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As a rule, Nina Zenik was never turned down. If anything, she was the one who turned people down.
“He hasn’t technically turned you down, you know,” said Inej, casting a side look at Nina before returning to her own reflection in the pocket mirror. She sharpened her eyeliner with bladelike precision. “Because you haven’t asked him anything yet.”
“I don’t have to ask anything,” Nina huffed as she ironed out the wrinkles on her scarlet dress. “He’ll do everything by himself. You’ll see.”
“You’ve been saying that for a while now. He doesn’t really strike me as the type who would make the first move,” Inej frowned.
“Please,” Nina waved the argument away with a perfectly manicured hand, “he’s a man, and men are all the same. They see a pretty girl and whoosh,” she wiggled her fingers in a magician’s gesture, “they want her. And then they go after her.”
Inej shrugged. “Simplistic.”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Nina retorted. “Besides, I’m basically throwing myself in front of him, so I don’t see why or what should stop him from trying his chances.”
“They say he’s a little…” Inej paused, weighing her words. “Prudish?”
“I’m sure it’s just rumours.”
“I don’t know. He does seem sweet though.”
“Sweet?” Nina exclaimed with a laugh. “Good Lord, Inej, have you looked at him? He’s built like an IKEA bookcase. Sweet is the last way I’d describe him.”
Inej rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed. He looks like a giant teddy bear.”
“You know what? I’m glad you think that darling, because it means someone else out there thinks the same thing, and that means less competition for me,” Nina smirked, the red tint emphasizing her plush lips.
The cap of Inej’s eyeliner closed, its small pop overshadowed by her laugh. “Competition? You?”
Nina winked, blowing a kiss to her friend. “Exactly. How do I look?” she asked before getting off the car.
“Smoking hot, as always. How do I look?” Inej replied, closing her eyes for an inspection of her makeup.
“Enchanting. Black really does suit you, it makes you look like a shadow. A very dangerous one, too,” Nina added, eyeing the sharp cut of the line over her friend’s lids.
Inej grinned. “What can I say. You’ve got red, and I’ve got black. To each as they need.”
Nina’s laugh echoed in the night as the doors clicked shut behind them, the two friends entering the large garden.
The venue was beautifully decorated, all the attendees were already there. Not that it bothered Nina too much—she, on one hand, had made a habit of being fashionably late, and Inej was the CEO of the firm after all, so no one would ever question her arrival time.
Besides, the summer solstice party was Inej’s idea and baby so, really, it was only natural she arrived later than her guests, right? At least that was the logic with which Nina had reassured her when they’d both realized they would be running late to the party.
It didn’t take long for Nina to spot the very person she’d been looking forward to tormenting tonight: Matthias Helvar. As she crossed the small entrance arch alongside Inej, she caught him looking at them from over his table. Even from a distance, she noticed the blush of red spreading across his cheeks as she smirked and maybe, possibly, winked at him.
Ever since he’d been hired at the firm, Nina had tried them all. Cup of coffee, bottle of water, wrong email address (not with important documents attached, don’t you worry; she’s determined, not an idiot), “Is that your book?”, “Do you always go to the office with a gym bag?”, stuff of that short. Just openings, conversation-starters which usually lead to more, but apparently were helpless in the face of the tall, blond, aloof man working across the hall from her.
He’d give her a polite answer, perhaps more formal than polite, then he would generally turn down the cups of coffee, and oh, she’d never heard him share any details about his life outside of work—no one even knew where he came from!
Nina Zenik, who certainly was a lot of things, was no quitter though. She had a goal, and that goal was to fall into the strong and very large arms of Matthias Helvar. God be her witness, she would accomplish her mission.
The plan for tonight was fairly simple: put on her best dress, catch his attention—because of course she would have caught his attention, again, she was Nina Zenik—then one thing would naturally have led to another and voilà , she would have found herself against a wall with those rough hands all over her. Or against a tree. Or seated upon a chair. The important part was his hands on her.
