Chapter Twenty-Seven - Jessa
I sit in the window seat, knees pulled tight to my chest, chin pressed to folded arms. The lights in the hall are dim, the only sound the distant hush of rain and the echo of my daughters’ gentle breathing.
Somewhere far below, the mansion is a maze of silence and shadow, too big, too cold for the kind of life I tried to build before all of this.
The events of the day flicker through my mind, but it’s Vitaly Sharov’s face that stays with me—those flat, lifeless eyes, that twist of his mouth as he looked at me. I’d heard disgust before, but this was something deeper. Not just anger. It was judgment. Contempt.
I can see it now in the way he lingered on the girls, as if wondering how much of their mother might be stamped out with enough money, enough distance.
When he looked at me, there was no question at all. No matter what happens, no matter how gentle Markian is with the girls, how many smiles or kind words they offer him, I will never belong here. Not to this family. Not to this world.
Even if the twins are accepted as daughters of a Sharov, I’ll always be the outsider. The American. The mistake.
My thoughts spiral, tugging me down, dragging every old wound to the surface. I replay every word Vitaly spat, every cold warning and thinly veiled threat. And then, like a knife twisting in my ribs, I remember what else he said.
Engaged.
I didn’t know. No one told me. He had a whole life he planned to step into while I was out there, bleeding and broken, raising our daughters alone. There was someone else. Someone proper. Someone who belonged here.
Maybe she’s beautiful and educated, a daughter of old Russian money, someone who knows how to walk these halls and navigate the sharp edges of men like Vitaly. Someone who never flinched at words like bastard or mistake.
I swallow the ache in my throat, but it doesn’t go away.
Markian must have planned to marry her. To move on while I hid, praying he’d never find me, terrified every night that he would.
I picture him at a shining table, his fiancée at his side, their future as bright and easy as the diamonds in her ears.
The ache grows, twisting tighter, making the walls feel closer, the air thinner.
The door creaks open behind me. My body tenses, instinct flaring. I keep my gaze locked on the dark floorboards, bracing for another fight, another round of cold words and harsh demands. I hear the soft tread of his footsteps. He doesn’t storm in; he just lingers in the doorway, silent.
He calls my name, quietly, not a command but a request. I don’t answer. I can’t trust myself not to cry, not to say something that will make everything worse. The silence stretches, thick as molasses, until he speaks again.
“That night…” he begins, and his voice is nothing like I expect. It’s rough, yes, but not angry or cold. It’s quiet. Honest. Like he’s setting something down that he’s carried too long. “I didn’t mean it.”
I glance up, wary, searching his face for the danger I’ve learned to expect. It isn’t there. There’s only exhaustion and something that looks too much like regret.
“I was drunk,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Furious. I wanted to distance myself from you. From what I felt. When you ran… and I realized what I’d done… I saw you for what you are. A flower in the fire. Something I should’ve protected, not threatened.”
My throat tightens, eyes blurring with tears I thought I’d used up years ago. The truth lands like a stone in my chest, breaking through years of confusion and pain.
I want to tell him how much those words cost me, how I’ve replayed them over and over, every night in every strange bed, clutching our daughters and wondering if he’d ever come to finish what he started.
How every shadow felt like a warning. How his voice haunted my dreams, his threats chasing me across continents, through every empty room.
He moves a little closer, careful, as if he’s afraid I might shatter. “I hated myself for it. For letting him—my father—shape me. For letting fear speak instead of love.”
His words wrap around me, raw and awkward.
The apology is not perfect, but it’s real.
I force myself to look at him, to see the man beneath all the layers of power and violence and pride.
For the first time, I let myself believe that maybe he does regret what he’s done.
Maybe he is sorry not just for losing me, but for making me run.
“You never told me about her,” I whisper, the question tearing out of me before I can stop it. “The fiancée. Were you ever going to?”
His jaw tenses. He looks away. “It was arranged. For business. For my father.” He meets my eyes again, voice low and brittle. “I never touched her. Never wanted her. It was always you.”
I press a trembling hand to my mouth, the pain and the longing and the relief colliding all at once. For a second, I don’t know if I want to sob or scream.
He moves to kneel beside the window seat, not reaching for me, but close enough to feel his presence. “I don’t know how to fix this,” he says. “I want to try. For you, and us.”
I look at him, really look, searching his face for lies, for old cruelties. I don’t find them. I only see a man who’s tired, scarred, desperate to make something right in a world that’s always taught him to break what he loves most.
