Page 15 of The Red Room
“Thank you for joining me, Natalia.” Nik tilts his glass in my direction.
I do the same and take a small pull. The wine is better than he hoped. It’s fantastic. If I were on my couch in the comfort of my less-than immaculate loft, I would down theentire glass and help myself to seconds. I smile up at him and refuse the urge to take another sip if not two.
“It’s lovely. Thank you.”
He continues to stare at me while I do my best not to melt like the two candles between us. I’ve never had good posture, but sitting here now, I’m sure it looks like I went to a finishing school. No, I didn’t come from some wealthy family insistent on me having good table manners. I’m sitting as straight as I possibly can in fear of how my body might look in this fucking dress.
After a moment, Nik sits across from me, and although he only glances at my eyes at intervals, he also inspects every part of me visible from the opposite end. Eyes, mouth, body, back to my eyes, and then my brows when I draw them together.
“You are quiet, Natalia. Am I making you uncomfortable?” Sincerity not only smooths over his voice but his expression as well.
“No. Of course not.” Which is true, but he doesn’t need to know how nervous I am just being in the same room as him. Here I am with a man chiseled from fucking stone, and me? Well, I’m doing my best to sit up straight so the dress he bought me doesn’t give a single stomach roll.
“We can go down to the club if you’d like?”
“I—uhm—haven’t done this in a while,” I croak out, a lump of embarrassment forming in my throat.
Nik stands and scratches at the back of his head, almost displacing the band keeping his long hair together. “Me either.”
My eyes shoot open. “You?” He has to be joking. There’s no way he doesn’t have a little black book with dates filling each day of the week. “What about Veronica?” The name itself is enough to taste venom mixing with the wine I can’t get enough of.
He sighs. “Being the owner of a club like this comes with its own curses.” Another pull from his glass and Nik hunches over the chair, his shirt gathering at his shoulders and arms.
“A rotating door of the most beautiful women in LA? Yeah, cursed all right,” I scoff, fighting the urge to roll my eyes.
Nikolai laughs, and I hate what the sound does to me. “Women who all look alike, and worse than that, they all look atmethe same way. They don’t ask questions outside of what kind of car I drive or if my house is in the hills. Veronica was no different. I noticed it with how she treated you.”
What did we used to call you back then, Natalie?My skin writhes at the thought. She didn’t bring it up like it’d be some fun trip down memory lane. She did it to humiliate me one more time ten years later, in front of Nik, no less. And somehow, he caught on to what she was doing. He knew she was just another snake in a Versace dress.
He stares at me deeply. “Veronica is no longer in the picture. Hasn’t been since I realized she was no different from any of the so-called tens entering my club.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Kind of convenient.”
“The only thing convenient for me was meeting you,” he counters.
Blush creeps up my cheeks and heat radiates from the tightest parts of the dress to my neck. I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know if I should say anything. It’s the way he stares at me. Into me. Those eyes like spotlights highlighting every bit of my soul to be seen.
He takes a swig from his glass, finishing off the last bit. “What are you thinking?” Nik tilts his head curiously.
Rip open your shirt and jump your fucking bones?I press my lips to a thin, uneven line. There’s a lot I am thinking about, some require clothes while the rest … do not. I sit thereand hope besides being unnaturally attractive, he also isn’t a mind reader as well. “Hmm?”
He places a thumb and finger on his chin, inspecting me. “Is something wrong?” The glow in his eyes dims, and defeat takes over his normally confident features.
Don’t say anything stupid. Don’t say anything stupid.I chant it like ten Hail Marys in the silence of a confessional booth.Sit up straight. Nod. Smile.
Nik stands upright and sighs. I take it back, this is the sound I hate because of what it does to me. That disappointed gust of breath leaving his round, irresistible lips.
“I tend to go a bit overboard without thinking. Forgive me. This all might’ve been a bit much to start out with. I’ll have Yuri bring the car around to take you home.”
What in the fuck am I doing? I am ruining this. I have to do something. I have to say something. But everything that pops in my head is more idiotic than the last. Nik takes his glass and the bottle to the kitchen island and turns, his gaze landing on mine still half-finished. My insides scream at me as he nears.
“When’s the last time you cut your hair?” I blurt, my voice near the point of cracking.That’s the best you could come up with? What are you going to ask next, Natalie? What shampoo he uses?
Nik’s mouth lifts into a smirk. “It’s been a while. Five years I think.”
“Around the time you came here from Russia?” I did my homework the way any rational adult would before agreeing to a date. At least, I thought I did at the time. Then, my small peek into his life morphed into an all-out stalking festival. The admission fee was six less hours of sleep, and I might’ve looked up every single Nikolai Vostik on social media. There are quite a few accounts, but none belonging to the man staring back at me. The small amount of information I could find cost $4.99,and I think it gave my computer a virus. Was it worth it? I’m still trying to decide.
“Natalia, have you been checking up on me?” he asks playfully, his grin now lifting both sides of his face.