Like blood.
“Cheers.” He clinked his glass with mine and grabbed my hand, leading me to the couch. We slumped down beside each other, like this was just our regular old life. I took a sip, immediately getting the urge to spit it out. Instead, I swallowed.
“What’s on your mind, Jade?”
God, I couldn’t get over how he pronounced my name.
I shrugged, internally shaking. He was so reserved again—so hesitant, like I was some dainty porcelain doll, threatening to shatter with a touch of a fingertip.
I shut down the thought that was screaming inside me: what was a Bratva manreallylike?
“How much is this bottle of wine?”
Alex swirled the liquid in his glass. “Maybe forty grand?”
“Fortythousand?!Dollars?!” I sat up as if electrocuted, my jaw dropping. “And you just…just opened it?! For no reason?”
“There’s a reason.” His tone was even, like we were chatting about a Snickers bar and not a forty-thousand-dollar bottle of wine. “You’re here and you wanted to try it.”
“No!” I shook my head. “Youaskedif I wanted to try it and then you just…just popped open a forty-thousand-dollar bottle of wine!”
Alex let out a quiet laugh and rested his arm along the back of the couch.
And then he narrowed his eyes on me. Like a predator. He stared, his gaze dark and intent in the dim light.
For the thousandth time, I looked over the tattoos on his forearm, every inch of him delicious to look at.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
I took another sip, noticing the way he observed me swallow. What was he thinking about? What was hereallythinking about?
It fucking exploded inside me: I had absolutelyno cluewho he was, and I’d never seen the real version of him.
“You can be honest. It needs more time to breathe.”
Ineeded time to breathe.
“Was this wine purchased with drug money or theft money?” I settled into the couch at a deliberate distance from him. Thequestion had the expected effect: there was no smile on his face, only ice in his eyes.
“Will it taste different to you if you know?”
I pondered the question. Fuck. Maybe?
There was some kind of metamorphosis happening inside me in this soft and quiet wine room. LikeIwas being decanted.
I jumped to my feet, slowly pacing the room, drinking the wine, and forcing myself to think. To feel. To figure out what was bothering me so deeply.
Alex watched me.
“Who are you, really?” I turned to him, wanting to know who he was immediately. Wanting to know the truth. “Why are you so fucking nice to me? You just told me you’re part of the Russian mafia. And then you went ahead and made lunch. I can’t…It’s not computing inside my head.”
I took another big gulp of my wine just as he abandoned his glass on the table, still sitting there like we were having a nice little chat.
Always pissing me off.
“I am who I am with you. I’m someone else when I do what I do.”
“Pffffft!” My reaction was instant, and so was my anger. “What a lame and evasive answer, Alex.” I scoffed, placing my glass beside his with a loud clink. “You’re either the guy who makes lunches for a girl he likes or blows brains out! So which one fucking is it? Because it’s not both!”