16. Dahlia
16
DAHLIA
I ’m woken up in the morning by the sound of my phone buzzing insistently on the nightstand. It takes a moment for it to cut through the tangled dreams I was having—dreams about Alek, and our wedding day, and that night in the library. I wake with my skin prickling with sweat and the sheets kicked off, only to roll over and see that the name lighting up my phone screen is my father.
I sit up, feeling like I’ve been doused with a bucket of ice water. For a moment, I consider not answering it, but I know that will only make things worse. My father has connections, and while I might have married into the Bratva, I know he has the ability to try to find where I’ve gone. While I believe that Dimitri would do everything in his power to keep him from making me do anything I didn’t want to, I still don’t want to deal with the lengths my father might go to, if I try to avoid him.
So I answer the phone, tucking my knees up to my chest as I run my free hand through my tangled hair. “Hello?”’
“Your mother is worried sick.” His voice cuts coldly across the line, and I press my lips together to force back a retort.
“She could have called me,” I say as calmly as I can manage. “No one has.”
“I told you the consequences, Dahlia. Are you ready to rethink your choices?”
I suck in a slow breath, then let it out again. He clearly doesn’t have anyone watching me. If he did, he’d know that I’m not in the hopeless situation that I think he imagines, since he knows that the joint bank account is frozen and that by now I’ve lost my apartment.
“I told you my decision,” I say coolly, my hand tightening around the phone. My heart is racing, but I manage to not let it show in my voice. I want to be calm with him, to not let him know how much all of this has affected me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You can’t be serious.” He sounds annoyed, as if my refusal to comply with his demands is a mild irritation, something easily solved if he swats at it enough. “Where are you even living right now? A hotel? A halfway house? If you would just be reasonable?—”
“A mansion.” I cut him off. “I married my child’s father. So I’m fine. Don’t worry about us.”
Before he can say another word, I hang up the phone, letting it drop onto the bed. My hands are trembling, and I bite my lip hard to keep from bursting into tears.
Some small part of me had been hoping that he was calling to make amends, to say he was sorry, to offer me a way out that was something palatable. But I should have known better. I get my own stubborn streak from my father, and he’s never been a man willing to lose face. He was never going to be the one to give in first.
I manage to choke down a little of my breakfast—yogurt, granola, and seasonal fruit sent up from the kitchen—and decide to go out to the hot tub for a soak afterwards. It’s a chilly day for spring, and the thought of the hot water relaxing my muscles sounds incredible. I throw on a bikini, pulling a loose sundress over it in case I run into Alek, and head out to the pool deck at the back of the mansion.
There’s no one in sight, just a cloudy sky and the far-off sound of someone working on the landscaping interspersed with the chirping of birds. I take off my sundress, draping it over one of the lounge chairs, and turn on the jets in the hot tub, stepping down into the blissfully warm water and letting out a sigh. I sink down into it up to my shoulders, laying my head back against the edge, and in a matter of minutes I’m so relaxed that I don’t even hear the sound of footsteps until I feel a shadow fall over me.
I open my eyes, already knowing who I’m going to see. Alek looms over me, his gaze raking down my half-naked body as if I’m something that belongs to him—and I suppose in a way, I do.
I hate the thought, but it sends a flicker of heat curling down my spine too, one that has nothing to do with the temperature of the water. “What are you doing out here?” I snap, and he raises an eyebrow.
“Exploring.” He shrugs, and I let out a sharp, frustrated breath.
“Exploring your own home? How—you know what? Never mind. Just leave me alone, okay?” I look away from him, realizing that I’m too emotionally drained today to engage with the usual verbal sparring. I don’t have the energy for it, or to deal with the chemistry between us, or anything else. I just want to be left alone.
Alek frowns. “Did something happen?”
I blink, my gaze jerking back towards him. “Why the hell would you care?” I stare at him, shocked that he even asked. He’s never given a shit about anything going on with me before, and I don’t know why he would start now.
“Can’t you just answer a question?” he growls, and I pause, still shocked that he hasn’t stalked off yet.
I’m loath to give him even the slightest insight into what’s going on with me. But maybe if I tell him, he’ll leave me alone.
