“You want me to change?” I couldn’t disguise the hurt in my voice. “How?”
“For instance, when I inform you that I’m a former hobbyist, you might mention to me that you are a former escort. Just a thought.”
I rubbed my temples. “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know where it’s coming from.” Maybe he regretted revealing his past. I believed talking to me had eased something in him—but it still would’ve had to hurt, to leave him raw. Was I getting the backlash from that? “Why are you coming at me like this?”
“You shouldn’t have let me believe you were attainable if you aren’t. You let me believe you could be won.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You lied about that and so many other things. You looked people in the eyes, and the words danced from your tongue. You deceive better than a politician.”
My confusion was turning to anger, my foggy mind clearing. “I get your mistrust. I have reasons not to trust others too. But you need to understand something.”
He shot his glass. “Can’t wait to hear this.”
“I have never—from the first sentence I uttered—lied to you.”
The fury in his eyes almost had me shrinking back into my seat.
“I told you never to deceive me! I’ve revealed why I will never tolerate it. Yet you keep doing it.”
“When? Name an instance!”
“I nearly believed you when you told me you had no other man! You met my gaze and assured me you didn’t—yet you told your friend that you were involved with another.”
“What friend?” Had he misunderstood something I’d said over the weekend?
“Last week, I bugged the penthouse for my meetings. I quite enjoyed your conversation with Ivanna.”
I gasped, reflecting over what I’d said. I’d talked to her about the belt, about walking around in this lust-fueled haze, fantasizing about his body. That conversation had been private—and humiliating! My face flushed with embarrassment, which just made me angrier.
“Did you think I wasn’t aware a phone got to you? I allowed it in. Later that night, I listened to the recording.”
“Then you knew I never tried to trap you with a pregnancy! And you didn’t tell me? Just like I thought! You wanted to keep me there—to keep treating me like a deceitful prostitutka! So you could do whatever you wanted with me. You amused yourself with me. You played with me. With my life.”
We pulled up to the hotel. Vasili hurried out of the car around to the door, but then he just stood there.
“Just like you played me!” Sevastyan snapped. “You made me believe you felt something for me. So I decided I would win you from him—I would spoil you, immersing you in my world, while removing you from his. I thought I’d had success until your reactions last night. Now I know that I can’t simply will this to happen. Your heart’s taken. By Edward. You’re in love with him.”
I could feel the blood leaving my face. Sevastyan had said Edward’s name out loud. I had the impulse to cross myself. “H-how?”
“On the plane, you said his name in your sleep! Moaned it!” He knocked back another vodka. “I now know what you sound like when you fuck the man you actually do give a damn about.”
Had I said anything else? The need to run overpowered me. My gaze flitted to the door handle.
“Even before the recording confirmed it, I knew you had another. I knew every time you stared off at nothing that you were thinking of him. When you took that goddamned picture for the escort site, you were thinking of him.”
Sevastyan was right. I had been.
“When you were with me—you fucking moaned for him.” He was about to shatter his glass. “But then you warned me all along, didn’t you? You told me I wanted you more than you wanted me.”
He inhaled, as if to rein in his rage. “All of this is moot. I don’t have to trust you or win you. I merely have to pay you. Shouldn’t we settle accounts before you come up?”
“Don’t do this.” He was breaking my heart.
“Do what? Will a ‘donation’ of fifteen thousand a day suffice? Or twenty?” He popped open his briefcase, revealing stacks of wrapped hundreds. With a snide look, he said, “Perhaps Edward is expecting you to return flush with cash? Do you two have that kind of arrangement?”
Some invisible force was punching me in the stomach, like a fist. It had to be, because I couldn’t breathe.
“Come now, ask me for your payment, little girl.”
When I thought about how close I’d come to revealing to him all my secrets—breaking the rules that kept me alive—I grew queasy. I hadn’t learned the lessons I’d paid so dearly for. “I was planning to tell you everything today, to trust you! Gracias a Dios, you showed your true colors—yet again—before I could say anything. You’re the only one here who’s betraying trust! Go back and review your creepy tapes. I—never—lied.”
Shaking with fury to match his own, I took off my string of pearls and threw it at Sevastyan. “You don’t want me more than you want your old ways. You aren’t ready to cast them aside for me. So I’ve got no time for you. I’m leaving, and this time you won’t stop me.”
In a bored tone, he said, “Enough with the theatrics. You won’t leave.”
“Oh, I won’t?” I nearly ripped my earlobes to get the earrings out. “You are always so wrong about me. Do you know why? Because you have never given me the benefit of the doubt. Not from the first minute I met you. You always expect the worst of me. ALWAYS.” I threw the earrings and almost flung my purse at him but somehow had the presence of mind to stop myself. I’d need what was left of that pin money to get a cab back to my apartment.