Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
FIONA
My hands curl around the chamomile tea, letting the warmth of the mug settle into my palms while the TV hums in the background, nothing more than noise.
Every night in this hotel suite, it feels smaller. Maybe it’s the loneliness, or maybe it’s the way everything reminds me of him even when he isn’t here.
It’s been another two days, and I just want to go home. Back to my old life, away from the constant reminders of him. But the reality is, going back home wouldn’t change any of it. He’d still be in every corner of my thoughts.
Finishing my tea, I change into an oversized T-shirt and leggings, pull my hair into a messy bun, and drop onto the bed, knowing what comes next. It’s what I do every night, needing my fix.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand, unlock the screen, and stare at photos of us from when I actually let myself imagine a future with him. I gaze at the pictures until my chest twinges. Until I can almost sense the warmth of his breath against my neck, the sound of his laugh echoing in my ear.
It gets harder every day not to go back. Harder not to answer when he calls, not to fold under the weight of how much I miss him. But I can’t seem to forgive him.
Love doesn’t erase betrayal. It only makes it hurt more.
Just as I scroll to another photo, the phone buzzes, Mom’s picture appearing on the screen, and I just don’t have the energy to speak to her. A second later, a text pops up.
Mom
I know you need time, and Papa and I understand that, but we miss you so much and just want you to know we love you and we are sorry.
My eyes pinch shut and I text her back.
Fiona
I know. Good night, Ma.
Mom
Good night, tesoro.
Releasing a sigh, I drop the phone onto the comforter and stare up at the ceiling.
She’s sorry. He’s sorry. They’re all sorry. But sorry doesn’t undo what they did.
At least I know my parents are safe at Aleksei’s. He’d never let anyone hurt them, no matter how angry I am with him. That’s just who he is. The contradiction that is Aleksei Marinov: merciless to the world, but not to the people he loves.
I press a hand over my heart, the throbbing there deep and constant. It’s been days, but it feels like years. Like I’ve been holding my breath since the moment I walked out of his office and haven’t found the strength to exhale.
The room is colder all of a sudden, and I curl onto my side, pulling the blanket up to my chin while I flip through channels without really seeing any of them. No matter what’s on the screen, all I can think about is him.
His voice. His hands. The way he looked at me before everything fell apart.
A movie plays in the background, something loud and dramatic, but it barely registers. I’m drifting, half numb, when a knock jolts me upright.
I glance at the clock beside the bed. Past eleven. Who would be here at this hour?
My bodyguards are on rotation, one always stationed right outside. If something was wrong, they would text me or just storm in.
The knock comes again, harder this time.
A groan slips out as I shove the comforter aside and pad across the floor. Pressing my eye to the peephole, I catch sight of who it is, and the air leaves my lungs in a rush.
Aleksei is there, running a hand through his disheveled hair, wearing gray sweats slung low on his hips and a wrinkled hoodie, like he pulled it on without thinking.
He looks visibly exhausted, dark spots under his eyes like he hasn’t slept for days. I’ve never seen him this way. As though his entire world has imploded.
My fingers hesitate on the lock, a lump settling in my throat.
I want to see him. I don’t want to see him.
God, I miss him.
Maybe I can just talk to him for a minute. I mean, the man looks like shit. It’s the least I can do. It doesn’t mean I have to forgive him, right?
Clearing my throat, I tug out my hair tie and rake my fingers through my hair, trying to look a little less like I’m falling apart on the inside.
As soon as I open the door, his brows pull in, emotions filling every line on his face. He doesn’t move, and neither do I, even while I so badly want to jump into his arms and stay there.
“Hey,” I manage, thin and brittle.
His jaw clenches, throat working like the words hurt before they even leave him.
“Privet, detka.” Each syllable cracks around the edges.
And just like that, the ache I’ve been fighting all night shoves hard behind my eyes. Because even after everything, he’s still the man I let into my heart, and now I can’t seem to tear him out without bleeding.
