11. Ofelia
Ofelia
Mine.
I stand on the terracotta-tiled terrace of my new house in Granada, put my arms out, and twirl.
Across the valley a silver moon rises over the mountains, above the arched Moorish windows and ocher walls of the Alhambra. Jasmine twines along the terrace, its scent mingling with that of the orange trees in the small garden below.
I sit down at the small round tiled table and sip my gin and tonic, but I’m too excited to remain still, so I turn inside and take the stairs down to the next level.
It opens onto a wide salon with chestnut beams, bookshelves cut into the walls, and wooden doors that open onto a tiny wrought iron balcony with a clear view to the palaces.
My bedroom is on this level, along with a low Moorish sofa that lines one wall.
The only other piece of furniture in the salon is a Steinway grand piano.
The kitchen and bathroom are both on the ground level, along with a second bedroom.
I stand by the Steinway with the wooden doors open, gazing out at the beautiful palaces opposite, listening to the ever-present sounds of laughter and music drifting up from the plazas below, and inhaling the scents of Spain.
It’s my first night alone in my new home, and the first time I’ve felt like I’m living somewhere that is truly my own—even if my father did buy it for me. But then again, that was never going to be up for discussion.
“Ofelia.” Teresa, one of my new security detail, waits for my response before coming into the room. “Security checks are done, so I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be next door if you need me, and Julia will swap me out at midnight.”
“Thank you.” I smile at her. “I hope they did an okay job on the house for you?”
Teresa grins. “Are you kidding? They even installed a bath. Good luck getting me to ever leave.”
My security detail are housed in the adjoining terrace.
Both homes are securely locked behind a heavy iron door, sharing a garden and small pool..
High stone walls guard us on all sides, but since most places in the medieval precinct of the Albaicín are similarly walled, our security isn’t ostentatious.
Best of all, the security detail have their own separate entrance, and although there are cameras monitoring all angles and security buzzers in every room, along with my own personal alarm that I wear on a necklace, my own domain is blissfully camera-free.
“You know you can use the pool whenever you like,” I say, smiling at her.
It’s barely June, but already the daytime temperatures soar to thirty degrees Celsius by midmorning, and it’s only going to get hotter.
Granada is a place of extremes: winters that cover the surrounding mountains in snow and dry, arid summers.
“Thanks.” Teresa returns my smile, but I can tell by the reticent response that she’s unlikely to take me up on the offer.
Teresa and Julia were my choice. Both are ex–Spanish Special Forces, multilingual, and have worked for Mak on various North African operations.
I was slightly surprised when Mak offered to supply my security, since it’s usually Papa who oversees that, but I’m not sad about it either.
I was happy to take the first two he sent my way.
One of the more satisfying moments of their interview process, for me at least, was watching both of them put Bryce and Luis on the floor not once, but multiple times.
Best of all, Teresa and Julia are both young enough, and ordinary looking, to blend in with the many university students who live in the city.
It’s nice to have a security detail who, for once, can accompany me to a bar without people instinctively moving away.
When Teresa leaves now, I almost bound up the stairs to my piano.
It’s an incredible luxury to have it here.
I thought the salon might be too small for the sound, but oddly, the old stone and wood provide the perfect acoustics for practice.
I’ve got an electronic keyboard with headphones as well, just in case I want to practice late at night.
But my neighbors, musicians and dancers themselves, have repeatedly assured me they love hearing me practice.
Also, it’s Spain, which means that I’m welcome to make an absolute cacophony into the early hours of the morning—so long as I allow everyone to sleep until midday.
After London and Paris, it’s almost amusing to be back in the somnolent rhythm of the Spanish summer, where nothing moves before ten a.m., everything closes again between one and five p.m. for siesta, and the world comes truly alive at dusk.
It feels like home.
My fingers hover over the keys. I should do exercises, but something about being alone in my new house for the first time, and the night itself, feels too exciting for technical practice. Dittorio’s words run through my head: Go somewhere you are feeling the music instead of practicing it.
I close my eyes, inhaling the Spanish night, hearing the distant strains of flamenco floating through the air.
Alexei’s lone eye, blazing into mine.