“My father called,” I say flatly. “Which was a surprise, since he was very clear when I left the last time that if I walked out of the house and didn’t do what he said, I was cut off from everyone and everything. So I wasn’t really expecting to hear from him.”
“If you didn’t marry that other guy.” Alek says it gruffly, but I could swear I see a flicker of something that almost looks like jealousy in his eyes at the mention of another man. His gaze drags down the front of me again, and I see the twitch of his cock behind his zipper.
“It was more than that.” I refuse to tell Alek about the frozen account—the last thing I want is his pity, or for him to think I’m chasing his money. I’m not—not really. All I wanted was enough security to come up with a plan, a way to survive on my own. When I can do that, then I have every intention of leaving, and I won’t ever ask him for another thing.
“So, what?” He’s still standing there, looking at me with an expression that’s almost curious, and I sit up abruptly, the water sloshing around me. Too late, I realize that leaves me exposed from the ribs up, only my bright emerald green bikini top covering a few slivers of skin, and I see Alek’s gaze rest on my small breasts.
I blow out a sharp breath. “He wanted my little… problem taken care of, discreetly.” I touch my stomach, and to my shock, I see a flare of indisputable anger in Alek’s eyes. For one brief second, I see clear rage in those hazel depths, and something stirs in my chest in response.
He’d deny it if I said anything. But for a moment there, he wanted to fight for our baby—for me . And I feel an ache behind my ribs at the thought of that being true. At the thought that deep down, he might care about something like that.
“You told him no?” There’s still nothing but bored curiosity in Alek’s tone, and I try to hear that anger, that possessiveness in it, but I can’t.
“I told him no,” I confirm quietly. “And he told me not to come home again.”
“And this morning?”
“He asked if I’d changed my mind. I told him no again.” I swallow hard, meeting Alek’s eyes. “I told him that I married my child’s father.”
For the briefest of seconds, I see his eyes widen. His shoulders stiffen, and he looks at me, his expression unreadable. And then, before I can say another word, he spins on his heel and stalks away, vanishing back into the house.
Fucking hell. I slide back under the water, fighting the sudden, irrational urge to cry again. It’s my hormones, I’m sure, but I still feel as if there was a moment there between us, before he locked up again. And for some reason, the mention of the baby was the reason for both.
I don’t care, I remind myself. This is a means to an end. A backup plan until I can figure out what to do .
I close my eyes, drifting in the hot water for a little while longer. When I go back inside a while later, Alek is thankfully nowhere to be seen, but I pass Evelyn in the hall as I’m heading upstairs.
“Dahlia!” She smiles brightly at me, a look on her face that tells me clearly that she has an idea. “Genevieve called me. She wants to go out tonight. I know you can’t drink and neither can I, but it would be fun to get out anyway, right? It would be good for us both to get out of the house,” she adds, looping her arm through mine as I walk back to my room. “Say yes.”
That startles me. Before, I was always the social butterfly, urging Evelyn out with me. Have I really withdrawn that much since all this started? The thought of that, that I’ve started to lose my grip on that part of my personality, is as much the reason for my answer as anything else.
“Absolutely,” I tell her. “Just say what time.”
—
At seven-thirty that evening, I met Evelyn downstairs, dressed to go out on the town. I picked a pair of tight black jeans and a black lace tank top with an aqua-blue ribbon threaded through the neckline, my black leather jacket tossed on top, with a pair of black leather ankle boots. For the first time in what feels like ages, too, I actually curled my hair and threw on a bit of black eyeliner, and I feel better than I have in weeks.
The driver is already waiting outside for us, with Gus standing by the passenger’s side. He’s still Evelyn’s bodyguard when she needs one, and they’ve reached a friendly truce—she accepts that he has to go places with her, and he tries not to be overly intrusive about it.
“Do you think you’ll ever get used to this?” I ask her as we slide into the car, breathing in the scent of warm, freshly cleaned leather. “I still remember when we were getting Ubers—or hell, just a taxi to go out for the night.”