The tick of his jaw as his eyes stayed stubbornly on hers, while all of their colleagues were obviously falling for her easy trap, told her that Matthias was confiding in a strong willpower to keep himself within the confines of respectability and propriety. Which might just have made her go insane at that point.
Perhaps Inej was right. Maybe he was just prudish. Or maybe she disgusted him. Did she? Nina couldn’t believe it. And she’d grown tired of playing around and not knowing. She always knew when someone was interested in her (or wasn’t, on very rare occasions) and she couldn’t stomach the uncertainty anymore.
After whisking a cocktail from the open bar, Nina turned and marched to the table where Matthias was sitting, still pretending to not check her out—as if. She gracefully stole the free chair next to him and dropped her voice, just in case he had any doubt about her intentions.
“Do you do karaoke?”
Matthias didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or roll his eyes and leave.
Do you do karaoke?
What kind of question was that? She asked it as though they were living in their personal version of High School Musical or something.
“No,” he deadpanned, doing his best to keep his eyes on hers, not let them stray and wander over her figure. Definitely easier said than done, given how Nina loved to dress in form-fitting outfits that left little to no room for imagination. Matthias’ jaw clenched when her hand smoothed a barely noticeable wrinkle on her skirt. He snapped his eyes away, catching the upright twirl of her lips in his peripheral view.
“Is it because you sing off key?” she insisted, taking another sip from her cocktail. Her mouth graced the glass rim and left a mark shaped like a little folded heart, red as the tint on her lips. Matthias berated himself for noticing. He hoped to God the warmth he felt on his cheeks was due to the rising temperature of the night, rather than the way Nina caught a drop of alcohol resting on the corner of her mouth with her tongue. The woman was driving him mad.
“I just don’t sing,” he said with as much composure as he could muster.
“Not even under the shower?” she asked innocently, raising her eyebrows. Her green eyes were wide and round-shaped, Matthias gradually losing himself in them. For the longest moment, he pictured a hot, steamy bathroom, the clear glass door of a shower rendered opaque by the running water; Nina underneath it, her wet hair drawing patterns on her cheeks and shoulders, her lips deep pink and slightly parted, foam covering her body, drops rolling down the valley of her chest and his own hands wrapping around her to—
He blinked the vision away.
“No, not even under the shower.”
She pouted. “What a sad life.” She drank more before carefully cleaning her lips with a napkin. Matthias noticed that the shade of red fading quickly. “I bet we could get whoever is in charge of the music to let us do some karaoke.”
Do you usually do karaoke? he wanted to ask, or maybe tell her, You’re setting my expectations way too high, or maybe that was too much, too straightforward, Matthias thought. He opted to remain silent and just hummed noncommittally, as with all the other times she had asked him something.
More than one of his colleagues informed him of Nina’s attempts to chat him up, but Matthias wasn’t truly convinced. The only evidence was the fact that she would occasionally pop by his office and leave him a bottle of cold water with a smile, but that was merely being polite and friendly with the new entry, wasn’t it?
He’d noticed that Nina had developed a habit of dropping by the meeting room when he was there, looking him straight in the eyes when she asked if anyone wanted to accompany her on a coffee break. Every time like clockwork, someone else agreed before he had the chance to open his mouth. She’d always turned to smile easily at them, so Matthias constantly ended up thinking that he must have imagined her actually addressing him.
To be honest, the first time it had happened, he thought she was annoying. Like when she asked him about the books on his desk. “Is this book yours?” she said when she’d brought him the bottle of water. He made considerable effort to clip his response at “Yes” and not add who else could it belong to, since it’s on my desk? What kind of question even was that?
Or when she’d meet him in the elevator on those rare occasions she appeared at the office before 10 AM and saw him carrying his gym bag on his shoulder. “Do you always take that with you?” she had smirked the first time. “When I need it,” he replied. Did she think he enjoyed carrying it around for the sake of it?
