Page 60 of Pageant

I was terrified of him.

I was obsessed with him.

Every time he touched me, I was filled with ecstasy and fear. I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t know how to touch him. I was too useless to even betray my husband properly.

“I never gave Elyah anything that he wanted. My affection. My body. My love. He was tormented night and day with nothing to show for his agony.”

I force myself to keep staring at Konstantin and not at Elyah. If I look into my former lover’s eyes and he’s staring at me with hatred, I’ll crumble from the pain.

Konstantin lets this silence stretch the longest, sensing that I’m fighting to keep control of myself. Finally, he asks, “Were you a good fugitive, Yulia Petrova?”

There’s so much time to think, locked in Konstantin’s cages. Waiting for hours outside the judging room. I’ve replayed the night Kirill took me prisoner over and over, and I made so many mistakes. It wasn’t just that I had a gun in my hands and he still managed to overpower me, though that stupidity is salt burning in an open wound. I made my first mistake hours earlier when I spoke up for the Kazakh girl and got us both thrown out of the fashion show. I couldn’t afford to lose money or draw attention to myself, but I’d done both of those things. The Lugovskayas would never have found me if I’d just kept my mouth shut. I was fucked before Kirill ever pointed his blade at me.

“I jumped at all the wrong shadows. I never minded my own business when I should have.”

Konstantin gets up from his chair and walks around the desk toward me. As he saunters, he takes off his jacket and tie and unbuttons the neck of his shirt. He slips his cufflinks off and rolls the sleeves back, taking his time and staring into my eyes the entire time. His shirt sits perfectly on his broad shoulders, and the cotton smells crisp and fresh.

I stand before him with bare feet and tangles in my hair, wearing an ill-fitting dress. He casts a pitiless gaze over me.

“You’re not even a good contestant, Number Eleven. What have you done in your short, sorry life that anyone will remember you for? Will anyone say to themselves after you are dead,I knew a woman once. Beautiful girl. I miss her.”

Pain slices through my guts and my breath shudders in my lungs. How can he be so cruel?

“No one will miss me.” Not evenBabulya, because I have brought her too much hardship and too many sleepless nights. Tears spring into my eyes and I blink them away.

Konstantin captures my jaw and angles my face this way and that, examining the wetness beading my lashes as if it’s diamonds. He wants my tears. He’s feeding off my misery like a soul-sucking demon. “You keep reinventing yourself, and for what? Don’t you crave that the world leaves you alone? Don’t you wish it would all just…end?”

I blink, and hot tears spill down my cheeks. Konstantin draws closer, his face filled with sympathy but his eyes shining with malice. With reverence, he lowers his head and kisses the wet tracks on my cheeks. It’s a gesture that should feel loving or even pitying, but he brands me with his hot lips.This pain? Mine. Delicious.

Konstantin’s kisses trail down my cheeks as his hand slips around my lower back and draws me against him. I reach up to push him away, but he captures my wrist in an iron grip and I’m trapped. His mouth is just inches from mine as we stare at each other, our breaths mingling. The pulse is racing in my wrist where he holds me.

He lowers his head and covers my lips with his in a slow, heated kiss. He groans in pleasure, as if my defeat is the finest wine. He’s totally destroyed me, and now he’s drinking in my devastation. Finally, he breaks the kiss with a victorious smile.

I’ve lost.

He’s won.

I struggle in his grasp. “You’ve made your point. Now let me go.”

“Are you so eager to die at Elyah’s hands? I’m not done with you,milaya.”Precious. He’s making a mockery of me. Hasn’t he just pointed out that I’m precious to no one?

He goes back to his seat and settles against the leather, a smile lighting his plush lips that tells me the fun is only just beginning. “I learned nothing just now that I didn’t already know or suspect. Tell me a secret, Number Eleven. Something you’ve never told anyone before.”

My mouth is tingling from his kiss. “You’ve already heard all my secrets.”

“There must be something you’ve held back. Something you’ve done.” He drops his voice to a murmur. “Something you crave.”

To get out of here alive. For everyone in the Bratva or connected to it to leave me alone forever. I’m not going to be granted that particular wish, so what’s something I could ask for that Konstantin might give me? My eyes land on my passport that’s lying on his desk. I open my mouth, and then I hesitate.

No, I won’t.

I can’t.

What else is there? He might have won this battle, but even though I’m beaten down and exhausted, I’m not ready to concede the war. While there’s life in me, I have to go on fighting.

Choosing my words carefully, I start to speak, keeping my eyes lowered respectfully. “It’s not really a secret.”

“Tell me anyway.”

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