Page 72 of Scarlet Thorns

“Have we met before? You seem…” I let the sentence hang, fishing for recognition that might destroy us both.

She tilts her head, studying my face with uncomfortable intensity. “I don’t think so. I would remember.”

Relief and disappointment war in my chest. She doesn’t recognize me without the mask, doesn’t connect the voice or the mannerisms. We’re strangers again, safely anonymous.

But the pull between us hasn’t diminished. If anything, it’s stronger now— raw attraction complicated by shared history she doesn’t remember. I want to cross this kitchen, frame her face in my hands, taste the mouth that confessed secrets to a masked stranger.

Instead, I stay frozen by the sink, drowning in the weight of everything she can never know.

“The guest room is upstairs,” I manage finally. “Second door on the right. Clean sheets, private bathroom. Take whatever time you need.”

“Thank you.” She slides off the stool, movements graceful despite her exhaustion. “Really, Mr. Sidorov. I don’t know how to repay—”

“You don’t owe me anything.” The lie burns my throat. She owes me everything— her father’s life, her family’s peace, the future I stole with a knife between ribs. “Just… be safe.”

She pauses as she moves near me, looking up with an expression I can’t read. “Can I ask you something?”

Dread pools in my stomach like acid. “Da.”

“Why did you help me tonight? Really?”

The question hangs between us, loaded with implications I can’t untangle. Why did I help her? Because she’s my employee? Because stopping assault is basic human decency? Because some part of me recognized the woman who made me feel alive in a room full of shadows?

All true.

None the whole truth.

“I don’t tolerate men who abuse power,” I say finally, the partial truth easier than the whole. “Especially not against women who work for me.”

She studies my face with those sea-colored eyes that seem to cut through pretense. We’re standing close enough that I can smell the faint floral scent of her skin, see the pulse flickering at her throat.

“There’s more to it than that,” she says softly.

The kitchen suddenly feels too small, the air between us charged with something dangerous. Her lips part slightly, and I remember how they felt against mine in that darkened room in Boston, how she tasted of sweet temptation.

My hand moves of its own accord, almost touching her cheek before I catch myself.

She doesn’t step back. Instead, she tilts her face upward, eyes searching mine with quiet intensity. There is somethingin them that’s unmistakable, unspoken but clear in the slight parting of her lips, the shallow rhythm of her breath.

Blyad.

I could kiss her now. Could bridge this gap and taste what I’ve been dreaming of for a year. She would let me— might even welcome it, this strange connection neither of us understands.

One step forward and I could have her in my arms again. One moment of weakness to satisfy this hunger that’s been gnawing at me since Boston.

But I see Igor’s face behind my eyelids. Hear his accusations, his threats, the wet sound of the knife entering his body. Remember the weight of his secrets and mine.

I step back, putting distance between us, watching confusion flicker across her features.

“I should show you to your room,” I say, voice rough with restraint. “You must be tired.”

The disappointment in her eyes is a separate kind of torture. “Of course,” she says.

I turn before I can change my mind and bend her over the kitchen counter.

The universe really does have a fucking twisted sense of humor.

Chapter Twenty-Nine