“Who said that she was my girlfriend, and who said that she was white? You southern Americans are so ridiculous about race,” he scoffed.
“Whatever. It wouldn’t matter if she was the Mother Teresa, I’m not going.”
“Because it would be with me?”
“No, because I wouldn’t be the center of attention.”
“Oh, you’d like to be the center of my attention?” his interest sparked.
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Huh,” Dmitry puzzled. He bit his lips to prevent him-self from uttering one more word.
“So, do you want to look over the numbers again?” she changed the subject.
“No.” Dmitry stood up and kissed her on her forehead. “Since you won’t have dinner with me, I’ll leave you here to make love to your boxes,” he rubbed her back. “Good night.”
“Stop pouting,” she yelled as he walked out of the room. “And enjoy your date.” She giggled at his frustra-tion.
Chapter 4
By eleven o’clock that evening, Royal had retired ups-tairs to her apartment. Rain tattered at the windows and thunder shook the foundation outside, but inside she was so very comfortable that she barely paid attention to the bad weather. After showering, she crawled in her bed to watch reruns of the Family Guyand eat Ben & Jerry’s ice cream out of the box.
The diamonds Dmitry had given her that afternoon in-spired her to also purchase a pair of French lace panties and bra that a year ago would have paid for her tuition. She layin bed now wearing them and enjoying the very exciting, uneventful life that she had only recently acquired.
During a quick commercial break, she jumped up and dashed out to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water, when the doorbell rang. She stopped in her tracks and looked at the large wooden doors.
In the last month that she had lived there, the doorbell had never once rang. Now, when it was not supposed to be ringing for any reason, it was. She looked down at her lack of clothing and sighed.
“Who is it?” Royal asked. Agitated, she peered out of her peep hole.
“It’s Dmitry,” Dmitry said, leaning against the door. “Who else would it be?”
Royal wondered if Dmitry ever stood all the way up. Every time that she saw him, he was leaning on something, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
Slowly, she opened the door just enough to see his face. He looked down at her and smiled softly. “Hello, Royal.” His minty breath floated down to her.
“What do you want, Dmitry?” she asked, looking him up and down. He was soaking wet. His blonde tendrils were trenched in rain and his body made a small pool of water under him.
“I’m here to take you out,” he reasoned, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever she was hiding behind the door.
“What?”
“Your exact words earlier today were that I could take you out, but not with my girlfriend,” he smacked his lips and raised his eyebrows. His accent was even heavier now that he had been drinking. It was almost impossible to understand what he was saying when he spoke quickly. Finally, he stopped his rambling. “Hey, what are you wearing in there?” His train of thought jumped when he saw bare skin.
“None of your damned business,” Royal said, moving away from the door. “Well, I meant that you could take me out at a decent hour, not now.”
“What’s wrong with now? You don’t look busy,” he leaned down further to her and smiled. “There had better not be anyone in there.” His voice was deep.
“Of course not. Stop being stupid.”
“Only you would think that was stupid,” he shook his head. “Okay, then why won’t you go out with me now?”
“It’s too late at night,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“For whom?”
“Me.” Royal tried to keep from laughing. “What hap-pened? Did your girlfriend get tired of you?”
Dmitry rolled his eyes. “No, I got tired of her. I sent her away, and she is not my girlfriend for the umpteenth time.” Dmitry sighed. “Royal, I want to come inside and sit down. I’m drunk. This hallway is not…”
“Not what?” She pushed the door up a little more.
“Accommodating.” He wiped his tired eyes.
“No,” Royal said, watching him as he walked to the stairwell and slid down the opposite wall to sit on the floor.
“Fine. I’ll sit out here and sleep at your doorstep like dog,” he yawned.
“Fine with me,” Royal said, as she closed the door and locked it, but from her peep hole, she could see that Dmitry did not move.
She snickered. He was so pitiful and so dramatic. He deserved an Oscar for his performance. She started to leave him there until morningbut decided to slip on a pair of jeans and t-shirt.
