I stare at the closed door long after Rowan leaves.
Her scent lingers—something subtle, probably drugstore brand, not the nostril-burning designer shit that most women who enter my office wear to impress me. To be fair, she didn’t exactly strike me as a Chanel No. 5 girl.
The green dress, though… that was a surprise.
I expected the nervous little doe to show up in something drab, beige, boring. Instead, she walked in looking like that.
Like she had something to prove.
I stand up and loosen my tie, pacing to the window that overlooks the city. My city. Many men call it that, but only one of them is right.
The rest of them will learn that soon enough.
For now, I’m content to look. The view never gets old—glass towers piercing the sky, the Hudson River carving its way through concrete, all of it just waiting for me to claim my rightful position at the top.
“Fuck,” I mutter to myself.
What the hell just happened? I had a plan. A simple one.
Test the waters. Feel her out. See if she’d be suitable for what I need without showing my full hand.
Instead, I promoted her on the spot. Triple salary. Personal assistant.
Diane’s probably out there wondering if I’ve lost my goddamn mind. Hell, maybe I have.
I run my fingers through my hair. I can feel it fraying, mussing, getting out of place, out of line, out of order. Under normal circumstances, that would drive me fucking crazy.
But none of this is normal.
Not my father’s insane demands.
And certainly not Rowan.
Something about that girl got under my skin. When she sat across from me, spine straight despite her trembling hands, those green eyes refusing to look away even when I stared her down—it stirred something I thought I’d buried years ago.
Recognition.
I’ve seen that look before. In the mirror, twenty years ago.
The hunger of someone who’s been told “no” their entire life.
The stubborn refusal to accept that the world is designed for them to fail.
The desperation that’s both a weakness and the greatest weapon they could ever wield.
I tap my finger against the glass, leaving a smudge I know will drive the cleaning staff crazy. “Rowan St. Clair,” I say aloud, savoring her name on my tongue again.
It tastes different now than it did in the wake of last Friday’s encounter. More flavor, more nuance, more possibility.
My phone buzzes on the desk, and I see my father’s name flash on the screen. I ignore it and shove the device away.
Andrei doesn’t need to know about this yet. I already gave him conniptions with the vague hints I dropped in our meeting in his study. If he found out the full extent of this madness—that I was considering a nobody from marketing as the solution to my marriage problem—he’d have a fucking aneurysm.
I return to my chair, lean back, and close my eyes. The image of Rowan’s face when I told her I knew about her crush flashes in my mind.
Pure mortification. Like I’d reached into her chest and ripped out her still-beating heart.
The truth was that I didn’t know a damn thing. But I know the look of a woman drowning in lust. And Rowan? She was ten thousand leagues under the ocean. Fucking wallowing in the Mariana Trench of desire.
I can use that.
I press the intercom. “Diane, come in here.”
Seconds later, my elderly gatekeeper enters, notepad in hand. “Yes, Mr. Akopov?”
“What do you make of her?”
To her credit, Diane doesn’t pretend not to know who I’m talking about. “Ms. St. Clair seems… earnest.”
“And?”
“And terrified.” Her mouth twists into something that might be a smile on anyone else. On her, it looks like she’s passing a kidney stone. “But she’s got something behind her eyes that the others don’t.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Which is?”
“Desperation, sir.” Diane taps her pen against her notepad. “The kind that makes people either spectacularly loyal or dangerously unpredictable.”
I nod slowly. As always, Diane sees what I see. She’s been with the Bratva for a long time. No one knows more or reveals less than her.
“I want her vetted thoroughly. More than the standard background check. I want to know everything about her—her mother’s medical history, her spending habits, her sexual history, who she talks to, where she goes, what she eats for fucking breakfast.”
Diane doesn’t even blink. “Already on it, sir.”
“And get someone to follow her home tonight. Discreetly.”
“Of course.”
“That’s all.”
As she turns to leave, I add, “And Diane? Let’s keep this between us for now.”
She gives me a knowing look before slipping out the door, as if to say, Do you think I’m fucking stupid?
I pull Rowan’s file closer, flipping it open to stare at her photo again. Those eyes. They remind me of someone, and it takes me a moment to place who.
My mother’s, in the photographs taken when she first came to America. The only mementos I have left of her, from back when she still believed in fairy tales and happy endings. Before she learned what kind of man she’d married.
Before she realized that survival sometimes meant doing terrible things.
I close the file with a snap.
Yes, Rowan St. Clair will need testing. Her loyalty. Her discretion. Her strength. It’s all in question.
Because if she’s going to serve my purposes—if she’s going to wear my ring and stand beside me at board meetings and family gatherings—she needs to be unbreakable.
And if she breaks?
Well, then I’ll know she wasn’t the right choice after all.
I push away from my desk, stalking to the minibar where I pour myself a double shot of vodka. Not the watered-down American shit, but the real stuff—imported from Russia, distilled from grain harvested on land my grandfather’s grandfather owned. Land soaked in blood.
The burn as it slides down my throat reminds me of who I am. Who I’ll always be.
Vincent fucking Akopov.
A monster in a tailored suit.
I never asked for this life, but I was born into it. Like a crown of thorns that cuts deeper the more you struggle against it.
Rowan St. Clair doesn’t know what she just walked into. Doesn’t understand that her life just changed irrevocably the second I decided to keep her close instead of discarding her like I should have.
I’m not a good man. I’ve killed people. I’ve broken bones with these hands. I’ve ordered the destruction of families who stood in my way—and I’ve slept like a fucking baby afterward.
But I’m not stupid enough to think an innocent doe from Marketing with sad eyes and bills to pay is the answer to my inheritance problem.
Or am I?