Then, in-between it all, one day Matthias realized it wasn’t that her questions irritated him, but rather the manner in which his brain would short-circuit at the moment Nina Zenik entered his vision.
Matthias hated it. He loathed the feeling, the knowledge that he systematically lost every ability to form, let alone speak, a coherent thought in her presence; what he despised more though, was that when Nina would walk away, heels clicking on whatever floor their semblance of an exchange had just taken place, his gut would knot… because he had wanted to say and do something—something more, something else.
It had been Nina who’d given him the news about the party. “It’s tradition,” she said, falling onto a chair in his office and crossing her legs. Her skirt had risen over her thigh, a detail Matthias didn’t notice and didn’t sweat over for the rest of the day. “Inej’s favorite season is summer, so when she became CEO at Six of Wraith, we started celebrating the solstice; we’ve been doing it every year since. You have to come.”
“I might have something to do on the 21st,” Matthias had answered.
“Might sounds good enough,” Nina shrugged, standing up. Pencil skirts really did suit her. “Clear your schedule. I’ll be expecting you.”
On the night of the summer solstice, Matthias did what he had to do: he donned a linen shirt and dark pants, strolling to the open garden where the party was held. Threads of small light bulbs hung over the trees and ran under the gazebo, trellises flirting with the setting light of the first summer sun. The grass tickled sandaled feet, and various guests occasionally slapped a hand on their arm, cursing the first mosquitos of the season. Matthias had soon been caught up in chatter with colleagues, but his eyes kept wandering around despite himself, seeking the sight of Nina.
When she arrived, her arm looped around Inej’s, he’d felt the distinct dropping and following acceleration of his heart rate. He wasn’t really sure whether it was because she looked nothing short of absolutely stunning, or because her eyes found his in a split second, and she winked at him. The witch.
Whatever the reason, Nina had then proceeded to seize a spot next to him and resume her attempts at conversation, which Matthias kept dodging like dangerous bullets. It wasn’t as awkward as usual, given the surrounding people; there was no odd silence falling around them, and Matthias happily let others carry the chatting onward without him contributing much.
Then, for a second, his brain completely blanked.
It’s not that he wasn’t aware of Nina right next to him. On the contrary, he was painfully aware of it—so much so that he could feel his knee burning at the chance of touching her leg, his shoulder stung every time the ends of Nina’s hair brushed against it. The notes of her voice dropped enchantingly into his ear, her glass was so close to his that, had they gone for their respective drinks at the same moment, their hands would have collided.
And yet, when her hand brushed against his underneath the table, probably by mistake, Matthias’ breath caught in his throat.
He fought the urge to turn and face Nina, who was still laughing with the others. Everyone so entranced in her spell that they didn’t even notice the fleeting moment when his stoic facade broke. But he couldn’t stop his mind from fixating on it—on her exclusively. Did she do it on purpose? Was she playing some kind of game he didn’t know about? Possibly, at least if what his colleagues had said was true. Maybe Nina was trying to get her way with him. Too bad he had no idea what to do or how to act in response.
“Bet! Let’s bet, shall we? If you manage to get him to kiss you before midnight, I’ll take you out to your favorite restaurant,” Jesper had said with his hand stretched out when Nina told him that she would achieve her goal that night. He’d snorted back that Matthias would never fall for her tricks.
“And if I don’t?” Nina had retorted, crossing her arms.
“You sound pretty confident in yourself, so I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Let’s pretend.”
Jesper had smirked: “I get to choose the song you’ll karaoke.”
“I have a terrible singing voice,” she’d pointed out, her eyes narrowed.
“That’s the fun of it.”
“I’ll get him to kiss me.”
“I don’t doubt it for a second,” Jesper had smiled, his hand still waiting for Nina to shake on it. “So?”
“You think I wouldn’t do it? Don’t underestimate me, Fahey.”
“I would never.”
She turned to him now, an angelic expression adorning her face. “Jes? You think we could get ourselves a karaoke session?”
Coincidentally at the same table, Jesper’s eyes twinkled at her question. “You want to sing?”