When she was fully dressed, she opened the door to find him snoring lightly.
“Wake up, sleepyhead. I thought that you said that you wanted to go out?” She locked her door behind her.
“Yeah,” he wiped his watering eyes. “I’m up…ready.”
Getting up off the ground, he stretched his long body and moved out the way so that she could get to the stairs. He followed her down to the back door, where she found Anatoly standing out in the rain with a large black umbrella waiting for them.
“You’ve been waiting here the whole time?” she asked horrified.
Anatoly did not speak to her or blink. He simply raised the umbrella to cover her body from the rain and escorted the two of them to Dmitry’s limousine.
It really did not bother Royal that Anatolywould not answer her. He rarely spoke. At first, she thought him to be a mute, until once she heard him speaking in Russian on his cell phone. After that, she decided that he simply didn’t speak English.
Once they were inside the limo, Royal sat across from Dmitry, curiously looking at his outfit. He was in a tailored black-tuxedo. She was in jeans. Where could they go as mismatched as they were?
“So, tell me what happened,” she demanded, reaching over into the distinctively expensive French silver-plated bronze & brass champagne bucket to open the unopened bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne Cristal Brut Rose. She looked down at the bottle impressed. This was at least at $500 bottle, yet he kept it stocked like it was Red Bull.
“Night ended early,” Dmitry said, smiling at her. His dimples were not deep but long and showed only when he smiled. His face was covered in a fine five o’clock shadow of dirty blonde stubble, but it only caused him to look more rugged and sexy.
“Did you not tell her who you were? And how happy she should be to be with you?” Royal mocked him.
“She knows who I am; I sent her away,” he said slowly, over articulating his words. “I was bored, and I wanted to be with you.”
“You’re so full of yourself,” Royal said, shaking her head.
“It’s true,” he rested his arm on the armrest and rubbed his stubbly beard.
“I bet,” she scoffed.
“You think I’m harmless, don’t you?” Dmitry leaned forward soaking wet from the rain. His long legs stretched across the limo like a black spider.
“No.” Royal poured them both a glass of champagne, unmoved by his question. “I’m sure that you’re trouble,” she said, offering him the glass.
“If you only knew,” he said, sitting back after he had taken the crystal flute from her. “Spasiba.” He thanked her in Russian.
“Enough about you, Dmitry. Where are you going to take me?” Her long body sat relaxed in the black leather seat opposite him, mirroring his own entitled demeanor.
“Where do you want to go?” He took a sip of the champagne.
“It’s pouring rain.” She tapped her finger on the door as she thought. “Ummm, how about to the movies?”
“What is with you and movie theatre? Is this the only thing you enjoy?”
“Yeah, it’s thething that I enjoy,” she said, mildly ex-cited. “There’s nothing like a good movie.”
Dmitry gave a curious stare, but Royal cou
ld not tell what he was thinking. “Anatoly, take us to my house. I need to get dressed for Royal’s movie,” he said finally.
“Uh uh,” Royal protested. “You can wear what you have on. I’m not going to your house,” she said, shifting in her seat a little, suddenly uncomfortable.
“You don’t really expect me to go to movies soaking wet, do you?”
Royal thought for a minute, tapping her foot as she de-bated. “Fine. I’ll wait out in the car while you go change.”
“Who said that you were invited in? I don’t need help dressing.” Dmitry shot her a stare. “Someone that thinks very highly of themselves in this car tonight.”
“Call it what you want to Dmitry, but I don’t go to strange men houses in the middle of the night so they can get dressed or undressed.”
Dmitry laughed at Royal’s inability to control her com-plete discomfort with the thought of him. He pealed out of his wet tuxedo jacket and unbuttoned the top of his collar. The cold clothes stuck to his body and wet white shirt showed the defined muscles under his many layers of fine dressing along with a plethora of tattoos that Royal would have never guessed were there.
“Я должен иметь секс с вами теперь,” he said raising his eyebrow at Royal.
