I’m here.
I shake my head and flip the tissue paper back.
“Oh, god.”
It’s a prayer to no one, because no one can help me out of this situation. This situation where Leo Morelli or one of his staff has left a box with a lingerie set outside my room.
The message could not be clearer. This is what he expects me to wear.
My skin flushes hot, then freezes. I want to climb back into the bed and stay there for the next twenty-nine days. I’m guessing that’s not on the table, so I stalk away from the box on the bed and go into the bathroom.
There’s only so long a girl can spend showering and drying her hair and meticulously brushing her teeth. Leo—or his sister, I guess—has stocked the bathroom with everything I could need, and in more expensive versions than I’d ever buy for myself at home. I hate myself more than a little for enjoying the oversized shower with a million settings and the conditioner with the most delicate scent and the hair dryer that’s both more powerful and quieter, which should be impossible.
When all of that is finished, when I can’t possibly spend another minute applying lip balm, I go back out into the bedroom. The box waits for me there. It taunts me with all the questions I’m forced to confront.
Like—what the hell am I supposed to do now? Put it on, obviously, but then what? Is he going to come approve it, or do I have to seek out Leo Morelli wearing only lingerie?
I take several calming breaths and consider my options. I could call for Mrs. Page with the remote, but that would mean showing her the box and asking her what to do with it. I could put it on and walk downstairs and pretend I’m not embarrassed.
In the end, I go with door number three—wearing my remaining clothes for the second day in a row. The clock on the bedside table says it’s almost two in the afternoon.
“Miss Constantine?” There’s a brief knock at the door, and then it cracks open. “It’s me.”
“Hi, Mrs. Page.”
“Mr. Morelli is having lunch in the dining room. He’d like for you to join him.”
“That sounds great. I’m hungry.” I go to the door and throw it open, daring her to comment on the fact that I’m dressed in yesterday’s outfit. Mrs. Page’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and then her face is placid again. “Could you show me where the dining room is?”
The dining room is down on the first floor, roughly underneath the hall with the guest rooms. Mrs. Page takes me to the door and not a step further. “Go on in,” she prompts, and then she leaves me standing there.
I go in.
It’s a smaller dining room than I was expecting. It has the same elegance as the rest of the house—same high ceilings, same paneled walls—but this is a space built for intimacy. Two dove gray chairs gather near a fireplace on one wall, and a sideboard takes up the other. A silver tray with a matching coffee server and a carafe for cream rest on the sideboard. It’s airy in here. Comfortable.
Leo sits on one side of a table made for four people at most, a book open in front of him.
Winter light streams in from the window behind him, throwing all his features into sharp relief. My heart speeds up. He was unbelievably beautiful in the firelight, and the daylight on his cheekbones makes my breath catch.
He looks up from the book and laughs, cruel and short. “Is this how you intend to seduce me?”
“It’s how I intended to eat lunch. I’m not sure how anyone could eat in lingerie.”
Leo stands up from the table. He’s tall. Towering. Dangerous. All things I noticed about him before, but now there are no other distractions. There’s only fresh adrenaline and the ringing knowledge that I made a mistake.
I should have worn the lingerie.
I stand my ground while he prowls over to me, circling me like the wolf I know he is. “Do you not understand the terms of our contract?”
“I understand them.”
He keeps going as if I haven’t spoken. “The terms of our contract include complete access to your body, whenever I want it. And your uniform is at my discretion. I sent you something to wear this morning, and you’re here in this.” He pinches my shirt between his fingers.
“Mrs. Page said it was lunch.” I’m grasping. We both know