“Why not,” Nina shrugged easily, downing the last sip of her drink. “You have something to say about that?”
“Yes, that you have a terrible singing voice, darling,” Inej chipped in with a laugh.
Nina rolled her eyes. “You’re all so boring. It’s not like we’re competing for the Grammys. It’s just a song.”
“The lady is right,” Jesper exclaimed, standing upright. “Let’s give the woman what she wants!”
Nina enthusiastically turned to Matthias and let her voice settle to the same low tune of a few minutes before. “Truth be told, I’m a terrible singer. But I like to have fun.” She bit her lip for good measure.
He blinked at her, his features shifting between a frown and a poorly suppressed smile. Nina didn’t wait for him to answer and added, leaning in and lowering her voice even more, “You know, you could stop it.”
A choked sound came from Matthias. “I could?”
“Yeah,” she said, tilting her leg upward and touching his calf—the proportions of this man were astonishing—with her sandal. “Jesper and I actually have a bet.”
His eyes went briefly to the spot she’d brushed him, almost panicked. “About me?”
“Well—yes.” Probably against the unwritten rules of betting to tell the subject of the bet about the bet itself, but Nina couldn’t see how that was her problem. “And I really do have a god-awful singing voice. You don’t want to hear it.”
Matthias’ Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “And what could I do to stop it?” It seemed as though it took him some effort to say the words without fainting, given his heavily reddening face. She definitely did not disgust him.
Nina smiled again, passing her tongue over her bottom lip. “It’s fairly easy,” she started, bracing herself for rejection and for the terrifying performance she was bound to make. “You just have to kiss me before the clock strikes midnight.”
His blue eyes darkened, his lips parted, and for an electrifying moment, Nina thought Matthias would close the distance between them and surprise her with the kiss that she’d spent weeks dreaming of.
Less than a flashing memory passed: his mouth twitched and his hand jerked, but then he stiffened, turning to grab his beer and taking a large sip. “Very funny.”
She scoffed. “I’m serious, Helvar.”
He shook his head, washing away the beginning of a begrudging laugh with another sip. “Sure you are.”
Nina scanned him: his face, the imperceptible grin tugging at the corner of his lips, only making him look even more gorgeous, the pink of his cheeks, and how his white shirt fell just perfectly on his broad shoulders, the first four buttons left unfastened. Two was normal. Three, still respectable. Four was an open invitation for her to do whatever the hell she wanted with him.
“Well. It’s your ears’ funeral,” she stated before standing up with a light jump and walking towards Jesper, who had readied the karaoke corner.
His smile was so broad that Nina feared he’d pull a muscle in each cheek. Jesper started blabbering about Nina dissolving the bet and just how predictable everyone was, because he had obviously known all along that she and the giant teddy bear would not kiss. Nina was hardly listening, too focused on keeping her gaze fixed on Matthias. He had resumed conversation with the people at his table, but his eyes were unmistakingly keeping tabs on her.
Jesper ended his monologue with a sigh. “I can’t believe you’re just giving up.”
“Once again, I’m not giving up because it’s not midnight yet. Which is also why you’ll let me choose the song, thank you very much,” Nina said, moving him out of the way and scrolling through YouTube videos. She let out a very satisfied mmh! when she found the song she’d had in mind. She set it at the beginning, then took the mic in her hands to address the crowd.
“Hello everyone, welcome back! I’m not your hostess, but that doesn’t matter right now—you know where to find Miss Ghafa, as she’s the brightest star of the night,” she said with her most charming smile, followed by a timid applause and a woo from Jesper. “If I were you, I would follow her lead and cover your ears, because I’m really bad at singing,” Nina added as she saw Inej press both her indexes to her ears. People laughed worriedly. “Or you can join me, if you know the song. Anyway, this entire ordeal has one clear culprit, who is Matthias Helvar over there,” she went on, pointing at him. Her smile widened when his face shifted in stupor and his following attempts to make himself as small as possible. “He could have prevented it. He didn’t. Take it out on him. Let’s go, Jes!”
