Vian
The sun sets in the background, casting her in a golden glow—a divine gift, a goddess for me to unwrap, making it hard to discern dream from reality. Fuck, it wouldn’t be the first time.
A shot of fiery lust tears through my veins, making me burn for her. My fingers shake as I brush my knuckles against her soft cheek. Trying to keep my feelings contained borders on impossible, threatening to erupt from the pressurized keg I sealed a long time ago.
A little moan escapes her lush mouth, her eyes drowning in desire from just a touch.
Our chemistry sparked the first time we locked eyes. Our entire relationship dripped with passion, coated in endless layers of love. We were perfect together until we weren’t.
We gave in to each other like it was our destiny. No wonder I have cursed fate since it tore us apart. Yet it delivered her back to me.
Take it easy, I urge myself.
“You’re breathtaking,” I rasp, my voice overcome by raw emotion.
“I like the way you look at me,” she says, swallowing and her breath hitches.
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve been drowning and I am your first breath of air,” she whispers, her delicate brows furrowing.
Fuck, I am treading on a very fine line.
“I haven’t been with a woman in years,” I confess, hoping to redirect her thoughts somewhere else.
My distraction tactic works because her eyes widen, surprise etched in them.
A deep sigh rolls out of her delicate throat, and she offers me a small smile. “You must have really loved her.”
I gulp down the lump of emotion stuck in my throat. “With everything in me. I will never stop loving her.”
My eyes plead with that part of her she buried. It’s agonizing watching the woman you love stare back at you with no flicker of recognition. But I’ll take her any way I can.
“Good thing we don’t love each other. I am territorial,” she says, but there’s a question in her reply, as if she doesn’t know for sure.
She’s territorial, all right. We never gave each other a reason for jealousy. But between my possessive side and hers, it would have ended up deadly for anyone who even tried to come between us.
“I will be faithful to you,” I say, voice tinged with unwavering assurance.
“It’s just a marriage of convenience.” She tilts her head, not sounding sure.
Her internal conflict helps me preserve the small hope that her soul recognizes its mate.
“I expect loyalty from you too, so it would only be fair.”
Her face twists into a contrite expression. “Didn’t expect you to be…”
“What?” I ask, desperate for her crumbs, hoping they will nurture me. She carries my heart in her palm and doesn’t even know it.
I will do anything for this woman to fall back in love with me. After all these years, her chances of remembering are slim to none.
“Different from what I thought. Better, I guess. A man I could see myself respecting. I made the right decision.”
I was the only decision she could make, but disclosing that wouldn’t end well. I can’t risk losing her when I’ve just gotten her back. After years spent in misery, her simple presence breathes life into my battered soul.
“May I have you?” I ask, my despair ringing loud. My entire body vibrates with incessant hunger, even though one taste would never satiate me.
She takes a step back and shakes her head as she hugs herself. “I want to... but... it’s simply too much, too soon.”
Giving her the space she demands, I don’t move from the spot even if I crave to wrap her in my arms and never let go. I shove my hands into my pockets to tame a need that becomes increasingly out of my control.
She frowns, surely not expecting my reaction.
I will earn her trust even if it’s founded in deception.
I will win her heart even if she doesn’t know it’s mine already.
I will seduce the body that has only ever been mine.
My impatience won’t threaten my chances of success, I repeat in my head to cement the mantra.
“Thank you,” she says, biting her lip, an incredulous expression painting her face. “I’m still expecting to wake up any moment now. I’m still hurt that you ignored me.”
If she only knew how hard that has been, but I stayed away for her mental well-being. Secrets tend to reveal themselves, and I didn’t want to give anyone the idea to dig into our lives. She has always been so near, yet out of reach.
“There’s no ignoring you now. It does things to me that you craved my attention.”
She giggles, and the sound is like balm to my bruised heart, reminding me of how easily I could make her smile. How she regaled me with a beam that lit up my entire world.
She could never stay mad at me because of that. It was like an unwritten rule.
“And so modest.”
I chuckle. “Modesty is overrated.”
She pins me with a pointed look. “You’re trying too hard to sell me this version of an easygoing, straight-laced man.”
She’s too damn smart, but my charm always worked on her.
I hike a shoulder, pretending nonchalance. “Don’t we all show a facade to the world? We’re married now. Maybe it’s not a facade with you.”
