Read Novel Full Chapter 1094: It's Called Vanity
Chapter 1094: It's Called Vanity
She had that cold, museum-piece elegance that doesn't try to impress you because it assumes you're already on your knees catching up. Clean lines. Precise everything. A face that belonged behind velvet ropes with armed guards and questionable lighting.
Her eyes—grey, razor-sharp—carried that unsettling intelligence that made you feel like she'd already read your entire autobiography, highlighted the plot holes in red, and was mildly disappointed in your life choices.
And she was amused.
Always amused but not warm and soft but amused at the universe for daring to arrange things in ways she found personally entertaining.
Right now the universe had arranged me—naked, unbothered, standing dead-center in my own absurd spaceship closet at six in the goddamn morning like some living exhibit titled "God Having a Casual Existential Moment."
And she approved.
"Доброе утро, муж." A faint smile. "Good morning, husband."
"You don't get to call me that yet."
"I will when I want to. We've discussed this."
"We discussed a version of it," I corrected, voice low. "I won."
She blinked once, slow and lethal. "You did not, дорогой. You were distracted. That's not winning. That's postponing your inevitable and extremely stylish defeat."
…Okay, that was annoyingly accurate. I hated how right she was. It was like being roasted by a woman who'd already written the eulogy and made it sound sexy.
She stepped inside.
Two steps.
Never more or less. Anastasia didn't chase. She entered your orbit like she owned gravity and let physics do the heavy lifting.
I mentally murdered the mirror's styling suggestions. Not now, you eager little gremlin.
"How long have you been awake."
"Long enough."
"That tells me absolutely nothing."
"It tells you everything," she said lightly, eyes dragging over me in the reflection like she was appraising a very expensive purchase she already owned. "Long enough to know you finished your workout an hour ago. Long enough to know Linda is still reading and Madison is asleep with one leg hanging out of the blanket like she's daring the bed to start something."
I exhaled through my nose, half-laugh, half-surrender. "That's… disturbingly specific."
"I'm not done," she continued, stepping closer. "Long enough to see you take the side door instead of walking straight into the bedroom. Because ARIA remodeled overnight and you refuse to face architectural surprises before coffee. Smart boy."
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because she had me mapped down to the exact goddamn door choice... it's been a few days since we spent one-on-one time together yet she still read me like it was a children's book.
"You stalked my morning."
"I anticipated it," she corrected, silky and superior. "Stalking is such an ugly word."
"Crude."
"And beneath us."
"Definitely beneath you. You don't stalk. You… curate outcomes. Like a very beautiful, very terrifying chess grandmaster who also happens to be my wife on technicality."
She tilted her head, just enough. "Now you're flirting."
"You started it."
"I started it the day I walked into your life and decided not to leave," she said. "Try to keep up, darling."
She uncrossed her ankles.
Took another step.
The robe slipped a fraction at her shoulder—not enough to be obvious, just enough to announce that this conversation had officially filed a flight plan.
I leaned against the central island, arms crossing loosely, making zero effort to cover a single thing. Anastasia didn't do performances... she did confidence. Raw, unfiltered, slightly terrifying confidence.
"What do you want, my love."
"You. Before you put a shirt on."
Straight to the point, are we?
Of course she did. Subtlety was for people who hadn't already conquered half the board.
"Now?"
"Now."
"Why now?"
She moved closer still, voice calm, almost academic, like she was explaining why the sky was blue to a particularly slow god.
"Because you're leaving for Paris in four hours," she said, "and I know three things about you."
This already sounded like a thesis defense with knives.
"One—you don't sleep properly unless Mama is in the building like some Mama-boy."
…Rude. Right. But rude.
"Two—you cannot finish a workout without admiring yourself in a mirror like a man double-checking he's still the most attractive bastard alive."
"That's called discipline."
"That's called vanity," she corrected instantly.
Fair.
"And three… which is more important today is," her eyes sharpened, gleaming with that dark, delicious amusement, "…you do not get on a plane to a city full of beautiful French women without being reminded exactly which one of us is Russian."
There it was.
The thesis statement. Delivered with the warmth of a Siberian winter and the precision of a sniper.
"I'm here," she finished, tilting her head, "to remind you."
I laughed.
Actually laughed—low, dark, the sound of a man who knew he was screwed and was weirdly into it.
Because that was ridiculous.
And accurate and timed so perfectly it felt like she'd hacked my soul.
