16. Arsen
16
ARSEN
I’m starving as we leave the restaurant. The overpriced food tasted like cardboard. Probably because the only thing I really wanted to take a bite out of was my wife.
The woman looks phenomenal.
Knowing Laila, I’m sure that was intentional. We’re well past punishment now. She’s trying to torture me.
Part of the torture has to be the way she stiffened every time I got close to her. When I reached across to refill her wine glass, I thought she was going to stop, drop, and roll to avoid touching me.
Now, we’re back in the car, and I’ve about had it with the broody silence. “What did you think of Guilia and Enzo?”
“Does it matter?” She turns to look out the window.
“I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t.”
“They were nice. Really nice,” she sighs, almost like she can’t help herself. “They seem to be really in love.”
“Probably why they got married.”
She turns towards me, but her eyes don’t follow. I want to grab her chin and force her to look at me. “Marriage is used for a lot of things in your world. It rarely has anything to do with love. It was nice to see a couple who actually want to be together.”
“We were that couple once.”
She snorts. “We were fooling ourselves. Or at least, I was. We never had what Enzo and Guilia have.”
I want to argue, but there’s no point. Would Enzo send Guilia away? Would he turn his back on his infant daughter?
The questions swirl in the back of my mind, but I ask one that’s a little easier to swallow. “Do you want what they have?”
She folds her arms over her chest. “Not anymore. I just want to be left alone.”
“Yeah, you made that clear enough at dinner.”
Finally, she turns her blue-eyed glare on me. “I came. I socialized. I ate the freaking crab cakes. What more do you want from me, Arsen?”
Everything.
“I want to talk to you about?—”
“No.” She turns away again, facing firmly forward. “I think this should be a silent drive.”
“It’s not healthy for Nina to have parents who don’t speak to each other.”
“We will speak to each other.” She turns to me, a fake smile tugging limply on her lips. “ ‘Hello, Arsen. How are you? I’m here to pick up Nina. Thank you. Goodbye.’ ” She holds up her hands like she just made some great point. “See?”
The thought that this custody arrangement might last more than just a few weeks is unfathomable to me. “That’s not good enough. Nina deserves more.”
“And she’ll get it,” she snaps. “Eventually. One day, I’m sure, we’ll figure out how to talk—look—God, fucking be around each other. But not now. Today is not that day. I need space.”
“You’ve had months of space.”
“That wasn’t my choice! You’re the one who started this, Arsen. Don’t blame me for following through.”
“How much longer are you going to punish me for?” I snarl. She flinches but refuses to say anything. “I’ve gone along with your ridiculous demands, but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference.”
She’s a foot away from me, but she might as well still be in that tiny apartment with Gedeon, with hundreds of miles between us.
“I feel the way I feel, Arsen. Maybe you should just accept that things between us will never be the same again.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I have half a mind to pull to the side of the road and hash things out—yell and curse and rant and rave. We need to settle this, one way or another. “I’m never going to accept that my wife refuses to be in the same room with me. Do you know how insane it is to have you walk out of the room the moment I walk in?”
“I know exactly how insane it is, actually.” She turns her cold gaze on me. “Probably as insane as being forced out of the state with no real explanation as to why.”
“You know why.”
“No, I don’t!” she cries out. “I get that there was a threat hanging over my head and you wanted me to be safe?—”
“That’s exactly why.”
“So why not increase my security? Why not keep me in the house? Or—here’s a novel idea—why didn’t you come with me ?”
Her voice breaks, and I whip my attention to her.
I’m flying down the dark road, the engine roaring under us, but my eyes are stuck on hers. On the shimmer of pain just beneath her anger.
“Yeah.” She nods with a grim sense of satisfaction. “Didn’t even cross your mind, did it? Because, no matter what you claim, you weren’t just trying to keep me safe. You were trying to push me away.”
Every argument I’ve been amassing in my defense these last few weeks disintegrates.
Because she’s right.
I didn’t just send her away to protect her—I did it to protect myself. I open my mouth to tell her that, but my throat is dry, my tongue parched. Nothing gets past my lips.
“You’re here now, roza ,” I rasp at last. “I’m not sending you away anymore.”
“Until the next threat comes,” she mutters. “Or until you get sick of me. Whichever is first.”
The threat is already here.
Her own father wanted her dead.
As we drive through the gates of my compound, I’m trying to decide whether telling her about Charles right now is the right move.
But before I can make up my mind, she rips her seatbelt off. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter to me anymore. Keep me here, send me away—I don’t care. Either way, I want space.”
She gets out of the car and practically runs into the house.
“ Blyat’, ” I hiss to the empty car before I finally kill the engine and make my way inside.
I should leave her alone tonight. It’s been a long one, and she’s clearly not in the mood for more conversation. But my own restlessness has me trailing her perfume through the house until I’m standing on her doorstep.
I knock gently once. Twice. A third time.
“Open the door, Laila. I have something I need to tell you.”
Silence.
Then, a second later, my phone pings with an incoming message.
LAILA: I’m all bickered out.
Biting back my frustration, I try again. I refuse to resort to my phone when I know she’s standing a foot away on the other side of this door.
“I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk. To explain. I’m prepared to tell you everything.”
LAILA: Somehow, I highly doubt that.
“This is important, Laila.”
LAILA: It’s always important when YOU want to talk.
“This is childish. Just open the door.”
LAILA: I’m going to bed.
“I could break down the door.”
LAILA: Our daughter is sleeping in here.
I take a deep breath, but my hands ball into fists all the same. She’s infuriating. And exciting.
She’s mind-boggling and frustrating as hell—and so utterly fucking irresistible that I feel like my brain is melting.
“Fine. We’ll talk tomorrow then.”
No answer—in text form or otherwise—but I can see her shadow shift across the crack at the bottom of the door. She’s still standing there, waiting for me to walk away.
“Thank you for coming with me,” I add softly, certain she can hear me.
Her shadow doesn’t move. I take that as a good sign.
“And, by the way—” I press a hand to the door. “—you looked beautiful tonight.”