To say that Nina couldn’t sing was an understatement, one which no one would argue. But alas, poor Matthias was too ensnared by the lyrics of the song watching how she was utterly destroying them with her gaze fixed on him—no doubt about that —to care about technical perfection.
Because she was clearly looking at him as she sang-slash-spoke-slash-slurred into the microphone, You’re so cool, it makes me hate you so much, (was he cool?) I hate you so much. No, he hated her. He hated her. So much.
Maybe he was projecting. But was he? Her finger lifted to point at him in the crowd and then at herself as she read on the screen, You’ve ruined my life, by not being mine. Perhaps she was just randomly pointing at the audience. Like, in a fun way. Performative. He hoped that was the case. Did the woman have no shame?
Nina continued her crooning and, unbelievably, encouraged people to sing with her—probably to make her vocal performance more tolerable—while she kept. looking. at. him .
If you’ve got a girlfriend, I’m jealous of her, she sang as she pranced around the garden, staring at him. Matthias didn’t, just to be clear.
Not that it mattered in the slightest, because chances were that the beer he’d had was too strong and he was imagining things now—besides, it was the song lyrics, right? It wasn’t as though she actually meant it. But if you’re single that’s honestly worse, she went on, ‘Cause you’re so gorgeous it actually hurts, and Matthias felt warmth claiming his body.
Nina reached his table and he stared in disbelief as her hand stretched out, her fingers caressing his jaw. Her thumb came to rest on the cleft on his chin. There was no mistaking how her green eyes bore into his as she repeated, in something a hair higher than a whisper, Honey, it hurts.
Then, not even a full second later, she twirled on her heels and rejoined her singing partners, badly trying to vocalize ocean blue eyes looking in mine (coincidence), I feel like I might sink and drown and die (exaggeration). It was magnetic. It was all so bad that it was irresistible. Maybe she wasn’t joking. No, she definitely wasn’t joking. Did she really want him to kiss her so much that she had bet on it? And why the hell did he let his chance go?
There’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have! Nina coaxed everyone in the garden to sing with her, You are so gorgeous it makes me so mad. The legends did have a passage or two about sirens sounding beautiful, though only to the men they were luring into their traps. Was that how Matthias was somehow tolerating the noises Nina was so gleefully putting out in the world, able to shake them off him as one brushes annoying dust? Was she a siren undercover? Possibly. His chances didn’t look good, then. Weren’t sirens historically killers of every man crossing their paths?
“Guess I’ll just stumble home to my cats,” Nina groaned in the microphone as she turned back towards him. Did she really have cats? He had a dog. They wouldn’t get along. What? Matthias had completely lost every ability to separate life and fiction.
“Alone,” she sighed, tilting her head to meet his eyes, her brown waves dangling on one side.
Their gazes locked.
“Unless you wanna come along.”
She winked. Again.
The song was a disaster, but the performance was everything she could have hoped for. Matthias’ complexion had covered every shade between ghost-white and ketchup-red, and Nina was ready to rub it into his face as she headed back to his table, when she suddenly realized he wasn’t there.
“Where did he go, now?” she exclaimed, opening her arms at the maximum point of her frustration.
Everyone laughed—no, really: everyone. Apparently Matthias was literally the only oblivious person around there.
“I think he just went to answer a call,” Inej said, pointing towards a corner of the nearby building. Nina silently cheered at the sight of the solid concrete wall. Let her be, she had repressed needs. “Or maybe to listen to some actual music.”
“Oh, shut up, I was basically forced into doing it. I’ll be right back,” she said as she stepped towards her new direction. “Or maybe not,” she added as an afterthought, stopping in her tracks. “Well, hopefully not.”
“Gross.”
Nina winked at her friend over her shoulder and marched towards her victory.
Her rose scent preceded her, and Matthias quickly threw the butt of his cigarette away. He never littered, ashamed of himself for doing it now, but this moment was a live-or-die kind of situation.