In that moment I realized something mildly inconvenient and deeply hilarious: I'd been waiting for her. Not in some flowery, poetic way. Just… moving through the morning like a ghost in my own ridiculous mansion, gym, bath, corridors, spaceship closet—without letting her name surface once.
Five days of not thinking about speanding time with the alwaya-busy-Anastasia wasn't growth.
It was avoidance wearing a very convincing suit.
And now she was here, stripping the illusion off with all the mercy of a woman who'd already decided the rest of my morning belonged to her.
I let the laughter settle into something quieter, sharper.
"Anastasia."
"Yes."
"That might be the most Anastasia sentence you've ever uttered."
She nodded once, regal. "I refined it. You know it."
"That's one of the reasons I was attracted to you when we first met in Miami."
A pause.
Her eyes narrowed, that familiar dangerous sparkle kicking in like the safety had just come off.
"Are you saying yes?"
"I'm saying…" I let the silence stretch just long enough to annoy her, because I'm petty and she loves it, "…that you have about two hours and forty-eight minutes before I actually need to start getting dressed for a flight."
Her lips curved into something that could ruin empires.
"Two hours and forty-eight minutes."
"Generously."
"That's more than enough time."
"I'm aware."
And judging by the way she took her next step—slow, inevitable, robe slipping another deliberate fraction—
So was she.
She closed the distance slowly because Anastasia Romanov never rushed anything worth devouring.
She moved like expensive sin arriving by private jet—slow enough that every cell in your body sat up and took notice, inevitable enough that resisting felt like a personality defect you'd have to explain to your future therapist.
The underglow of the closet caught her steps and carried them forward like the whole damn room had booked her in advance, lighting itself like a stagehand who knew exactly who the star was.
The robe shifted as she walked—not some cheap theatrical flutter, just… incremental.
An inch here, a suggestion there... silk negotiating with gravity, gravity negotiating with pure intent, and Anastasia lounging in the middle of the treaty like the dictator who'd already won. Civilians would've missed it. I didn't. My eyes tracked every millimeter like it owed me money.
She stopped a hand's breadth away close enough that the air thickened, turned conspiratorial, and started whispering filthy promises against my skin.
Looked up at me—those grey eyes steady, sharp, entirely too aware of exactly what they were doing to the blood currently abandoning my brain for more interesting destinations.
"Доброе утро," she said again, quieter this time.
Good morning.
Yeah. That version. No audience. No performance. Just Anastasia at the distance she reserved for things she planned to ruin in the best possible way.
And just like that, my chest did a subtle, almost imperceptible shift—the constant low hum of responsibility, control, holding the entire goddamn empire together on my shoulders… paused.
Just… on mute. Because one of the thirty-one reasons I carried all that weight was now standing close enough that, for the next few hours, I didn't have to.
Convenient.
Dangerous.
Highly, highly addictive.
She lifted a hand.
Untied the loose knot at her waist with a single, effortless motion—like the knot had personally offended her and this was its execution.
The robe parted and stayed parted, hanging off her shoulders more out of nostalgia than any real obligation. The lighting—bless ARIA and her perverted architectural theatrics—did the rest, painting her in soft gold and shadow like the universe had decided to become her personal cinematographer.
"Take it the rest of the way off me, му love."
Of course, she said it like that in a command wrapped in velvet and steel.
And of course—
I did.
But not fast because a god doesn't scramble even when the woman in front of him is rewriting every definition of temptation with nothing but silk and a raised eyebrow.
My hands rose, settling at her shoulders just inside the silk, palms meeting warm, flawless skin where the robe had already started its strategic retreat.
For a single, suspended second I didn't move.
I paused because I'd missed this. Missed her. And there are some truths you don't say out loud—not to her, not like that.
You let them bleed through in the way your fingers linger, the way your breath catches, the way every inch of you suddenly remembers exactly who it belongs to.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Her eyes narrowed—just slightly.
It was not suspicion but recognition. The kind she never commented on because naming it would ruin the game.
But the corner of her mouth curved. Just a fraction.
Approval.
There it was. My favorite drug.
Then I moved.
Slowly easing the silk from her shoulders, guiding it down with the reverence of a man unwrapping something he knew would ruin him—and loving every second of the descent. The fabric surrendered like it had been waiting its entire existence for this moment, slipping away with quiet obedience until it pooled at her feet like a defeated rival.