Chapter 23 – Marielle
I was in bed.
I felt the relaxing softness beneath my body before I opened my eyes.
Opening my eyes, I saw that I was snugly covered in clean covers. My head still felt heavy, and my limbs ached. But I felt warm. Safe.
Eduard sat on the couch. He was barefoot, his black pants matching his T-shirt. He had a faraway look in his eyes, like he was deep in thought.
I gently turned to the side.
Eduard’s eyes met mine.
He watched me silently, his jaw clenched, and his distant gaze shifted into something that resembled worry. I blinked, feeling that he was afraid I might get hurt again.
“Why….” I cleared my throat. “Why did you take my phone?”
He tilted his head.
A small smile crossed my face.
“I mean, I think I knew deep down that I didn’t lose it. You took it. But, we weren’t exactly approachable,” I explained before asking another question that had been on my mind. “Why did you become distant?”
There was a pause before his throat bobbed.
“I was mistaken.”
“Mistaken? About?” I prompted.
“I got the CCTV footage of the night of the Bratva event. I saw the text Lucien sent to you. I saw you look over your shoulder as you sent a response. I doubted you,” he disclosed, his tone unusually low.
I was dumbstruck.
Fingers encasing each other, he went on.
“Although I wasn’t sure he was the sender then, the likely possibility made me spiral. A part of me wasn’t convinced that you would, but I thought you might be working with him. That maybe you were feeding him information. The chances that you were probably on his side made me take a step back.”
His paranoia was unbelievable.
“I’m not so stupid to be on the side of a man who lied to me and then tried to kill me,” I dropped, rolling my eyes at him.
“I know. But I wasn’t sure then; everything pointed in the same direction. The fact that you deleted the messages exchanged between you both made it harder. I asked myself if you would delete them if they meant nothing.”
“I deleted them because I didn’t want to have any link to him ever again. I even blocked his number so he wouldn’t try to reach me again,” I confessed.
“You should have told me about it. Why didn’t you?”
“You don’t get to blame me for not telling you when you were busy playing your distance game. You should have told me when you discovered something suspicious,” I lashed out.
“I had to investigate first. I couldn’t question you over a text that might have been from anyone else,” he answered, his tone angry.
“But the same text was enough for you to push me away!”
I sat up.
“Put yourself in my shoes. I wasn’t even sure if you were genuine,” he fired back.
“That’s exactly why you should have asked. It’s what normal people do. It would have saved us the tension and uncertainty,” I accused.
We settled into a heavy silence.
I could feel his eyes on me even as I stared blankly ahead.
He stood and walked over to his side of the bed. He bent down to open his nightstand drawer. Then he approached my nightstand without saying a word.
He dropped something on it before coming to sit by my legs on the bed.
I turned to the side and saw what he’d dropped.
A single key.
“You’re free. You can leave if you want. I won’t stop you,” he declared.
My gaze stayed on his face. He looked like someone trying to hide physical pain. His eyes were unreadable, but I knew his expressions well enough to tell he didn’t like what he’d just said. I was right.
I didn’t just imagine it. He didn’t want me to ever get hurt again.
And this was his way of ensuring that.
The tiny issue, however, was that I wasn’t having any of that.
I didn’t touch the key or even move toward it. Instead, I shifted lower until I was close to his stiff body.
“I don’t want freedom anymore, Eduard,” I disclosed, my voice almost quiet. “I want you.”
“So, no. I don’t want the key,” I added as he stared at me.
A more peaceful silence stretched between us.
“I love you.”
Did his lips just move?
His words seemed to knock the air out of my lungs.
His gaze didn’t waver as I searched his eyes.
The words were real.
Eduard wasn’t the type of man to say things just for the sake of talking. He was too comfortable with silence to attempt filling it with empty words.
He meant it.
I kissed him with all my emotions. He quickly took control of the kiss, his lips conveying the remnants of his words.
I broke the kiss.
“When I was in that ridiculous room,” I started, the clenching of his jaw making me smile, “I was alone with my thoughts. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it earlier. I love you, Eduard.”
He gave me a dazed look before his lips came down on mine. His lips moved over mine quicker this time. With his hand on the small of my back, Eduard guided me to the bed and was hovering over me in an instant, lips not leaving mine.
His tongue flicked my lower lip, and I granted him access. One of his hands moved over my breast while the other gripped my waist, causing me to let out a soft moan.
He pulled away, his hand coming to my face.
“Baby,” he uttered, his voice raw. “We have to stop. I’m not sure I can control myself. You’re injured; you still need to heal.”
I smiled up at him as I nodded.
He dropped a quick kiss to my lips before moving back.
That was when I saw the white bandage peeking from under the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes followed mine to it.
“It was just a graze,” he explained. “Lucien is dead.”
“What? You…?”
He nodded in the affirmative.
“For me?”
“Baby, death is too kind for someone who hurt you. Nobody will ever touch a hair on your head.”
Of course, he had just proven it.
And, in that moment, I knew exactly what bliss was.
***
“So, who changed my clothes?”
“That I did,” Eduard answered.
Eduard had assigned himself as my nurse, guardian, and everything in between since I woke up the day before. He had barely left my side, even though, from the calls his men gave him, he had things to do. The only thing he hadn’t offered or even insisted on helping with was going to the bathroom.
And I loved every part of his doting affection; I wasn’t going to deny it. There was something heartwarming about Eduard, such a force of strong energy, pouring all of his attention on me.
The doctor had just left, and I was sitting on the couch, enjoying the soup Agatha had made for me. The dark, greenish broth surprisingly tasted good; it was sweet and quite spicy.
