Chapter 27 Alina
Alina
My first couple of weeks at our new house are a marathon of unpacking and settling in, in between visits from Alexei’s family and mine.
Alexei’s aunt, Sonia, spends several days in Moscow after the funeral, and we see her almost every day, along with Ruslan, who comes over when she does.
By the end of her visit, I’ve almost gotten used to her eccentricity, and I can’t deny that it’s fun to observe her relationship with my husband and his brother, both of whom she treats with a bossy sort of affection that must be a leftover from when they were kids.
“I told you to let me make my cabbage soup for Alina,” she chides Alexei after I make a face at being offered a salad of dandelion greens for lunch. “It’s just what she needs, all the good, healthy—”
“Aunt Sonia.” Alexei’s tone holds more than a hint of amusement. “You know as well as I do that your cabbage soup is mostly lard.”
She bristles. “There’s less than a quarter kilo lard in there! How else do you get flavor with cabbage soup if not with lard?”
“So, so many ways,” Ruslan mutters, not looking up from his plate, and she swats him on the arm.
“Oh, shut it. I swear, you young people don’t know what good cooking is.
I mean, what is this stuff?” She lifts her fork with a piece of dandelion leaf speared on it.
“In my days, we called this a weed.” She waves her fork in front of Alexei’s face.
“Tell me the truth… Did you pluck this on the side of the road?”
“It was grown in the purest organic soil in the best greenhouse in Moscow,” Alexei informs her. “Harvested this morning and delivered straight here to ensure maximum freshness.” He catches my gaze. “Try it, Alinyonok. It may surprise you.”
I heave a sigh. “All right.” Kale, I can tolerate, but these bitter greens…
Still, I shovel in a forkful of salad, if only to show that I’m on Alexei’s side in this argument.
I do not want to have to eat cabbage soup that’s mostly lard; I still have awful memories of my late grandmother, my dad’s mom, force-feeding me her version of this Russian classic when I was three or four.
The salad is surprisingly good. The miso-based dressing is sweet and savory, masking the bitterness of the greens, and chunks of orange and avocado lend acidity and creaminess to the dish.
It’s as flavorful as anything served in a top restaurant, and I tell Alexei as much.
He squeezes my hand where it rests on the table. “I’m glad you like it. I made it myself.”
I’m not surprised—Alexei has been cooking all our meals lately, as if reluctant to entrust my nutrition to anyone else—but Ruslan and Sonia express their disbelief.
“What about the rest of the meal?” Ruslan asks, gesturing at the artfully arranged dishes all over the table. “Surely Vika was involved? She’s still your chef, right?”
“She’s visiting her family in Chukotka right now,” Alexei says. “But yes, when she returns, I expect she’ll resume cooking for us.”
I’m not so sure that’s true. I think Alexei may be enjoying doing this on his own.
More than one morning, I’ve caught him looking up new healthy recipes and tinkering with the ones the dietician provided.
I suspect this newfound hobby may be his way of dealing with his worry about my health, especially the fear of my cancer returning—a fear I very much share but am handling by beginning a new, doctor-approved exercise routine and working on my video game.
I also started therapy this week.
I’ve only had one session so far, so I can’t say if it’s helped one way or another, but I’m willing to give it a shot.
The therapist, an older woman with the kindest face imaginable, got my entire life story out of me during our two-hour initial meeting, and then she assigned me homework—breathing exercises and a very specific kind of journal, one in which I’m supposed to write out my worst fears and what would happen if they came true.
I think the idea is to make me see that I’m capable of surviving whatever curveball life throws my way.
The thing is, I already believe that I am.
The cancer has left me weaker physically—something I’m working on with the new exercise routine—but mentally, I’m in a better place than I was before the diagnosis.
A healthier place. I still experience worry and fear, grief and pain, but I no longer let the negative emotions weigh me down to the point that I need to seek escape in pills.
Maybe it’s because that which I once feared most—marriage to Alexei—has turned out to be the best thing in my life.
Every morning, I open my eyes to find him watching me.
It’s both creepy and exhilarating, this unconcealed obsession of his.
I no longer have any doubt that he wants me.
He’s almost always touching me, even if it’s just a casual hand on my knee, and we’re rarely apart.