My hand finds his, fingers lacing together. His grip is gentle, hesitant. We sit like that in the hush of the night, two broken things learning how to be whole again. For the first time since I ran, I believe we might have a chance. Maybe not a perfect one—but a real one.
Outside, the rain softens, the world growing quiet.
My hands tremble as I hold his, my body still braced for pain, for disappointment, for the thousand little cruelties that life has taught me to expect.
I can barely believe I’m asking, but the words slip out anyway: soft, raw, desperate. “Do you miss her?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His thumb moves slowly across my knuckles, grounding me, but his silence stretches until I almost regret asking.
My breath catches, and my heart pounds so loudly I’m sure he must hear it.
Then he finally meets my eyes, and all the old, sharp things in his face are gone—no distance, no arrogance, no anger.
Just truth. He shakes his head once, slow and sure.
“No,” he says, voice low and steady, like the answer was never in question. “I don’t even think about her at all.”
He breathes out and looks at me as if I am the only thing left in his world, as if nothing outside this room matters.
“The one I love is you,” he says, and in that moment, I believe him.
I believe him so deeply that something inside me crumbles and blooms all at once. For years, I taught myself not to hope for this, not to want it, not to need it—especially from him. I wrapped myself in anger, in resentment, in cold, careful survival.
Hearing him say it, seeing the way his eyes soften, I feel my hope crack through the surface, fragile and trembling but alive.
He stands and comes toward me, not fast, but with the certainty of a man who knows he’s come home. He doesn’t touch me until I tip my chin up, asking for it. When our lips meet, everything about us is different from before.
There’s no anger, no punishment, no roughness for the sake of control. It’s slow, gentle, reverent.
He kisses me as if I’m something precious. His hands cup my face, thumbs brushing tears I didn’t know were falling. I let my own hands roam over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin through his shirt, the strength and steadiness of him beneath my palms.
He lifts me easily, settling me onto the dresser by the window.
My knees part for him, and he stands between them, hands on my thighs, lips never leaving mine.
We move together in slow, unhurried rhythm, our breaths mingling, our mouths speaking every word we can’t quite say.
My heart aches with the memory of every night I wished for this, every time I believed it was gone for good.
He undresses me with careful fingers, peeling back the layers of my clothing as if he’s unwrapping something sacred. I do the same for him, letting my hands linger on his scars, his strong arms, the planes of his chest. I want to remember this, to have it as proof against all the old doubts.
When we’re both bare, he presses his forehead to mine, his breath shaky. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers. “Not ever again.”
“Then don’t,” I whisper back, voice barely there. “Just love me.”
He carries me to the bed, and we sink down together. The world outside is gone. There’s only the hush of rain and the sound of our breathing. He takes his time, worshipping every inch of me, hands and mouth learning my body all over again.
I arch against him, gasping his name, letting him see me—every bruise, every scar, every secret fear. He touches me like I’m precious, like he wants to make up for every moment he wasn’t there.
When he finally enters me, it’s slow, careful, each movement a promise. I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him closer, needing him as deep as I can have him. He never breaks our gaze, his eyes telling me everything his words can’t.
We move together in a rhythm that feels both new and ancient, built on everything we’ve survived. I let myself open, let myself hope, let myself feel the pleasure and the love without holding anything back.
The climax, when it comes, is soft and shattering. I cling to him, sobbing his name, feeling myself come apart and being rebuilt in his arms. He follows, groaning, his body shaking as he pours himself into me.
Afterward, we lie tangled in the sheets, my head on his chest, his heart pounding strong and steady beneath my cheek. His fingers drift through my hair, then down to trace my jaw, my lips, my shoulder. I press a kiss to his chest, right above his heart, feeling it jump beneath my lips.
I lift my head and meet his gaze, everything in me exposed. “I never stopped loving you,” I whisper, voice thick with tears. “Not for a second. Not even when I ran… not even when I hated you.”
He breathes out, a sound I can’t describe, arms tightening around me until there’s no space between us. He doesn’t answer with words. he doesn’t need to. It’s all there in the way he holds me, in the way our bodies fit together, in the quiet that settles over us.
We stay like that, limbs entwined, hearts beating in sync, the room washed clean of all the ghosts that haunted it before.
The silence is easy, full of forgiveness and promise.
I listen to the rain outside, the sound of his breathing, and for the first time since I left, I feel whole.
I feel safe. Not because Markian is strong, or powerful, or unbreakable, but because he’s finally allowed himself to be soft, to be honest, to love me without reservation.
As I drift into sleep, I let myself believe in second chances. In love that survives.