Page 24 of Filthy Promises

The hunger of someone who’s been told “no” their entire life.

The stubborn refusal to accept that the world is designed for them to fail.

The desperation that’s both a weakness and the greatest weapon they could ever wield.

I tap my finger against the glass, leaving a smudge I know will drive the cleaning staff crazy. “Rowan St. Clair,” I say aloud, savoring her name on my tongue again.

It tastes different now than it did in the wake of last Friday’s encounter. More flavor, more nuance, morepossibility.

My phone buzzes on the desk, and I see my father’s name flash on the screen. I ignore it and shove the device away.

Andrei doesn’t need to know about this yet. I already gave him conniptions with the vague hints I dropped in our meeting in his study. If he found out the full extent of this madness—that I was considering a nobody from marketing as the solution to my marriage problem—he’d have a fucking aneurysm.

I return to my chair, lean back, and close my eyes. The image of Rowan’s face when I told her I knew about her crush flashes in my mind.

Pure mortification. Like I’d reached into her chest and ripped out her still-beating heart.

The truth was that I didn’t know a damn thing. But I know the look of a woman drowning in lust. And Rowan? She was ten thousand leagues under the ocean. Fucking wallowing in the Mariana Trench of desire.

I can use that.

I press the intercom. “Diane, come in here.”

Seconds later, my elderly gatekeeper enters, notepad in hand. “Yes, Mr. Akopov?”

“What do you make of her?”

To her credit, Diane doesn’t pretend not to know who I’m talking about. “Ms. St. Clair seems… earnest.”

“And?”

“And terrified.” Her mouth twists into something that might be a smile on anyone else. On her, it looks like she’s passing a kidney stone. “But she’s got something behind her eyes that the others don’t.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Which is?”

“Desperation, sir.” Diane taps her pen against her notepad. “The kind that makes people either spectacularly loyal or dangerously unpredictable.”

I nod slowly. As always, Diane sees what I see. She’s been with the Bratva for a long time. No one knows more or reveals less than her.

“I want her vetted thoroughly. More than the standard background check. I want to know everything about her—her mother’s medical history, her spending habits, her sexual history, who she talks to, where she goes, what she eats for fucking breakfast.”

Diane doesn’t even blink. “Already on it, sir.”

“And get someone to follow her home tonight. Discreetly.”

“Of course.”

“That’s all.”

As she turns to leave, I add, “And Diane? Let’s keep this between us for now.”

She gives me a knowing look before slipping out the door, as if to say,Do you think I’m fucking stupid?

I pull Rowan’s file closer, flipping it open to stare at her photo again.Those eyes.They remind me of someone, and it takes me a moment to place who.

My mother’s, in the photographs taken when she first came to America. The only mementos I have left of her, from back when she still believed in fairy tales and happy endings. Before she learned what kind of man she’d married.

Before she realized that survival sometimes meant doing terrible things.

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