Page 38 of Ruby Malice

I shrug. “Apparently.”

“And you two are full siblings? Blood related and all that?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because you don’t know how to keep your opinions to yourself,” he says. “If you were married to a guy like that, he’d never hear the end of your bitching.”

I laugh. “First of all, I’d never marry a guy like that. Money doesn’t mean anything to me. I want love. Passion. My sisters were more concerned with the size of their diamonds.”

The car slips into silence so long that I look over and find Kirill watching me.

“What?” I ask.

“Passion.” The word sounds dirty coming from his lips. “Is that what you want, Rayne Garner?”

The car suddenly feels small. Stifling. I’m overheating and buzzing, and my brain doesn’t seem to be sure if I should dive through the window or lean across the console and let Kirill show me what passion looks like. I’m sure he’s capable of it.

But I’m not sureIam. I might not survive Kirill Zaitsev. My stony heart has taken on too much loss already.

“I want a shower,” I blurt suddenly. I grab the door handle and throw it open, letting in a rush of fresh air. “And a nap. I’m exhausted.”

The amusement is back in Kirill’s eyes. “As you wish,printsessa.”

“Thanks again for the ride.”

“I was heading this direction anyway. Otherwise, you’d be on the bus.”

“Okay, well, then never mind. Thanks retracted.”

I climb out of the car and walk inside, conscious of his eyes on me the entire time. And it’s only when I’m safely behind my front door that I remember Kirill was driving in the opposite direction when he first saw me walking. He turned around in the middle of the road.

He was only one minute from home and he drove me fifteen minutes in the opposite direction. And I feel my stony heart begin to soften.

“Oh no,” I mumble. “I’m in trouble.”

9

RAYNE

I watch from the window until Kirill’s taillights disappear down the street. Then I walk the brick path from my front door to the back door of my sister’s house. In the laundry room, two pairs of muddy toddler shoes are scattered across the floor and there’s a dirty handprint on the washing machine. I can hear giggling coming from the kitchen.

“Hello?” I call.

“Auntie Rayne!” Lily squeals. A moment later, her little body careens around the corner. Her arms are already open wide. I snatch her up and spin in a circle.

“Lily Pad! Did you have fun at day camp?”

She nods excitedly. “We went hiking and there was mud. So much mud. It was like an ocean.”

“Wow! An ocean of mud?” I sit her down and herd her towards the kitchen.

“So much mud,” she’s still jabbering. “And Brady fell down. He cried, but I helped clean him off. The teacher gave me a sticker for being a helper.”

She points to a star sticker on the sleeve of her t-shirt. It’s barely hanging on and I’m sure Lana’s housekeeper will be sweeping it off the floor tomorrow.

“Wow,” I remark. “That’s incredible.”

“I didn’t cry!” Brady argues. He’s sitting on the island, his socked feet dangling. There are two different colored bandages across each of his knees. “But there were bugs in the mud and Lily said they were going to eat my legs.”

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