I want to reach for him. I want to slam the door. I want a thousand things I can’t have anymore.
“What do you want, Aleksei?”
The question tastes bitter, and he doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes hold mine, so raw it’s as though I’m sinking into them.
“You,” he whispers, so broken it cuts into me.
My chin trembles. Just the sound of that word from his mouth threatens to undo me.
But I can’t let it. I can’t fall into the gravity of him again, not when I’ve barely learned how to stand without him.
“I told you we’re over.” But it’s like I’m trying to convince myself. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Then why…” He steps into the space between us. “Why does it not feel like we are?”
Before I can react, he’s already inside, filling the room.
Filling the air I’ve been trying not to breathe.
Instinct kicks in and my feet retreat, carrying me backward as he moves forward until the door clicks shut behind him and I’m trapped again—by his orbit, by the power he’s always held over me.
“I can’t breathe without you, Fiona.” His chest works with rough, uneven breaths, like he sprinted to get here. “Do you understand that?”
My tears threaten as I ache to bury my face in his neck and forget everything but the way his arms feel around me. The way his heart used to beat against mine. It hurts to see him so broken, his eyes bloodshot as they beg for my understanding.
It’s like he’s been stripped bare, and all that’s left is his heartbreak.
“I want to be everything you need.” His hand reaches for mine, and I can’t seem to move.
His fingers lace with mine, and something inside my chest stirs, pain and longing tangled together until I don’t even know what I’m feeling anymore.
“I’ve never felt more alive than when I am with you.
I have spent my whole entire life avoiding this.
” He squeezes my hand. “Avoiding love. Calling it weakness. Saying that needing someone the way I need you made me less somehow.” He draws closer, the heat of his body wafting over mine.
“But then I met you. And you… You slit every lie I told myself. You are my destiny, and I destroyed it.”
The tears come without warning, burning a hole through my heart.
“I hurt you.” His words crack. “I betrayed the one person who ever saw me and accepted me anyway. If I could go back, I would. I would rewrite every second and make it right.”
His knees hit the floor before the shock of it hits me.
I inhale sharply, hand still clutched in his. His head lowers, like he doesn’t even deserve to look at me.
“I will do anything to earn your forgiveness. Anything. Just tell me how to fix it.”
Seeing him like this, on his knees in front of me with a desperation that splits the room in half…it does something violent to me. I don’t know what to do with the pressure in my chest that keeps growing, making it hard to speak, hard to think.
But I know this: words are just words. I need to be able to trust him and know he won’t hurt me or lie to me. He has to prove it.
And if he truly loves me the way he says he does, he’ll earn my trust back. He’ll fight for it.
“I have never given this part of myself to any woman,” he adds.
“But every bit of me is yours, Ms. Prosecutor. You own me. And I swear I will do everything to prove I am the man you expect. I want to be more than my father taught me to be. I want to be the man you can depend on, the man you can trust.”
Hearing him say what I needed overflows me with emotion.
“I cannot change what happened, I know that, but I can control what happens next. I want to be honest with you about everything. Just let me. Please, Fiona.”
Do I believe he’s capable of being the man he wants to be?
“If you don’t want me after that…” he says, the words rasping through the silence. “Then at least I know I tried. I won’t make you love me. I won’t force you to stay. But you are so much more than I could ever be. You’re not just my equal. You are a better version. And you always will be.”
My vision blurs, full of hot and relentless tears that slip down my cheeks. He rises to his feet, brushing them away with the back of his hand, and that touch alone sends me spiraling.
“Just know, no matter what you decide…there will never be anyone else for me. I will die alone.”
There’s too much in my chest—anger, grief, yearning, all knotted so tightly I don’t know where one ends and the other begins.
This man took my choices, twisted my life into something unrecognizable, and forced me to see a world I used to fight against. Still, with everything he’s done, I want to fall into him, even if only for tonight.
Because God help me, I miss him.
I let my thumb brush his cheek, just to feel him beneath my skin. Just to remember what it’s like to be whole.
