman and repeats himself. “Two minutes, or else I’m coming back in here for her.”
Dimitri shrugs out of the bulldog’s grasp and storms out of the hotel bar. The hair on my neck stands on end the way it does when I know he’s looking at me. When I look over my shoulder, he’s glaring at us through the front windows as he paces back and forth, the night wind whipping his hair around.
The bodyguard releases his grip on my arm, moving to stand at a respectable distance away at the end of the bar. So does the other bulldog. I am left with her.
Her eyes have not left my face, a smile toying at the corner of her lush, painted lips. “Alena, is it? You look young. Eighteen? Nineteen?”
“Eighteen,” I lie. I don’t want to get into any more trouble for being underage. “You said I had potential. Potential for what?”
“My name is Isabelle. I manage an agency. An international agency with offices worldwide.”
I straighten. “A modelling agency?” Models make money. Real money. They’re clothed and adored and everybody loves them. Could I be a model? I always thought I was just an inch too short.
“Something more…exclusive than modelling. Tell me, Alena, are you a virgin?”
“Y-you can’t ask me that,” I stutter, my cheeks growing hot.
Her smile widens even further. “I thought so. How sweet.”
Sweet? She’s mocking me. I’m so flustered that I can’t speak.
Isabelle looks over my shoulder, where I know Dimitri is still watching us. “Then I take it he’s not your boyfriend? Despite how much he wants to be.”
Boyfriend? Boyfriend feels like such a juvenile word to describe what Dimitri and I are to each other. I don’t answer her question. “What do you want?”
She smiles, her perfect red lips parting to reveal a set of straight white teeth. For some reason, they look wolfish. “I have an offer for you that will change your life.”
5
____________
Alena
The present…
I close the box, my breath shuddering through my teeth, my lungs feeling shredded.
Enough.
That’s enough of these sharp memories right now.
I fold each thing back into the cavity and lock the box, slipping the key back into my locket and hiding the locket back under my clothing. I stand at the side of my bed, about to bend down to slip it back out of sight, when my door bursts open with a bang against the wall.
“Alena,” Emily’s high-pitched voice calls as she bounds into my room.
I quickly slip the box onto my side table, hoping it’s camouflaged among the elaborate vintage lamp and small pile of books I’ve borrowed from the manor library. I’ll have to tuck it away later.
I turn towards Emily. She looks like her father, the same straight chestnut hair, milk-and-cream skin, same deep-set grey eyes. Except her face is