The woman scoffed when she appeared in front of him not five seconds later. “I was told you were on the phone.”
He inhaled a deep breath. “Well, it’s that I try not to smoke.”
“Was I the reason why you had to bend the rule?” Nina asked as she stepped closer.
“You can say that, yeah,” Matthias replied before he could think better. She was intoxicating. The cigarette aftertaste in his mouth was already forgotten. Maybe he needed another one.
“I did say you could have stopped that,” Nina pouted as her long nails toyed with the buttons on his wrists. Matthias’ vision blurred.
“That was… um…”
“A mess,” she supplied.
“A peculiar choice.”
She looked at him through her long lashes, her fingers moving from his wrist to his elbow and then his arm, his shoulder. He had to blink a few times not to forget where he was.
“You see, I’m usually very good at understanding whether someone wants me or not,” she said then, her voice mellow and rich. Sensual. “I did have a bit of trouble with you.” Did she? Matthias thought it was written all over his face what he wanted. Always had been.
He stayed silent.
“Do I scare you? Is that why you don’t speak?” Her hand dragged down his chest, thumb lingering over his exposed skin. He really should have taken his friends’ advice and learnt how to properly close a shirt. Then again, Nina would’ve managed to make his mind run wild even if both of them had been covered head to toe in wetsuits.
“No,” he croaked out.
“Do I intimidate you, then?” Her hand slipped onto his waist, her fingernails grazing his hip.
“Yeah.”
She smiled. Her lips looked—were—perfect. Just perfect. Beautiful. Full. Inviting. More beautiful than they ever were in his dreams.
“Will you kiss me, Matthias?” she whispered.
He stood as still as a statue. His brain had probably stopped sending signals to his body.
“Alright then,” Nina said, pressing herself against him, her lips sweet and soft on his.
Time froze, and they were the only people alive in the entire universe. Matthias stared at her motionless for a few moments—gazed at the shadow her eyelashes cast on her cheeks as she closed her eyes, at how her eyebrows quirked when he parted his lips to better mold them onto hers, noticed the almost imperceptible splash of freckles on her nose under her makeup. Then, just when he felt her about to pull away, his arms wrapped around her, keeping her flush against his chest, a hand ghosting to the nape of her neck to hold her gently, his fingers twisted in her brown locks, and his eyes finally closed, too.
The taste of her teased his tongue, and he hungered for more. Nina sighed blissfully into his mouth when he tugged at her bottom lip. Matthias turned them round to press her against the closest wall, his hands palming her figure, the small of her back, the hills of her hips, the curve of her waist. Their kiss grew more keen, more eager, and her hands were all over him too, raking down his shirt and grazing up his back. She breathed his name when Matthias’ mouth left hers to trail kisses down the column of her neck; he felt himself coming undone right there and then, under Nina’s expert touch and bewitching voice.
Nina nipped his ear, telling him just what exactly she wanted to do with him if he came alone to her house, and his eyes snapped open. Her gaze was sly, smug, proud and fierce. What was the lyric? Sink and drown and die?
“So?” She sounded as breathless as him and as alluring as sin, cocking an eyebrow, her nails tracing his cheek. “You have other plans?”
He shook his head, still caught in the haze of the moment. “No. No plans.”
“Good,” she grinned, catching his lips again for a sonorous, wet kiss. “Let’s go then,” and she pushed gently against his shoulder to move him along.
With great reluctance, Matthias pulled away and followed Nina, his mind reeling as he tried to understand precisely what was happening. He almost bumped into her when she stopped in her tracks, a gorgeous frown adorning her forehead.
“Oh, if Jesper asks, you kissed me first, okay? I have a bet to win.”
Matthias looked at her wide-eyed, a smile blooming on his face, putting all his affection on display for the woman in front of him. “Sure. No problem.”
“Great,” she nodded, biting her now very rosy and very swollen lips as she reached for his hand. “I’ll teach you exactly what you need to do in order to actually kiss me first.”