Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dimitri
THE REST OF the engagement dinner passes by in a blur.
The more I hear about what a handsome couple Pavel and Savina are and questions about how many babies they’ll be having, the more I drink.
I drink until I’m fucking numb and their words don’t make sense anymore and I can’t feel my heart beating that terrible rhythm that it does every time I think of not marrying Savina.
I want to tell her that I still want to marry her. That we could make our marriage work and that I’ll somehow fix all of this and get things back to the way they were.
But then I think back to her words in the bathroom. She thinks I’m still a bully from high school. And I did make her life miserable back then. But it was only to protect her. To keep her safe. To keep her mine.
Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I carry a bottle of the finest whiskey money can buy back to my apartment.
I scroll through the contacts on my phone.
I have at least fifty women’s numbers saved in here.
I could call any of them right now, and they would come running, willing to suck my cock and make me forget for a while.
But I don’t want any of them. There’s only one girl I want, and I can’t even have her. She’ll belong to my brother one day, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
Huffing in disgust, I scroll through my phone and delete every single number. Except one. My thumb hovers over her name. I doubt she knows I have her number. I don’t even know why I saved it in my phone. I’ve had it stored for years, the digits just glaring at me, tempting me.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m sending her a text.
Me: Hi.
It’s simple. Stupid even. But it’s too late to take it back now.
Savina: Who is this? is her reply.
I hesitate. If I cross this bridge, there’s no going back.
Me: Dimitri
Savina: How did you get my number?
Me: I have my ways, I text back with a chuckle.
Savina: Your ways aren’t very ethical.
Me: How would you know?
Savina: I just know you.
That causes me to frown. Does she know me?
No, not really. But I’m sure she thinks she does.
She thinks I’m still that hotheaded teenager that bullied my way through everything instead of trying to solve it rationally or logically.
Maybe I’m still like that in a way. I do use my fists to solve a lot of problems even to this day.
Me: You don’t know me at all.
I watch three little dots appear and disappear over and over again. She’s typing but then deleting it, and I wish more than anything in that moment to climb inside her head just to know what she’s thinking right now.
Savina: We shouldn’t be talking.
I smirk.
Me: Probably not. But you keep texting me back.
I watch the three little dots appear and then disappear one last time, but I don’t get any more texts from Savina that night. It’s probably for the best anyway. I know I’ll definitely say something I’ll regret, and perhaps she would too.
And so, I nurse my bottle of whiskey until I fall into a fitful sleep full of dreams of the woman I’ve wanted for most of my life but will never truly have.