“What did you say…speak English,” she snapped.
Dmitry smiled. “I should get naked right now, just to see how you react to what grown man looks like.” His eyes twinkled in the darkness.
“That’s not what you said. I tell you what. You will be out of this car, Dmitry, if you take off one more thing,” Royal said, in a matter-of-fact tone, pointing her finger at him.
“You know, Royal. You are very sexually frustrated. I can tell. You’re always scared that someone will steal your precious gift.” He looked in between her legs and licked his lips.
“Ooh. Uh uh. Not an appropriate conversation,” Royal said, closing her legs. “I’m gonna need you to stop worrying about my sex.” She rolled her eyes and tried to repress a broad smile.
Dmitry was funny and arrogant. It was a preposterous mix, but it made being around him constantly exciting.
“It’s just that I’m worried about your overall happi-ness,” he whined sarcastically. “Happy employee is productive employee.”
Royal leaned forward, taking the power from Dmitry and using his same mannerisms to drive her point home. “Poor Dmitry. Do you consider sex to be happiness?”
“Do you?” Dmitry asked, finally having fun with Royal. He waited on baited breath for her to liven up; now here was a glimpse of it. The woman hiding inside of the shrew.
“No. I don’t consider sex to equal happiness,” she said curtly.
“Nyet?”
Royal smirked. “No. Happiness cannot be defined by such a physical pleasure when happiness itself is so abstract – so intangible.”
“Well now. Look at little philosopher. I never said that I considered sex to be happiness, I asked if you did.” Dmitry chuckled.
“What do you consider to be happiness?” Royal was finally curious.
“Control.” His tone was sincere.
“Control?”
“Did I stutter? Such a thing is also intangible.” He half chuckled.
“That’s just such an S&M answer.”
Dmitry laughed. “Your choice of words amuses me. Okay, maybe it’s the loss of control. Either way, the control is going to land in someone else’s lap.”
He leaned further into her, close enough to smell the sweetness coming from her breath and the heat eradiating from her body. He wanted to suck her scent into his nostrils and grab her, rip her clothes from her limbs and take her in the back of the limo, but he settled for thumping her nose.
“What do you know about anything, eh? You’re girl…and barely that,” he whispered.
Royal’s smile quickly crooked, and she snatched back in the corner of the seat. Dmitry could see it. She was incensed. She wanted to tear him limb from limb for mocking her, and he really didn’t care. Anger was closer to sex than glib calmness.
“I’m not a girl,” she said, defensively.
“Of course, you are,” he said, patronizing her and en-joying every minute of it.
“I am a grown woman!” she protested.
Her ponytail and the soft hair flirting around the nape of her neck and the front of her ears caused her to look more like a teenager than a woman in her twenties, but the excitement that caused her blood pressure to rise and her nipples to harden seemed more sinister to Dmitry than child’s play. He licked his lips.
“Calm down, Royal. I’m just fucking with you,” he said, sitting back, happy to have gotten a rise out of her.
He stopped smiling. His face was like wet ice, glistening and chiseled. He rubbed his hands through his blonde wavy curls and raised his eyebrow at her. “But you don’t like to be fucked with, do you?” He breathed calmly.
There was complete silence for a moment.
“No,” Royal said finally, realizing that there was some-thing off about Dmitry. “I don’t.”
The car stopped, and Royal found herself in front of large white Plantation-style home. Anatoly parked quickly, jumped out of the car and opened the door for Dmitry with the umbrella eagerly awaiting his demanding boss.
“Are you sure that you want to stay in car?” Dmitry asked, before he got out.
“Positive,” Royal said, looking at Anatoly curiously, wondering if he did everything that Dmitry told him.
“Well, I’ll only be minute.” He stepped out of the car and stopped. Leaning back in, he smiled cleverly. “Should I wear jeans for your movie, Royal?”
“If you’d like,” Royal said absently.
“See, the control thing isn’t so bad is it?”
Royal smiled but didn’t say anything. Anatoly closed the door softly, and she sat back in the car feeling sleep overtake her. She wished now that she had stayed in the bed.
