Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ALEKSEI
She walks in ahead of me as we step into the house, dropping her keys in the dish by the door. When she faces me, her eyes are sharp as they scan me, landing on the dark stain spreading beneath my sweatshirt.
“Kitchen. Now.”
I lift a brow, mouth curving. “Are you giving me orders?”
“You’re bleeding and won’t see a doctor. I think it’s in my job description to at least try to stop you from dying.”
My gaze drops to her mouth, to the way her lips move when she takes charge. That authority in her voice does things to me I can barely contain. It takes everything in me not to spin her around and show her exactly what that tone does to me, right here against this wall.
“Stop looking at me like you’re two seconds from tearing my clothes off and get your ass in the kitchen so I can patch you up.”
My knuckles graze her jaw, lingering just long enough to feel the heat of her skin. “I like it when you get bossy, detka.”
She draws in a shaky breath, and my heart squeezes too damn hard from how much I need her.
“This is not happening,” she murmurs, peeling my hand off her. “Now be a good boy and listen to your wife for once.”
My God, what she does to me.
I follow her into the kitchen, watching the way her hips sway, already picturing how she’ll look with her hands pressed to the countertop and my name like a song from her lips.
I ease into the kitchen chair as she moves across the room, disappearing into the hallway closet and coming back with the first aid kit, already snapping on gloves.
“You’re my nurse now?”
She doesn’t even look at me as she sets the kit on the table. “Someone has to be. It’s obvious you can’t be trusted to take care of yourself.”
A low laugh rumbles out of me. “Is that right?”
She steps between my legs, standing so close I can smell the faint trace of her perfume.
I dip my head, brushing my mouth near her ear. “Tell me what else I can’t be trusted with, moya ptichka.”
She freezes. Just for a second. But it’s enough to know she felt it too.
She dabs hydrogen peroxide on the cut and winces. “You need stitches.”
“Much to your disappointment, I will live. Just clean it.”
Something passes in her eyes, like maybe the idea of me dying doesn’t please her as much as I thought.
Wordlessly, she grabs antiseptic, cotton pads, and gauze, then gets to work.
Her hands are careful and firm as she presses against the wound, and all I can think is that I would take a hundred more hits just to feel her touch me like this again.
“This will leave a nasty scar.”
“Add it to the rest.”
She pauses, eyes on mine, like there is something she wants to say, but she can’t figure out how.
Is she wondering about the scars on my chest? Does she want to know how I got them?
Would I tell her?
Maybe I would, because a part of me does not want to hide myself from her anymore.
Once she finishes with the bandage, she steps back, arms crossing over her chest. “Hopefully you’re still alive by the morning.”
“I’m deeply moved that you seem to care so much.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t get too excited. I’m just not a cruel person.”
“I’d say you’re cruel.” My hand rounds the small of her back and I grab her hips, pulling her up onto my lap until she’s straddling me.
“How’s that?” she whispers, throwing her arms over my shoulders.
“The mere sight of you, the feeling of you…” My lips brush hers, and a groan escapes me. “It feels like a punishment. The worst kind, Fiona.”
“Aleksei…” My name on her lips feels like she’s begging me for something I don’t know if I’m ready for.
“You should go to sleep. You have work in the morning,” I tell her.
But I can’t seem to pull away, my fingers sliding into her hair. I want so badly to kiss her.
“Yeah, right… Work.” She sucks in a shallow breath, slowly slipping her arms from my shoulders.
It hurts to let her go, but I do it anyway.
She slides off me and stands there for a moment, her eyes on mine, and something flickers across her face. “Good night, I guess.”
She wants me to stop her. To join her. But I don’t.
“Sleep well.”
I curse myself for not getting up and following her as she scurries out of sight. Once she’s gone, I sit there like an idiot.
It shouldn’t feel like this. Like wanting her is a wound I keep digging into.
Why can’t it be easy? How does Konstantin do it and remain true to who he is? I don’t know if I have that in me. If I do, it’s buried so deep under everything I’ve done, everything I am, that I’ll never find it.
Something inside me locks up when she’s near. It pushes back, makes me say things I don’t mean, makes me cold when all I want is to hold her.
She thinks I’ve been avoiding her because I’m indifferent, but she’s never been more wrong.
If anything, Fiona should be relieved. Because I don’t know how to love someone without destroying it.
And she deserves better than that. She deserves better than me.
FIONA
I don’t expect him to follow me upstairs, but some stupid, na?ve part waits for the sound of his footsteps anyway.
They never come, though.
