Page 64 of Scarlet Promise

Everyone’s gone.I take a sip of my long-forgotten bourbon.

Anticipation bubbles inside me as I sit back and look over restaurant reviews. I know a lot of them, but I want something different. Something new for both Alina and me.

She’ll be here soon, and I want romantic, small, real.

My eyes latch onto a place called The Place. It’s a family run joint, a hidden gem according to reviews, somewhere most reviewers hesitated mentioning, because while they want it to succeed, they don’t want it to be overrun.

Modern American is the restaurant’s theme, but it sounds like a melting pot of deliciousness and perfection for Alina.

I know her.

She’ll love the place.

I call and book a table for tonight at nine.

I don’t want to think about the Melor situation, because right now, I can’t do anything. Demyan, for all his overreach, is right putting a bodyguard on her, and Zoltan is the perfect choice. In fact, I’d do the same, but that’s a level of trust I won’t give anyone in my bratva. Not yet.

Not after her kidnapping.

I cross to my room and get ready, and I’m pulling on my jacket when her voice calls out.

Of course she can come right in. She still has a key.

When I come down the stairs, I falter as my heart beats wildly.

She’s utterly breathtaking. I go to her and pull her into my arms, kissing her long and deep and hot. She responds like I’ve lit a fuse. I can taste her want, the sultry promise of sex on her, and I almost,almost, talk her into forgetting dinner and taking her upstairs to worship every inch of her.

But I placate myself with the thought of later.

“What’s that look for?” she asks me breathlessly.

“Wickedness.”

Her eyes darken, the gold at the edge of her irises flaring. “Good wickedness or bad?”

“Malyshka, when it comes to you and me, there’s only the good. Just fantasizing about removing your panties with my teeth.”

She turns red. “I’m not hungry.”

I kiss her again. “After dinner.”

“That sounds like a plan. Where are we going?”

I smile. “The Place.”

“If you’re not going to tell me…”

That delights me and I swallow the smile. She doesn’t know it, so she hasn’t been. I’m eager to start fresh memories that are ours. I don’t want to wipe anything else from her, or overwrite anything to do with Max, but new memories that belong to her and me alone are special. I need those. And so does she.

I place my hand at her back, the dark-red silk of her mid-thigh dress shifting under my palm. She’s warm, but I hate how she feels thinner, frailer, her vertebrae more prominent. It hasn’t even been that long since I’ve put my hand here, but maybe it’s the fact that the material is thin, and I’m not focused on pleasing her, on being inside her, that I’m noticing.

Then I take in her pallor.

“We can stay in,” I say.

Her smile is luminous. “No, I want to go out. I’m just… I’m just so stressed, you know? Unwinding will be good.”

So we head out, and I open the door of my car for her.