“Aleksei…” His name breaks in my throat.
Tears slip down again, and I don’t stop them. What’s the point in fighting the ache when it’s already taken root in every move I make?
“I miss you,” he whispers, lifting my hand to his mouth. His lips brush my knuckles so tenderly, I have to shut my eyes just to hold the feeling. “I’m ill without you.”
“Good,” I whisper, a small laugh escaping.
A smile flickers through the devastation on his face while his fingers tilt my chin up, and the contact sends a rush of warmth shooting straight up my spine.
His eyes search mine—hungry, desperate, broken in all the ways I feel inside—and slowly, he leans in until his breath brushes my lips, the space between us tightening like a pull I can’t resist. Then his hand shifts.
One moment, I’m standing in front of him; the next, my back hits the wall, his body crowding mine, heat rolling off him in waves. My stomach drops, my pulse surges, and his words grind out low against my cheek.
“I need you…”
I should stop this. We’re supposed to be talking. I should be demanding answers, drawing lines, reminding myself why I left.
But every ounce of logic crumbles beneath the rush of wanting him. The feeling of his mouth, his hands, the way he touches me like I matter and like I belong to him all at once. I’ve missed the way he consumes me, the way he makes every cell in me feel awake, alive, wanted.
God, I’ve missed him too. And right now, wanting him drowns out everything else.
My mouth drifts toward his, pulled by a force I have no hope of resisting. When our lips meet, there’s nothing soft about it. Everything else melts away. Every fight, every reason I walked away, every warning I’ve thrown at myself, until there’s only him.
His hands are rough as they fist my hair, a growl ripping through him as his tongue invades my mouth, sucking my tongue before nipping on my bottom lip, like he’s dying for every bit of me.
I hold on to his biceps, muscles straining beneath my hands, and the feeling of him sends a sharp ache spiraling through my center.
His groan vibrates through both of us, a rough, wounded sound that drags a broken moan from my throat. Fingers hook into the waistband of my leggings, finding me burning and wet, slipping inside me with that familiar ease I’ve craved.
“You feel so fucking good.”
Another hard thrust steals my breath, and I’m clawing at his shirt, yanking it up his torso. He tears it off himself, crashing his mouth to mine while I shove his sweats lower and curl my fingers around his cock, hot and solid in my hand.
My leggings are gone in an instant, peeled off with a single drag of his hands. I barely step out of them before he hauls me up, my back hitting the wall, my legs wrapping around him on instinct.
“I love you,” he breathes, lining himself at my entrance, his cold piercings sliding over my clit and sending a shudder through me.
“I love you too.”
The truth leaves me bare and exposed, but I don’t care. I’ll never stop loving him.
“Ti vsegda budesh moya.” He growls, and the sound tears through me a split second before he drives into me in one brutal thrust.
The wall shakes. My breath breaks. My body clamps down around him so tight he groans against my neck.
His hands are rough as they tangle in my hair, his tongue driving into my mouth, sucking on mine before he nips at my bottom lip like he’s starving for every inch of me.
I reach for him, cupping his cheek, my cry swallowed by his mouth as he grinds into me, rolling his hips just right and dragging another ragged sound from my throat.
For a moment, nothing exists outside of us. Just this pull between us, a wild rhythm of need and pain and hope tangling together. The world narrows to this. To us. To the way we break and rebuild each other in the same moment.
When he kisses me again, it sinks through every inch of my skin. A violent pull. A homecoming. A plea.
A promise.
It’s always been there between us. That unrelenting, beautiful force that drags us back to each other no matter how far we try to run.
He slams roughly, eyes on me, and the world stills. All the noise, all the doubt, all the bruised pieces of us fall away until only this remains: his body inside mine, my nails in his shoulders, our hearts pounding against everything that tried to tear us apart.
And even if I walk away tomorrow, even if we break again, this moment will stay.
A scar. A memory. Proof that for one moment in time, we burned so bright the world could’ve turned to ash around us and we still wouldn’t have let go.