It’s better this way. That’s what I tell myself as I strip out of my clothes and pull on one of the silk camisoles he bought me.
The silence stretches around me as I sit at the edge of the bed and stare at the wall, the corner of my vision catching on the faint outline of the open door.
I hate how much I care. That I noticed the way he didn’t wince when I pressed down on his wound, the way he didn’t even flinch when I cleaned it.
Like he’s used to the pain. Like it’s a friend he grew up with.
God, what kind of childhood leaves someone like that?
I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them as I rest my chin on top. His words replay in my head.
It feels like a punishment.
Is that what I am to him? Or was that his twisted way of saying I matter?
I should be angry. I am angry. He’s been cold, distant, shutting me out in every way that matters. Then he says things like that?
Kirill’s words echo again.
He used to. A lot. But he hasn’t in a while, not until you.
Why? Why did he start fighting? What do I have to do with that? Did he start fighting to numb whatever feelings he’s hiding behind?
I turn onto my side and pull the covers up, trying to force myself to sleep. But my mind won’t shut off. I can’t stop thinking about the way Konstantin looks at Emilia, how he touches her like she’s everything to him.
I want that. So badly.
I don’t know when I fall asleep, but I do. Eventually.
And the next thing I feel is the shift of the mattress beneath me, the faintest pull of weight as the bed dips behind me. I stir, disoriented, heart kicking up once before I hear it: his voice, low and rough and barely more than a whisper.
“Sleep. I’m here.”
Aleksei.
Quiet surrender washes over me as a smile winds up my mouth and I sink into him, too afraid to open my eyes to see if I’m dreaming. The heat of him sinks into my back, hesitation in his breath before his arm curls around my waist, and I know this is real. It has to be.
He exhales against the back of my neck, his nose brushing the curve of my shoulder like he needs to remind himself I’m real.
That I haven’t disappeared. When his palm pulls me tighter, my throat thickens as I wonder if he came here because he couldn’t stay away or because he knew I was hoping he would.
And whether it even makes a difference.
I wake up reaching for him.
It’s automatic now, this foolish little twitch of hope that he stayed. That maybe, just maybe, last night meant something.
But the sheets are empty. Of course he isn’t there. Why would anything change with Aleksei?
I lie there for a few more seconds staring at the ceiling, trying to shake the tight knot building in my chest.
It’s stupid. This is stupid. Clearly there’s never going to be anything real between us.
I seriously need to go back to the days when I wanted to stab him in the eye with a fork. Those were much simpler times.
I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, the water hot and satisfying against my skin, trying to wash away the memory of his touch. But it clings. Like everything else about him.
When I arrive at work, the day moves in slow motion.
I can’t focus at the meeting. Can’t focus in court.
Even when Dana starts gushing about the new guy she’s seeing over lunch, I’m only half there, nodding in the right places and pretending to listen while my mind replays the same damn reel on repeat.
Him. Last night. The way I felt when he touched me.
Why am I like this? Why do I keep hoping he’ll give me an ounce of something real? Every time I think I see it, he tears it away like it was never there.
By the time I’m heading back to the office, I’m ready to scream into a pillow or maybe set something on fire. Preferably him.
My phone buzzes on my desk, and when I find his name there, my heart gives a little kick.
Great…
Aleksei
Dinner. You and me. Tonight at 7.
That’s it?
No hello. No apology for disappearing. Just a command. Like I’m a possession he left on the nightstand and expects to be waiting, smiling and compliant.
I roll my eyes so hard, I’m surprised they stay in my skull.
Fiona
I’m not hungry.
The response comes fast, like he’s been waiting for my reply.
Aleksei
You will be, Mrs. Marinova. Trust me.
I snort.
Fiona
That so? What are you going to do, force me to the table? Because the only way I’d ever sit at the same table as you is if you tied me up and gagged me.
I hit send before I can second-guess it, and just as I’m grinning at my own audacity, his reply pops up.
Aleksei
This dinner is sounding more and more appealing by the second.
I scoff. Of course he turns it into something dirty. That’s the only damn thing he responds to.
Fiona
There will be no dinner. You’ll be eating alone, as usual. Feel free to choke on your overpriced steak.
There’s a pause. Three dots blink on the screen like he’s typing. Then they vanish.
Good. Let him stew in it the same way I’ve stewed in his absence every night since he started this stupid game of avoidance.
I toss the phone onto my desk and spin my chair to face the window. I tell myself again that I’m not going. No matter what he says or does.
He wanted distance? Well, here it is, baby.
But a part of me, some irrational part, wants him to drag me to that stupid table and tie me up just to prove he can.