Even when I’m deeply absorbed in coding, I’m aware of him casually sitting next to me, busy with his own work.
And even though I’m feeling infinitely better these days, he insists on taking care of me, doing everything from cooking for me to helping me unpack and organize all the things I’ve had moved here from my Moscow penthouse.
Our sex life is also off the charts—not that I’m surprised by that.
Now that I’m regaining my health, Alexei seems determined to make up for all those years of abstinence on his part.
We have sex multiple times a day, to the point that I’m often sore and aching.
At times, it’s quick and rough; at other times, it’s a tender, drawn-out lovemaking where he worships every part of my body and leaves me a boneless lump in the aftermath.
Frequently, he pushes me to my limits and beyond, yet I’m always left craving more at the end.
More of the extreme sensations and more of him.
Alexei is my new drug, and there’s no saving me from this addiction.
My brothers seem determined to try, however.
They don’t believe me when I tell them, over and over, that I want to stay with him.
Each time they visit, they try to get me to give them the green light for whatever plan they’ve hatched for my “rescue”—a green light that I refuse to give, and not just because I’m afraid of the potential bloodshed, as before.
I simply can’t bear the thought of being apart from Alexei… even though he still hasn’t told me he loves me.
I try not to let it get to me. After all, some men just have trouble with that word, that very concept.
And not just men. If it weren’t for my illness, it would’ve taken me much longer to come around, to accept my feelings and the vulnerability that inevitably accompanies them.
Staring my own mortality in the face helped me let go of the decade of denial, of the fear of repeating my mother’s errors and enduring her fate.
If I hadn’t gotten cancer, Alexei and I might still be at odds with each other. At the very least, it would’ve been much harder for me to see him as anything more than a cruel puppet master—an aspect of his personality that is still very much there but that I no longer view as solely negative.
If anything, I’m grateful for his machinations now.
After all, they brought us together.
By the end of the third week, we’re fully settled in, and I invite Natasha to our house for lunch. It’s just us girls—Alexei left for a business meeting—and I relish the ability to catch up undisturbed with my childhood friend.
“So, you and Alexei Leonov, huh?” she says after we’re done squealing over each other’s hairstyles—hers a sleek blond bob, mine now something approaching a cute pixie cut. “I knew it!”
I was leading her to the kitchen, where the sushi I ordered is waiting, but at her words, I stop in my tracks. “You did? How?”
Though I consider Natasha my best friend, I never told her about my betrothal to Alexei or our complicated, decade-long cat-and-mouse relationship. As far as she or any of our friends in Moscow knew, Alexei and I were less-than-friendly acquaintances, nothing more.
She bites her lip. “Remember that weird ring you got at my house when we were fourteen or something? You never told me what that was about, but I heard Lyudmila talking about it on the phone later. It was from him, wasn’t it?
He was ‘AL?’” Before I can confirm or deny, she presses on.
“And the way you two were all buddy-buddy at my gala right before you disappeared on us? Yeah, that was a dead giveaway. Not to mention—” She stops.
“Not to mention what?”
She gives me a sheepish smile. “Well, there were rumors about the two of you. Ever since your eighteenth-birthday party. People said they saw him give you what looked like an engagement ring, and then you two had a fight or something. Next thing we know, your parents are telling everyone that you felt sick and had to leave early.”
“I did feel sick.”
“Right.” She flaps her hand dismissively. “Anyway, I’ve suspected things for a while now. A lot of people have. And in my case”—she grimaces—“I more than suspected. I… knew.”
I frown. “What?”
What does that mean, she knew?
Color creeps up her cheeks. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but Alexei sort of… forbade it. But since the two of you are married now, I figure it’s all good.” She grips my hands. “It is, right? You’re not mad?”
“Mad about what?” I ask, even though I already have a suspicion. An ugly one.
Her grip on my hands tightens. “All I did was answer some of his questions, I swear. Harmless stuff—like what kind of shampoo you liked, what size shoes you wore, what skincare you used. Just basic things about you. I thought it was sweet that he wanted to please you, you know?”
I pull my hands away. “You… spied on me for Alexei?”