My hands settle on the keys, cool and smooth to the touch.
Alexei’s hands curled around my legs, his thumbs pressing on me until I’m gasping.
I inhale sharply, and suddenly I’m playing.
I don’t realize I’ve chosen Beethoven’s Appassionata until I’m several chords into the first movement, and by then, I’m lost. The notes flow through the doors with the Spanish night, rippling through me in a thrilling cascade, each taut passage speaking all the emotion I cannot put into words.
Alexei’s face, indistinct in the early-morning light, floats like an apparition in the room before me, his dusky scent seeming to hover just behind the heady scent of jasmine.
I can feel his hands on my body as if he were here, stroking the length of my thighs, touching my neck.
I hit the hectic trills at the end of the first movement, and my head goes back, my lips parting, aching for his kiss until I’m pulsing wet between my legs, and my breath comes in short gasps.
I finish the first movement in a flourish. A moment later, applause erupts from the houses around me, and my eyes fly open, my hand going to my mouth to stifle my laughter.
“?Olé!” my neighbors call, whistling and stomping their feet.
“Gracias!” I call back, smiling so widely it almost hurts my face. Only in Spain would a classical piano piece be greeted with the same approbation as a bullfight or a particularly fine piece of flamenco.
I’m so, so happy to be home.
And I miss Alexei so much it’s a physical ache.
Pulling out my phone, I stare at the screen. I already know it will stay dead. I don’t have Alexei’s number. For all I know, he doesn’t have mine. It’s not like we’ve had flirty text conversations.
Let’s face it—we’ve never even had a date.
I have no idea where he is. When I’ll see him again.
If I’ll see him again.
Restless, I walk to the open wooden doors. The ice in my gin and tonic has melted, but I drink it anyway, staring out at the Alhambra like it holds the answers to my million unanswered questions.
Does Alexei even think about that night in the hotel?
Did it mean anything to him at all?
And most of all—does he want to repeat the experience?
I grip the wooden doorframe, breathing through my body’s fierce, primal reaction to that thought.
I’ve always been afraid of this part of myself, of the savage desire that lives deep inside me.
When I was younger, I was certain it wasn’t normal to feel this way.
I remember looking at the boys at school and wondering what it would be like to be touched by them.
Wanting that, as fiercely as I did, made me terrified of being around people my own age, of indulging in the innocent hand-holding and kisses that characterized those early relationships.
I was acutely aware that I wanted much, much more and scared that if I got close to anyone, they would sense it and judge me for it.
That internal conflict—and with nobody to talk to about how I felt—made me a silent, angry teenager, lashing out at the world and anyone who tried to get close to me.
Right up until Darya entered our lives, when for the first time I had the feeling that I wasn’t alone.
It wasn’t that I talked to Darya about any of those feelings; I never talked to anyone about them, then or now.
But watching the way she and Papa were together helped me to understand that what I felt wasn’t abnormal.
Rather than being disturbed by their almost tangible sexual tension, the way they looked at each other, the fleeting touches they shared when they thought we weren’t watching, I found it almost comforting, a reassurance that perhaps what I felt was, if not normal, exactly, at least natural.
But my fear of that part of me has never quite gone away. I sense it’s a force so powerful that, once unleashed, can never be harnessed again.
It stops me from allowing the music to take me, as Dittorio urged.
The thought of exposing that part of myself in public, on a stage, sends cold terror through my body.
I feel like I can’t control it, that it would betray me.
That somehow everyone would know the dark fantasies that live inside my head.
Fantasies that all revolve around Alexei Petrovsky and his lethal touch.
“Fuck it,” I say aloud. I’ve been living in this weird sexual limbo for almost as long as I can remember. And for better or worse, ever since the kidnapping, that dark desire has been inextricably linked to Alexei.
I bite my lip, then hit Lars’s number.
He answers on the second ring. “Darling,” he says cheerfully. I can hear the raucous sound of some party in the background.
“Hey, Lars.” I take a deep breath, summoning my courage. “Do you remember that present you gave me on my twenty-first birthday?”
“A week on my yacht for you and your friends?” He laughs. “Of course. But please tell me you don’t want to claim it right now.”