Page 32 of Lethal Devotion
“Have you ever been to a spa before?” Valentina asks as we go inside, and I shake my head. She gives me a bright smile. “You’re in for a treat.”
It smells like eucalyptus and lemon inside, the air cool and fresh, everything sleek and marbled grey and white, with soothing musicplaying. The staff all speak in hushed tones, and when Valentina gives them her name, we’re immediately swept away to a private suite.
I realize, as we’re taken to a bamboo-lined room and left to change into the plush robes hanging on the wall, that this is normal for Valentina. She moves as effortlessly through the space as she does in her own home, and I watch her covertly, doing my best to mimic whatever it is that she’s doing. I have no actual idea what the protocol is here or what it is that I’m supposed to be doing.
The next few hours are the most blissful of my entire life. We’re taken into separate rooms at first, where I’m asked to lay down on a warm stone table. I have no idea what services Valentina booked, but they involve me being scrubbed down with what I’m told is a fig-infused olive oil salt scrub, rinsed with bowls of warm water poured over my body, then coated with a thick mud mask from head to toe that makes my skin feel tight all over, then impossibly soft when it’s washed away. I’m massaged with hot stones, given a facial that makes my face feel cleaner than I think it has in my entire life, and then rubbed down with a rich, velvety body butter that smells like honey.
After that, scrubbed and rubbed to within an inch of my life, I’m returned to Valentina, where I find her sitting at a manicurist station. I sit down next to her, and the woman sitting on the other side asks me what I want.
I go completely blank. “I—” I look over at Valentina, and she smiles.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Mint green,” I say quickly, and she nods.
“Do short kitten nails. Mint green. Those will be manageable enough with your son, but still make you feel good. Matching toenail polish.”
The manicurist starts in on my hands, and I glance over at Valentina. “Do you do this very often?”
She shrugs. “Maybe once or twice a month, now? I didn’t use to go as often. Work kept me busy. But Konstantin likes me to be pampered, and I have to admit, it is nice having more time to myself. Although I havetoomuch of it, now.”
“What kind of work do you do? Or did?” I ask curiously, and there’s a sudden pause as I see something guarded flicker across her expression.
“I used to be more… involved in the business,” she says finally. “But since the pregnancy, I've stepped back."
I can hear the sudden tension in her voice, the caution as she chooses her words. I’m not so innocent that I can’t pick up on what she’s not saying. She used to be part of Konstantin’s business. The same kind of thing that Damian is involved in. Violence and blood.”
“Do you miss it?” The question comes out before I can stop myself, but this woman is suddenly very much more of a mystery to me, and I want to understand how someone so elegant, so seeminglynormal—or as normal as someone so wealthy can be—could be involved in violent, organized crime. Maybe it will help me understand Damian better.
She laughs, and I can understand why. I asked the question like I was asking if she missed drinking. “Sometimes,” she says after a pause. “Actually, all the time.” I can hear the honesty in her voice. “It was who I was, just like Konstantin and Damian are who they are. But I understand that this is safer, for the baby.”
I bite my lip, my curiosity pushing at the limits of what I know is polite. “Will you go… back to it? After the baby?”
Her mouth tilts up at the side. “Maybe. And I know you must be thinking,oh, but she’s a mother, how could she?Well, Konstantin will be a father, and he won’t change what he does. So I suppose we’ll see.” She pauses. “We promised to let each other be who we are. I don’t think he’ll ever try to make me do things differently, if I’m not okay with it.”
Her answer surprises me, but I don’t pry further. I’m surprised that a man like Konstantin is so open to letting his wife be who she wants to be, but it’s clear that their dynamic isn’t one I totally understand. I think of Damian, who is so cold and reserved, of the violence I saw in the warehouse, of the anger in his eyes last night when he saw me in my robe walking through the mansion. I wonder how tightof a leash he would put me on, if our marriage were more than just words on paper.
I have no idea what it would be like toreallybe married to a man like that. I can’t even begin to imagine it. The truth is, I don’t know who Damian really is, as a person. All I know about him is that he works for the leader of an organized crime family, that he’s a man capable of great violence… and apparently, capable of saving a woman he doesn’t even know.
He could have left me at the warehouse. He could have immediately gone to get an annulment after he found out that I have a child. But he didn’t do either of those things. He took me home, and he gave me a safe place to stay—gave usbotha safe place to stay. And now I’m sitting here, being pampered beyond my wildest dreams, on his dime.
Either he’s a good man, under that cold exterior, or there’s a catch. And having lived the life I’ve lived so far, knowing men the way I do, I can’t imagine that it’s anything but the latter.
Even that thought, though, that I owe Damian more than I can repay and will have to find a way to convince him to let me give him something in return, can’t keep me from enjoying the experience. It’s too pleasurable to let the guilt over how much it all must cost ruin it, and I’ve never felt better or more relaxed in my life. I’m sure the tension will come back, but even with the danger hanging over my head, I feel like years of stress have melted away in a few hours.
When we’re done, my hands are tipped with small pointed nails painted a shiny mint green, and my feet are buffed and smooth, my toenails painted to match. We’re left to relax in the private suite for a little while, with cucumber lemon water and tiny sandwiches, and then we eventually make our way up front to pay, where I feel like all the air leaves my lungs when I hear the total.
Valentina pays her portion without blinking, then whisks me back out to the waiting car. “The hairstylist is next,” she says. “Do you want something in particular?”
I shake my head. I have no idea what I would even ask for. I’ve been cutting my own hair for years, trimming the ends when they started to split, and that’s about all.
“Just trust Marco, then,” Valentina advises. “He’s a genius. The best in the city, I promise.”
I can’t think of any objection. Twenty minutes later, I find myself in a comfortable black leather chair with a slender blond man who walks in circles around me and appraises my hair, only to descend on me with a bowl of color and a pair of scissors.
Two hours afterward, I’m staring at myself in the mirror like I'm looking at a stranger. My hair is the same color but somehow richer, shinier, with subtle highlights that make my green eyes pop. The cut is shorter than I'm used to, but flattering, framing my face in a way that makes me look older, more sophisticated. I bite my lip, wondering if Damian will look at me differently with the new cut. If he’ll like it.
Does it matter?I realize, immediately, how foolish that thought is. My safety relies on him. Of course it matters.