When I’d had enough of Eduard’s wordless stare from the edge of the bed where he sat, I blurted, “Are you going to make me guess?”
He had the nerve to look clueless.
“I know when you’re looking at me,” I told him.
He chuckled. “I’m always looking at you. You just have to be in the same room with me for that to happen.”
My cheeks burned, and it had nothing to do with the heat of the soup.
“What’s on your mind?” I persisted.
He leaned closer to the stool between us.
“You have no idea how much of an effect you have on me. It’s deeper than you can ever fathom. You’ve reached places within me I never thought existed. I find it hard to believe you’re mine. That you chose to be mine,” he told me, his eyes boring into me.
“And I still have to remind myself that you really said the words yesterday. So, I guess that makes the two of us.”
He shook his head.
“It’s not the same, baby,” he claimed. “I wasn’t always good to you.
In fact, I was more bad than good. I want you to know that hurting you hurts me; it always has.
All the times I withdrew from you, that I pushed you away and turned my back on you, I did it because I thought it was better that way.
I thought it was safer for both of us if we were on different lanes,” he confessed, his expression solemn.
“But you always came back,” I pointed out.
“I was never good at staying away from you.”
I chuckled before saying, “It always felt like the opposite.”
“Baby, you underestimate how alluring you are,” he remarked. “It took all my practiced restraint not to jump you when you walked past me in the closet or looked up at me with those eyes.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“And when you roll your eyes at me like that,” he added, a playful smirk on his face.
“Enough, mister.”
“For all the hurt I caused you, I hope you can forgive me even though I can’t forgive myself,” he uttered, every trace of humor wiped from his face.
“Eduard, there is nothing to forgive. I could have been more understanding, too. More patient. We’re in a new chapter; all those times are in the past.”
“That’s another thing I find hard to understand about you.”
“What?”
“How easy it is for you to see past my wrongs. You just accept what I say, and in the next minute, you’re smiling at me like I’m not the same person who just hurt you.
I remember my half-assed apology in the closet.
I had never seen you that angry at me. I had expected to do more groveling, but you heard me out right there and then. ”
“After you held me to your body with your strong arms,” I pointed out, a small laugh leaving my lips at the memory.
“It’s amazing how forgiving you are,” he commented. “I don’t deserve it, but I promise to try. I’ll try to be the kind of man you deserve.”
“I don’t need you to be any kind of man, Eduard Yezhov. I want you.”
“Have I ever told you how sexy I find it when you call my full name?”
“Hm. I’m not sure,” I answered, grinning as I dropped the bowl on the stool.
“Too bad I can’t show you right now. But the time is coming,” he mentioned, his heated gaze making me lick my lips.
He gently pulled me by my hand, and before I knew it, I was sitting in his lap.
“Even if it’ll drive me crazy, I can still do this,” he whispered before his lips clashed with mine.
He held me close to his body as his lips moved to my forehead.
His rapid heartbeats matched mine as we sat there, wrapped in blissful silence.
***
There was still a dull ache in my limbs, but my bruises had begun to fade.
It was the first day Eduard left the house for the warehouse, and although he made me promise not to leave the bed, I was bored. So I went downstairs and headed over to the kitchen.
“Oh, my!” Agatha gushed, running over to throw her arms around me when I entered the cinnamon-filled room.
“Mrs. Yezhov!” Sofia practically cried.
“We’re glad you’re better now,” Mila said, a small smile on her face.
“Thank you…all of you,” I uttered, sitting on a chair. “Although if I knew you’d be this dramatic, I might have stayed back in the bedroom.”
Sofia and Agatha laughed. Mila smiled.
“We were so scared!” Agatha uttered, her face almost sad.
“When Ruslan told us that you were missing, I prayed that it was just a bad dream. The whole house was in chaos that evening,” Sofia said.
“Sir Eduard was everywhere at the same time. He was downstairs till night,” Mila revealed.
“It was night when they took me,” I pointed out, chuckling at them.
“Nobody knew it then. I heard Sir Eduard asking his men where you were when he got back that evening. That was when they found out that you weren’t in the house. If he had known, he would have come earlier,” Agatha explained.
While I might have doubted that a few days ago, there was no doubt in my heart about him coming for me this time.
“How do you feel now? Does anywhere hurt?” she asked.
“I’m alright now. Thanks to your hearty soups.”
“And Sir Eduard’s care,” Sofia added, wiggling her eyebrows.
I laughed. I had missed her romantic theatrics.
“Yes, and his care,” I admitted.
“What do you want for lunch? Anything at all, I’ll make it specially for you,” Sofia rushed.
“I’m eating whatever everyone else is. It’s still too early for lunch, anyway.”
“I’ll make fresh juice. You can’t say no to that,” she insisted.
Agatha took the seat next to mine, a serious expression on her face.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re not scared? Having nightmares?”
“The first night was rough, but Eduard was right there. I’m fine. Really fine,” I assured, touched by her concern.
“It must have been horrible,” she complained. “In case of anything, you know you can always talk to me.”
“Thank you, Agatha.”
Later that afternoon, I wandered to the piano room. I didn’t go to the glistening grand piano. I stood just inside the room, my eyes on the instrument.
When I was much younger, I used to find expression in playing the piano in times like this.
Times when I had just escaped through an ordeal or gone through a change.
I used to share my happiness or fear with the piano.
Unlike my parents or siblings, I knew it wouldn’t call my ordeal a result of my headiness.
It wouldn’t tell me my happiness was unreasonable.
The pull to it was strong, but I just stood there.
As I turned my back on the piano, I knew I couldn’t resist for so long.
I didn’t really want to: I just didn’t know where to start.