She approaches me and places her palms on my chest, causing my heart to pulse a wild rhythm. “There’s something… I don’t know what it is, and it’s driving me mad. Like I know you. Like you know me.”
My pulse spikes to the point that I could lose my footing at any moment. Her touch electrifies me, does things to me I can’t even begin to describe—every nerve ending in my body attuned to her, responding to its counterpart.
She shakes her head. “Ignore me. I’m talking nonsense.”
I grip her chin and tip her face up to stare into her eyes so there’s no doubt in her head.
“I would die for you, Zara. I chose you to spend the rest of my life with. That paper might have legally turned you into my wife, but it goes beyond that. You’re my woman.
And your troubles are my troubles. I will protect you. Keep you safe. Put you first.”
Lifting on her toes, she cups my face as if searching for the lie. She won’t find any. “Why?”
You’re not ready to hear that, but I don’t say that. Instead, I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her flush to my chest. She yelps in surprise but stays transfixed.
I have no idea how to go easy. I never had to. We felt it from the start––the connection that blew rationality to smithereens.
In my bloody life, she was my peace.
Now she’s my chaos.
“You remind me of her.” The words rush out before I realize my slip. Fuck.
“I don’t like being a replacement for your dead love.” Her eyes turn to slits, and she wriggles in my arms, struggling to escape, but I only tighten my grip on her.
“Aren’t I the same?” I arch a brow, a violent surge of jealousy spreading through me. Now I am fucking jealous of myself.
I am a realist—the only dream I had was her, and without a single doubt, I know it will end in catastrophe. One I don’t have the power to stop. I’d choose death over continuing to live without her.
A flush covers her cheeks, and she avoids looking at me.
I crave her eyes on me––those mesmerizing brown eyes that have captured my heart since the very first moment.
Through the hard facade, her vulnerability seeps through, giving me hope she feels safe with me. Everything between us is fragile. One wrong word or touch, and the dream before me will disintegrate.
“Something to drink?” I offer, and she slips from my hold, leaving me aching.
Approaching the living room bar, she observes every detail once more. It’s sleek and modern.
“It is tasteful but lacks a homey feeling. Why?”
This is not home, it’s a place I lived in your absence.
“Home has never been a place to me, but a person.”
She nods, hugging herself. No flicker of recognition flashes in her eyes, and I pour her a Merlot, knowing it’s her favorite, and myself a glass of whiskey.
“We should get to know each other better,” she says as we sip from our glasses.
We know everything about the other, but that was in the past. Not letting that thought deject me, I focus on the fact that I get a second chance with the love of my life. I don’t think I’ve changed much. I just became hardened by life.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window.
She looks out the window. “How was your childhood?”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “Great. I grew up in a loving household. Family was everything to my parents. And they instilled that deep sense of loyalty from the beginning. I adored my mother. I revered my father.”
In the same year, I lost all three. My mother from pancreatic cancer. My father, by a betrayal I didn’t see coming. And her right afterward.
As if she senses my pain, she palms my arm. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“No one can stop death.”
No, reminding me that there’s no absolute power a human can gain. We are born, we live if we’re lucky enough, and then death waits to snatch us—the circle of life I am helpless to influence. It is what it fucking is.
As if she can read that my thoughts are heading in a dark direction, she changes the topic. “Your cousin seems nice.”
I nod, remembering they used to be close. “Noemi is when she doesn’t make me want to pull my hair out.”
She giggles. “Be glad to have some family left.”
I am. My aunt and uncle quickly took over the role of parents. And my uncle is my underboss. There are no power struggles, just support, sometimes silent, sometimes loud. Without him, I doubt I would have become the man I am.
He took me aside and said, “If you allow despair to rule you, you will lose everything.”
With a crater burrowing into my heart, I stepped in and took the role entrusted to me by birth. Over time, it became the only rope I had to cling to.
“Why weren’t they at the wedding?”
My aunt disagrees with the deceit, and my uncle is not keen on seeing me hurt again. His words. Both said they can’t play good actors for me and their daughter, whatever that means.
They still wished me well.
“They’re on vacation.”
Not a lie.
“It was quite spontaneous.” She sits on the sofa, her elbow pressing on the armrest, holding her cheek. With the other, she lifts her wineglass to me. “How did you know?”
“I pay attention.” I wink at her.