“No!” Her color heightens. “I just answered his questions, that’s all.
He told me you two had a secret on-again, off-again thing going on, and it made so much sense—why you never dated anyone and never told me anything.
It was because of your families, right? They were business rivals and all that? ”
“You mean like Romeo and Juliet? Is that what he told you we were?”
“Kind of. You’re not mad, are you?” She gives me a pleading look. “Please tell me you’re not mad. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but Alexei said you’d be mad and not want to talk to me.”
I stare at her, my mind whirling. This explains a little mystery that’s been nibbling at me: how Alexei knew what brands of makeup I preferred and so on.
On the yacht, I’d offhandedly wondered how he knew so much about me, whether he’d somehow snuck some cameras into my penthouse despite all the security measures or bribed some of our staff.
But this—simply asking my best friend about my likes and dislikes—is something I’d never imagined he’d do.
Mostly because I couldn’t imagine Natasha would answer him and not tell me.
Why would she do that?
If some guy came to me with questions about her, she’d be the first to hear about it—and I certainly wouldn’t tell him anything without her okay.
Then it dawns on me, why she looks so flushed and guilty. “He paid you for this, didn’t he? He didn’t just ask; he gave you something for the information.”
That’s why she said he “forbade” her to tell me.
Because he has some kind of hold over her.
Fuck. This is Alexei we’re talking about. Of course he has a hold over her.
Natasha looks like she wants to cry. “It wasn’t like that.
He didn’t pay me anything, I swear. It’s just…
” She sucks in a breath. “Well, my father was trying to enter this highly exclusive investment consortium, and Alexei said he’d get him in if I answered a few questions about you.
He told me the two of you had been secretly dating, and he wanted to buy you gifts you’d like, maybe surprise you with a weekend getaway.
I thought it was so nice and sweet of him, you know?
And look at you two now: married and happy! So it all worked out, didn’t it?”
I manage to keep my voice even. “For your father too, I presume?”
She bobs her head. “It was a huge break for him. Really took his business to the next level. But that’s not why I did it.
I just… wanted to help bring you two together.
The way Alexei talked about it, like the two of you were fated, like you were meant to be—it was so freaking romantic.
Even your birthday is on the same day as his, right? ”
I draw in a breath. “Right.”
I honestly don’t know how to react, what to say to her. Answering a few questions about my preferences does sound harmless, except that she was indirectly paid for it. To the tune of billions, most likely, given the dramatic improvement in her family’s fortunes in recent years.
I knew her father’s business had started doing better, but I didn’t think anything of it. I couldn’t have imagined that Alexei had had a hand in it, that he’d go as far as to bribe my friend into being his spy.
“I have to digest this,” I tell her, and she winces.
“So you are mad?”
“I’m… ambivalent,” I say, and it’s the truth.
If she’d told me this a couple of months ago, I’d have regarded her actions as a stab in the back and would never have spoken to her again. Alexei was right about that. But it’s different between the two of us now.
The man she sold me out to is not my enemy anymore. He’s the love of my life.
Does that excuse what she did?
I don’t know.
I don’t think I can ever trust her again.
Then again, maybe I never fully trusted her. After all, I didn’t tell her about Alexei and his decade-long pursuit of me. Why didn’t I? Come to think of it, why didn’t I tell anybody that he was stalking me, not even my own brothers?
Maybe they would’ve helped.
And maybe that’s what I was afraid of.
As much as I feared and dreaded Alexei’s obsessive interest in me, a part of me liked it. Reveled in it. Wanted it.
That tiny, twisted part of me was thrilled each time I caught a glimpse of his men watching me as I went about my life.
It was terrifying to know he was out there wanting me, waiting for me. Yet, in some perverse way, it made me feel safe. Like nothing out there could hurt me… except him.
Yeah, I’ll need to dissect that during my next therapy session. Or the next dozen.
Natasha is babbling apologies now, all teary-eyed, so I take pity on her. “Why don’t we have some sushi?” I say gently. “This place I ordered from makes excellent veggie rolls.”
With that, we finally go to the kitchen, where we eat and talk about everything under the sun except for the full, complicated truth about my relationship with Alexei.
I don’t think I’ll ever tell her about that.