21. Laila
21
LAILA
“Laila,” a voice calls, “open the door.”
I came home a few hours ago, arms loaded with bags for everyone. Gifts for myself, obviously, but also for Polina, Dominik, Gedeon, Kira, and Nina. I even restocked a few of Arsen’s secret stashes around the house, though I kept that tidbit to myself. Guilia wouldn’t have liked it if I was out spending Arsen’s money on Arsen.
Then, finally, I dropped the rose pendant in Arsen’s palm and turned for my room.
Apparently, he followed me.
“I don’t want to talk, Arsen.” I answer through the door, punctuating the point with a loud, exaggerated yawn. “Your credit cards are heavy. I’m tired from swiping them all day.”
“No talking necessary. You just have to listen.” There’s a long pause. I hear the soft thud of his hand pressing against the wood. “You’re really not going to let me in?”
My hand inches involuntarily towards the knob, but I tuck it behind my back. “Nope.”
There’s another thud and then a slide. I see his shadow under the door. He’s sitting in the hallway, his back against the door.
Something about it plucks at my heartstrings.
I almost want to open it. I need to see the great Arsen Adamov sitting on the floor outside my room just so he can talk to me or I’ll never believe it.
But that’s what he wants.
So I stand my ground.
“Alright, I’ll talk from here,” he concedes. “I wasn’t trying to bribe you with the necklace. I just saw it… and I thought of you.”
Plink-plink, go my stupid heartstrings.
“I know you’re still pissed at me and I know that diamonds won’t fix anything?—”
“But you thought you’d try anyway? ‘ She’s just a stupid woman. She can be distracted with something shiny.’ Is that how it went?”
“No one would ever accuse you of being stupid, roza . You’re the smartest woman I know. You and Marie.”
My heart constricts the moment he mentions my mother. “I… Oh, fuck you.” I slump down to the floor to mirror his position, my back to the door, just a few inches of wood separating us from one another. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Some days, neither can I.”
An anger I thought I’d suppressed rises up in me hot and fast. “You’re the one who got to be with her in those final months, and she even wasn’t anything to you.”
“She was my mother-in-law,” he demurs. “And my friend. I visited her every single day while you were away. We’d eat lunch. We’d talk.”
I turn towards the door, wishing I could see his face, read his body language. “What did the two of you talk about?”
“Nothing. Everything.”
I trace a knot in the wood, my finger circling and circling. So much for trying to pretend I don’t care about what he has to say. I’m drinking in every word, every sigh.
“Mostly you,” he admits from the other side. “You were the love of Marie’s life.”
The lump in my heart travels up to my throat. “You lost your mother, so you decided to steal mine?”
The words are out of my mouth before I’ve had a chance to think them over. My guilt rushes in to fill the silence between us.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble quickly. “That was a horrible thing to say.”
“It’s okay.” His voice gives nothing away. “You have every right to feel that way. I robbed you of time with Marie. Then I was there instead, having the conversations she should have been having with you.”
“Did she ask you to bring me back?”
There’s a small pause. “All the time. She was furious at me for refusing. But she put up with me because she was lonely. She missed you.”
I close my eyes and a tear slips free. “You’re lying. She told me that she didn’t want me to come back.”
“It was because she loved you, Laila. She didn’t want you to see her struggle.”
I bite my lip to hold back a sob. When I feel more in control of myself, I wipe the tears away. “Thank you… for lying to me.”
“I never meant to hurt you, you know. I wish I could do it over. If I wasn’t so consumed with preventing my own pain, I could have avoided causing yours.”
My breath hitches. My cheek is practically kissing the wood. “What do you mean?”
“I sent you away because of the bounty, but there was more to it. After Dom and I were attacked… It shook me. I didn’t see it coming. I haven’t felt that way in a very long time. Not since my parents died.” His voice softens, but I’ve never heard him so clearly. “I hate not being prepared. After what happened with my father, I vowed never to be taken by surprise again.”
“No one can be prepared for everything in life.”
“You have to pay attention. Stay alert. There are signs. There are always signs. But I was distracted, and I missed them.” He groans in frustration, and when I close my eyes, I can picture him tugging at his hair. “My dad stopped eating after my mom died. He wouldn’t speak. He was a shell, and I… I should have seen it coming.”
I’m almost afraid to ask, but I can’t stop myself. “Seen what coming?”
“He committed suicide,” Arsen rasps softly. “Right on her grave. I’m the one who found him.”
“Oh my God! Arsen.”
Before I can think better of it, I yank the door open.
Arsen is as surprised as I am when he turns to face me, and I throw my arms around his neck. I crawl into his lap and bury my face in his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“Because it’s not something I talk about.”
I pull back to look at him. We’re sitting in the threshold between the hallway and my room. No man’s land in more ways than one. “You can’t blame yourself, Arsen.”
“Except it was my fault.”
“You were a child?—”
“I was his son. And I failed him.” His hand hovers over my knee like he’s still not sure if he can touch me. “The night Dom and I were attacked, I was distracted. With myself. With…” His eyes search out mine for a moment before dancing away again. “With us. If I’d been paying closer attention, I would have sensed the trap.”
“So you sent me away because I was a distraction?”
For months, I wanted an explanation. But nothing about this makes me feel any better.
“Something like that.” He drops his eyes. “I was scared. I thought the only way to run this empire and keep the people I love safe was to be alone.”
“How did that work for you?”
“We’re here, aren’t we?” He lets out a scorned laugh. “We both know I made the wrong choice. That’s why I’m trying to fix it.”
That’s why he’s opening up to me. That’s why he’s here.
How many times did I watch my father weasel his way back into my mother’s life, just to take some money and run?
Arsen is not like my father, but I’d be stupid to ignore the hard-won lessons my mother lived through.
“I opened the door because I…” I hear Guilia’s question from lunch echoing in my head, but the word “love” might as well be a different language. I can’t bring myself to say it. Not now. Not when everything is still up in the air. “… because I still care about you. Not because I forgive you.”
He nods. “I know.”
I could stay here on the floor with Arsen forever. But where would that leave us?
I long to touch him, give him my comfort, be his wife—but nothing has changed. Despite the fact that he’s holding the metaphorical door open for me, I can’t seem to walk through it.
Not yet, anyway.
Reluctantly, I remove myself from his arms and rise to my feet. He follows suit, standing in the threshold without crossing over.
“I need to sleep,” I tell him.
His eyes skim past me into the room, but he doesn’t ask to come in. I’m grateful for that. I’m not entirely sure I could say no to him right now.
“Okay. Goodnight, Laila.”
“Goodnight, Arsen.”
He hesitates for a moment. Then he leans in. His lips find my forehead. It’s nothing more than a fluttering, the lightest of touches—but it says more than either of us know how to put into words.
Then he turns.
He walks away.
He gives me space.
The last fucking thing I need.