Evelyn laughs, brushing her hair off of her shoulder. “No, I don’t know if I will,” she admits. “It’s strange, having a driver and staff and a bodyguard. I never imagined living like this. I was perfectly happy in my little apartment, walking back and forth to my shop every day. It feels a little—claustrophobic, sometimes, if I’m being honest. Even in a house as big as the one we live in now. But I get to be with Dimitri, so that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.”
Something twinges in my chest at that. I wish I knew what it was like to feel that way about someone. The only trade-off I’m making is enduring Alek’s attitude so that I can have some security until I figure out what I’m going to do.
“Even my father doesn’t live like this,” I tell Evelyn with a laugh, as the car pulls away from the front of the house. “He gets a driver on occasion for events where he wants to arrive in style, but he doesn’t have personal security, or anything like that. My mother has a housekeeper.” I shrug. “This is an entirely different way of living.”
I’ve always liked luxury, but I’m not sure even I could get used to this. But I won’t have to, I remind myself wryly. My marriage to Alek is temporary. I won’t be living like this forever.
The car drops us off at the bar that Genevieve picked—an upscale speakeasy-style bar in Tribeca that’s in a small brownstone building surrounded by foliage, like a little oasis in the middle of the city. She’s waiting for us inside, perched at the bar in a strappy black dress that shows off her endless long dancer’s legs, and I can tell that most of the eyes in the bar are on her as she sits there, sipping what looks like a martini.
“I picked this place specifically because it has fantastic non-alcoholic drinks too,” Genevieve promises as we hug and sit down next to her at the bar. “Since you two can’t drink.” She wrinkles her nose playfully, waving for the bartender to come over. The customers are five deep on the other side, but he heads our way immediately—unsurprisingly, since he can’t take his eyes off of Genevieve.
I can feel myself relaxing as we order our drinks and sit there, chatting about Genevieve’s upcoming ballet showcase, the new exhibit that’s coming to the Met, and the progress on Evelyn’s boutique. We don’t talk about Alek, or my new living situation, or pregnancies, and for a little while, I start to feel like my old self. We move away from the bar to a corner table after a little while, getting another round of drinks and nibbling at an appetizer.
“I need to head home,” Genevieve says after a couple of hours, tossing down the credit card that I know is one Chris gave her. “I have an early rehearsal in the morning. But we should do this again soon.”
“Let’s stay a little longer.” I look at Evelyn as Genevieve pays her tab and waves, heading out to catch her taxi back to her apartment. “It’s nice being out of the house. I’m feeling a lot better.”
“Sure.” She shrugs agreeably. “I’m going to run to the bathroom, though. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I glance at my phone as she walks away, and when I look up a second later, I nearly scream out loud.
A man I’ve never seen before is sitting across from me, dressed all in black, his face weathered and making it difficult to tell his exact age. He’s bald, with piercing blue eyes, and I look frantically towards the direction Evelyn went, a sense of alarm pinging through me.
“Your friend is fine,” he says gruffly, and my alarm only increases when he speaks. He has a thick Russian accent, and everything about him screams danger . “Although my associate has delayed her a bit. Just a little casual flirtation.”
“She’s married. That won’t work for long.” I swallow hard. “I don’t know you. What do you want?” My voice is surprisingly calm, considering the fear pounding through my veins.
“Oh, I know she’s married, devochka .” The man smiles, but it isn’t a pleasant smile. It’s predatory, like he’s playing a game with me and enjoying my fear. “Just like I know you are, and to who.”
My hand twitches toward my phone, even though I know it’s no use thinking I can call either Dimitri or Alek. Not with this man sitting there, his gaze fixed on me. I just have to hope Evelyn gets back soon.
“What do you want?” I repeat, a tiny tremor making its way into my voice, and the man’s smile broadens.
“To make you an offer, devochka .”
“For what?” I stare at him. “I’m sorry, I don’t need?—”
“You need a great many things. For one, you need money.” One eyebrow rises. “You have almost none of your own now. The Yashkov pakhan is letting you live off of his charity, because you’ve married his brother. But that brother is mercurial, net ? He will tire of whatever game you’re playing with him soon enough.”
“I’m not playing a game?—”
“A lie, and we both know it.” His smile doesn’t falter. “But I can make you a better offer.”