She listened to the storm rock the city with wind, heavy rains and lightening as she waited. Curiously, she looked out the window across large gated lawn undisturbed by the late night rumblings. Security guards with dogs walked the perimeter of his property even in the rain, while Anatoly stood on the porch watching her and waiting for Dmitry. Rich people, she thought as she sat back in her seat. They are so freaking dramatic.
She closed her eyes finally and relaxed her head on the leather, feeling the warm seats caress her body. She had nearly gone to sleep when Dmitry arrived back. As the door opened for him, rain quickly rushed inside, dam-pening her face. He jumped in with a pair of dark jeans and a blue v-neck top, looking the most casual that Royal had ever seen him.
“Hope I wasn’t long,” he said, taking a swig of the Fos-ter’s beer that he carried with him.
“Actually, I dosed off there for a minute.” Royal sat up in the chair. “You look…great. Like a walking Ralph Lauren advertisement.” She nodded.
“A compliment? It seems that we are making progress, Royal,” Dmitry saidas he tapped her knee. “Anatoly, let’s go,” Dmitry instructed keeping his eye on Royal. The car started, and they pulled off.
Royal watched Dmitry curiously but did not speak.
“I’ve called in favor to have Paradiso movie theatre all to ourselves tonight. It closes in hour. I was hoping that we could have dinner at restaurant first and go over there for late showing of whatever you want to see,” he offered checking his Blackberry.
“After it’s closed? Are you serious?” She grabbed the phone from him and put it into the side compartment of her seat. “Stop with that phone. It’s weird a.m. hours. Can’t whomever it is wait? You are the boss, remember?”
“Fine, but only if you take off tomorrow. You work too hard anyway. People probably think it’s me working you, but it feels like the other way around. Just…just hang out with me tonight and spend tomorrow in the bed or doing whatever introverts like you do.”
“Alright,” she sighed, giving in. “I haven’t been to your restaurant since
I was hired. I’m excited. And I never have had a movie theatre stay open just for me. That’s pretty cool.”
“You should come over to restaurant more and have lunch or dinner. It will save you money.”
“Okay,” Royal said, moving her long hair from her face.
Dmitry smiled deviously. “You should sit over here with me and let me kiss your lips too,” Dmitry said scooting over. He rubbed the leather seat.
“What?”
“Just kidding,” Dmitry said quickly. “Hey, you were saying okay to everything… had to try.”
They both laughed, but Royal did not move from her seat. In fact, she sat with her eyes directly on Dmitry watching his every move.
They arrived at the restaurant soon after. Dmitry had arranged for his staff to stay late and cook a huge Russian meal for Royal. The two of them ran out of the rain from the car, while Anatoly pulled the limo to the back.
They were met at the front door by two red-headed young waitresses, barely in their twenties, dressed in all black and holding menus. As Royal ran in, she stopped amazed at the romantic transformation.
Dmitry had a single, intimate table set up in the back with a beautiful golden candelabra full of blood-red candles, golden table settings and a large bouquet of red roses. The rest of the restaurant was covered in candles as well.
Royal turned to Dmitry for an explanation, but he only smiled and escorted her to her seat with his large hand placed carefully at the base of her small back. He sat her down in the seat, pushed her up to the table and kissed her forehead.
The staff scurried about ensuring that everything was perfect, while Dmitry went behind the bar and brought back two glasses and a bottle of champagne.
“More Cristal?” he asked, raising the bottle.
“Dmitry, what is this about? Why could this date not have waited? It’s raining cats and dogs out tonight, and you’re frolicking around like its noon and sunny.”
“First of all, I do not frolic. I thought that we had this discussion. Secondly, time waits for no man – not even me. This afternoon you agreed to go out. I thought about it all day after. I couldn’t even focus on my evening. So, I cancelled. I…didn’t want opportunity to pass, and so I came for you. End of discussion.”
Dmitry's Closet Page 4
