First message
The carriage ride through the mist-shrouded streets was a familiar shedding of skin. By the time the horses clopped to a halt before the discreet, gilded door, i had already left my household—my wife’s cool cheek, my daughter’s innocent laughter—behind in the fog. I stepped inside, the door shutting with a weighty thud that sealed me in another world. The air was thick with perfume and secrets. A practiced smile touched my lips as Viktor approached, all greasy deference. But my gaze was already sliding past him, searching the dimly lit parlour.
Then i saw her.
She was perched on a chaise lounge, not with the practiced seduction of the other girls, but with a natural, unstudied grace that made my breath catch. She was looking down at her hands, lost in some thought, a portrait of lovely melancholy. The firelight caught the gold in her hair and the faint tremble in her lower lip.
A fierce, hot possessiveness lanced through me. Mine.
I’ll have the new one. The one by the fire