Chapter 29
Irelynn
“My name is Tara.” Ilya’s mother introduces herself when we’re alone. Her dark eyes watch me just as closely as her son’s icy blues. “As you know, I’m Ilya’s mother.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I lie. Then I inhale a deep breath and add, “I’m Irelynn.”
“What a beautiful name.” A small frown puckers her brow. “You are American?”
“Mmhmm.” I nod and give her nothing more.
For a moment she waits, then she snaps her fingers to a waiting Abu, “Go find Polina. She has treats.” Abu yaps in reply, and then he trots off. Tara nods to the ingredients on the counter, easily picking up where I’d left off when Ilya interrupted me. “I’m American, too. Or I was until I met and married my husband.” I say nothing as she takes the mashed bananas, mixing them into the wet ingredients. “How did you and Ilya meet?”
Am I supposed to tell her the truth? A lie?
What if she doesn’t believe me?
What if she does?
My nerves can’t take this kind of stress. Honestly, it’s going to kill me far too soon.
Clearing my throat, I give her as much of the truth as I feel safe giving. “I first met Ilya in a casino. The company I worked—the company I work for was hosting their annual Christmas party at the casino. Ilya was there. He saw me and talked to me.” I let the words trail off with a shrug.
I don’t know what else to say—what to tell her.
Would she help me if I told her, her beloved son had kidnapped me, and was holding me against my will in his mansion, in a country I wasn’t legally supposed to be in?
Would she stand against the dangerous, brutal, murderous monster she created?
Peering at her, I watch as she pours the dry ingredients into the wet. Her face is smooth and soft, even in age. Her eyes are bright and somehow knowing.
Could she know, though?
Of course, she couldn’t know. She’d been delightfully surprised to see that Ilya had someone he appeared to care for, the obsessive freak.
Why do I get the sense, then, that she’s aware of the depravities her son is capable of?
Tara mixes the batter before turning to instruct me, “Butter the pan, will you?”
I startle but move to do as she bids. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. I’m baking in a mansion with the mother of the man who kidnapped me, who I’m falling for. And she’s sweet.
I hate that she’s sweet.
Or is she sweet? Maybe if I told her what Ilya had done to me, how he’d stolen me, she’d harm me to keep me quiet. To protect her son.
“How did you and Ilya come to be engaged?”
Conflict twists in my belly. The truth burns on my tongue as a lie bubbles up my throat. I don’t know which to release. I wish Ilya hadn’t left me alone with her.
When her dark eyes flick to me, I’m confident I look like I’ve seen a ghost. I bet even my freckles are pale, nearly translucent now. I’d been careful about the amount of coffee I’d been ingesting, aware of the risks of an ulcer. All that diligence for nothing. I’m certain the stress I’m under right now has eaten clean through my stomach lining.
I feel like I might vomit.
She takes pity on me with a small, kind smile. “I met my husband, Alexei, when I was eighteen. I’d been working in my father’s café in New York City at the time, a small shop.” She smiles in fond memory. “More like a hole in the wall. It was nothing grand, but he would bake the most decadent cinnamon rolls every morning.”
The way she tells a story, there is so much emotion behind every animated word. I listen, enraptured.
Tara continues, “He saw me first from a car window. I’d been walking to the café with my father early one morning, as I did most mornings. I’d loved to bake, still do, and enjoyed helping him with the early morning baking. The streets had been quiet, the sky still dark with the night. Not even the birds sang, and even though it was summer, and the air was warm, that morning had been crisp. I remember the way the black car with the black windows slowed as it passed us. My father had thrown his arm around me then, ushering me to hurry into the cafe. The car sped away, and I thought nothing of it. Not until a man, a beautiful man far too old for me, came into the café. He ordered a coffee, black, and let me upsell him a cinnamon roll.” She laughs a quiet, dainty laugh. Her cheeks flush a warm, youthful shade of rose as she pours the batter into the buttered pan and slides it into the oven.
“He came back three days in a row. Every day, he ordered a black coffee, let me upsell him a roll, and sat alone at a table. I was very aware of how he watched me while he drank his coffee, enjoying his roll. I remember thinking he was so handsome, but also very foreboding. I knew, even as a girl, that he was a dangerous man, I should stay clear of. And I did. I didn’t engage him in unnecessary conversation. I didn’t try to beguile him. I served him his coffee and did my best to forget about him. Then, one evening after I’d closed the café for my father, I’d been walking home.”
I can’t breathe as I watch her, listening raptly as my heart pounds viciously in my chest.
“There were people everywhere. It wasn’t so late that the city slept. Men and women strolled. At a nearby park, I distinctly recall the sound of a child shrieking with joy. Then, in the middle of the road, not even bothering to park, a black car stopped. Horns sounded as angry drivers slammed on brakes behind the car, and I stood stone stiff as the dangerous man from the café emerged like a dark demon from the back seat. His eyes were an impossible shade of ice blue, and I remained frozen even as he neared.”
She pauses, and I hear myself whispering hoarsely, “What happened?”
Her eyes meet mine. “I thought he would talk to me. Perhaps he dared to ask me to dinner, despite the obvious gap in our ages. My father would never allow it, and even though there had been a part of me that was enamoured by him, even I knew better. The man was dangerous.” She pauses. I hold my breath. “He didn’t ask me to dinner. He didn’t talk to me at all.”
I frown. “Then what did he do?”
She holds my eyes for a long minute. “He took me.”