All Chapters of Sinfully His: Craving The Devil's Son: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

POV: ClaraThe doors of Victor’s study hadn’t even fully clicked shut before I hurried into the corridor. My heart was beating frantically against my ribs, probably because of what I had just witnessed. Camille had stepped out of that room with her hair slightly tousled and a look of practiced innocence that didn't reach her predatory eyes.I didn't go to Nikolai no matter how much I wanted to. The instinct was there—to run to him, to grab his shoulders and scream that the woman he was going to marry was currently occupying his father's bed—but the fear in me was greater. In this house, truth was a currency, and I was currently broke. If I spoke now, without any proof whatsoever, Victor would crush me, and Nikolai’s pride would do the rest.I spent the morning being as quiet as possible. It wasn't really hard; the staff in the estate were trained to be invisible, and I had become an expert at blending in. I followed Camille from a distance, moving through the expansive gardens and t

POV: ClaraThe Bordeaux was smooth going down, but it hit harder than I expected in the cool, dim cellar. The first glass warmed my chest and loosened the knot of tension that had been sitting there since dinner. By the second, my cheeks felt flushed, and the amber light from the sconces seemed softer, the edges of the wine racks blurring just a little.Nikolai sat beside me on the cold stone floor, his long legs stretched out, one knee bent. His glass dangled loosely from his fingers. He’d taken off his jacket earlier, and the white shirt underneath was open at the collar, revealing a sliver of skin that I kept catching myself staring at. We’d talked about Delhi for a while—Hauz Khas lake with its ancient ruins, the way the low walls let you perch and watch the water reflect the sky. I told him about Sundays there, the faint smell of street food mixing with wet stone and old history. He’d mentioned the rooftop in Mehrauli, that golden-orange light over the Qutub Minar, the city look

POV: Nikolai The heat in the lodge reduced sometime after midnight. One minute the radiator in my room was pushing warm air into the corners and the next, it clicked off. I sat up in bed, the sheets already cooling against my skin. The place was already freezing up. Downstairs, Victor’s voice boomed through the floorboards. He was shouting at the estate manager again, words sharp enough to cut glass. “Fix it now or I’ll have your job by morning!” Something crashed… probably a lamp or a clipboard.It was good for me cause it meant he’d be occupied for a while. I didn’t care about the heat or the yelling. I cared about the room two doors down the hall. Clara.I pulled on a thick sweater, grabbed the spare blanket from the linen closet, and moved through the dark corridor like I belonged there. My feet made no sound on the rug. The blanket smelled of cedar and wool, nothing special, but it gave me the excuse I needed. I wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near her. Not like this. Not w

POV: Nikolai Victor had stepped away from the table to take a call and Clara had followed him. Although she didn't go after him immediately, shhe waited a few minutes and then she excused herself quietly and went in the direction he had gone.I watched her go.I told myself it meant nothing. But I had been watching Clara for weeks now. She had a particular quality of stillness about her when she was performing — something that looked like ease but was actually very controlled. She'd had it all day yesterday. She had it now, in the set of her shoulders as she disappeared through the doorway.I gave it five minutes. Then I got up.The hallway outside Victor's study was empty. The door was pulled mostly closed but not latched, and through the gap I could hear voices. Clara's tone was the one she used when she wanted someone to feel like they were the only person in the room. I had heard her use it on Victor a hundred times. I had thought, once, that I had heard something underneath it

POV: NikolaShe talked for forty minutes and I let her finish what she was saying without cutting in once.Clara sat across from me and told me about Camille coming into her room that morning at the lodge, finding the cufflink on the floor beside the nightstand, and laying out the terms of the deal right there while Clara was still in yesterday's clothes and had nowhere to go and no time to think. She told me about spending an entire day performing for my father because the alternative was Camille walking the cufflink down the hall to Victor, and she told me all of it in a steady voice that never asked me to feel sorry for her and never once made it seem like it was other than what it was.When she finished, I sat with it for a moment and thought about what I had done.I had stood at the door of that study and watched her beside my father while he signed papers, and I had made up my mind in about ten seconds and treated her like shit for the rest of the trip. I had put her on the flo