“How do you know anything about me?” I glance past the bar again, but I don’t see any sign of Evelyn still, and my stomach clenches.
“I have my ways. I know you work as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that your father is a respected politician in Washington D.C., that you married Alek Yashkov very recently, and that you are carrying his child. Or so you say. And I know much, much more about Alek Yashkov himself. He’s not a man you want to be married to, devochka .”
My blood runs cold with every word, and my fingers start to tremble. “You need to leave,” I bite out, with as much conviction as I can muster. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
“I think you do.” The man doesn’t budge. “You see, I’m very well acquainted with Alek Yashkov. He…left, before we could finish the business we had with him. And I would like to speak to him again.”
“So go talk to him.” I swallow hard. “Since you know so much. You’d probably have better luck than me.”
The man chuckles darkly. “I doubt it very much, devochka .” He drums his fingers against the tabletop, looking at me with those icy eyes. “You bring Alek Yashkov back here, tomorrow night. Let’s say, eight p.m.. And then, as soon as you are here, go to the ladies’ room. Just outside, someone will have your payment for you. That’s all you need to do. I recommend leaving immediately, of course. The pakhan won’t be pleased that you’re working with us. But the money we will give you is enough to buy you a new life wherever you please.”
“I don’t want your money.” I twist my fingers together, trying to calm my racing heart. “Just go. I don’t want any part of this.”
“No?” The man cocks his head. “Not even five million dollars, devochka ? In cash or wired to a bank of your choice, whichever you prefer.”
Five million dollars. It’s an insane amount of money. Enough to free me from Alek, from my father…enough to, like this man is saying, buy me a fresh start anywhere I please. But there’s no part of me that considers it, even for a moment.
I might hate Alek a lot of the time, but I’m not so naive that I don’t know that whatever this man wants with him, it’s something very, very bad. And I also know that whoever this man is, he’s not someone I want to get tangled up with.
“I already gave you my answer.” I force myself to look him straight in the eye, ignoring the twisting sensation in my stomach and the near-painful racing of my heart. “I said no.”
The man hesitates for only a moment, and then I see his gaze cut to one side. When I follow the direction that he’s looking, I see Evelyn starting to walk back towards our table, brushing off the man that tries to stop her and talk to her as she heads back towards me.
“Well.” The man stands up smoothly. “A shame, Dahlia. Things would be much better for you if you had chosen my offer.”
He turns before I can say anything, melting into the crowd a moment before Evelyn arrives back at the table. There’s a pinched line between her brows, and she looks thoroughly annoyed.
“Some men just don’t know how to take no for an answer.” She glances back in the direction of where she came, but the man who tried to stop her appears to be gone, too. “This one guy stopped me on the way to the bathroom and back, trying to flirt.”
“They really don’t know how,” I murmur, my heart still pounding in my chest. Evelyn frowns, reaching for her drink.
“You look pale. Are you feeling okay?”
I should tell her what happened. I know I should. I should tell Dimitri, too. But something holds me back.
I don’t owe Alek any loyalty. He’s been nothing but an ass to me from the moment he walked in that afternoon and found me sitting on the couch with Evelyn. But if there’s one thing I’ve figured out about him, it’s that he has secrets—and he doesn’t seem to want to share them with anyone. Not even his brother.
What just happened has something to do with those secrets. And even though rationally I know that I should go to Dimitri with this, my instincts scream that I should wait, and tell Alek. That I should let him decide what to do with this information.
“I think I’m just tired.” I run my finger along the rim of my glass. “We should probably go, actually. I know I wanted to stay…but I think maybe that was a little too ambitious.”
Evelyn looks at me for a long moment, and I wonder if she’s seeing through me. She’s my best friend—she knows me better than anyone else, and I’ve never tried to hide anything from her before.
“Okay,” she says finally, reaching for her phone. “I’ll text the driver.”
A few minutes later, we’re heading out into the spring evening, and despite the fact that it’s beginning to warm up, I shiver the moment we step outside.
The last thing I want is to go looking for Alek tonight when I get home.
But I need to tell him what happened.