Chapter 33
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Sia
The next morning I’d been surprised to find Polly already fed and given water.
She’d even been walked.
How did I know? She wasn’t jumping at her crate the moment I entered the room. Actually, she had the look of a satisfied dog, and one glance at her food and water dish confirmed she’d been cared for already.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who’d done it.
Something told me Maxim Petrov’s love language was acts of service, but it would take more than that for me to overlook how he left me the last month.
Even still, being around him again…
Seeing him had been unnerving. It was even worse being in close proximity with him in his car. I hadn’t been close to him in a long time. I hadn’t smelled his husky scent or felt him around me. His aura had been powerful like it always was.
It felt like he’d been away so much longer than he had. The constant dull ache I had in my chest while he’d been gone let me know how much I missed him, worried about him. He’d taken a big part of me with him when he’d suddenly up and left, and when he came back, that crevice hadn’t been easily filled. We were in the car for a while and said nothing to each other the whole time. The same occurred when we got home, but that had been because of me. I hadn’t even told him goodnight before I went to my room by myself. I just left him, nothing but anger and resentment in my veins.
There was a fair amount of anxiety too, that stemmed from being around him and not knowing what to do with that. I had a lot of anxiety while he’d been gone. I had the urge to use, but I hadn’t. I hadn’t even gone for my jellybeans out of sheer stubbornness. The urge to use and default to disastrous ways was definitely there, but I wouldn’t let him being around take me there.
Maxim Petrov didn’t control me.
Of course, that was easy to say when we weren’t in the same room together. He was downstairs in his favorite chair at the dinner table after I checked on Polly. He was there reading a newspaper as if nothing had happened. His bulky frame was in a white dress shirt that labored at the buttons, his tattoos on full display down to his knuckles. He was the quintessential hot dad with his paper in front of him and his readers on, his dark hair slick and intentionally messy.
I tried not to look at him when I entered the dining room and would have backed out had he not lowered the paper. He targeted me with those gray eyes, and it took me a moment to realize the table had been filled with food. There were silver trays with danishes, fruit, scrambled eggs, and other various breakfast items. Basically, he had a buffet in front of him.
I waltzed right by it all, trying to ignore the fact there was a place setting opposite of him. It was empty and the only other one on the table.
“So you’re going to ignore me, malyshka ?”
He really was arrogant, wasn’t he? He always had been.
Even still, that hadn’t stopped his effects and the fact that my legs felt a little jelly again upon hearing him call me that nickname. I wouldn’t let myself succumb to that though and entered the kitchen. I poured myself some cereal.
It was hard focusing and allowing those corn flakes to enter my bowl when, suddenly, my presence wasn’t the only one in the kitchen. I instantly became aware when Maxim entered. It was like he sucked up all the air in the room, his energy too big for it.
“ Malyshka… ”
He wasn’t on me, but he might as well have been, his voice rough, husky. He drew in close, and that did surprise me. He’d wanted to keep our relationship under wraps until he told Lettie about us.
Even in the car, he hadn’t been this close. In fact, we felt just as far away from each other as we’d been when he’d been gone. That wasn’t the case now as he pivoted. His hands were suddenly on either side of me on the counter, caging me in. The box of cereal froze in my hands, my breath picking up.
“Sia…” He breathed my name right along the shell of my ear and hot lava blazed down my neck when he drew in my scent. He sniffed me wildly, feral like he did sometimes when we played. He never did this in public either. He always put distance between us.
No one was around us now, but Maxim always approached proximity with me with caution. He wasn’t now, and I wondered if he was having a hard time fighting it. If he wanted me as much as I wanted him in all his time away…
His hands braced my hips, but instead of giving into him I found myself pulling away. I couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do this. Not after he left, hurt me…
He watched me slide my bowl across the counter, then the opposite one when I pivoted. He drew those tatted fingers through his inky locks, a sigh on his lips.
He shook his head. “You’re really not going to talk to me?”
That was him last night, wasn’t it?
I put the cereal box down. “You really think taking Polly out this morning and getting Sophia to make that breakfast out there is really going to fix things?”
Clearly, that other place setting was for me. At least, I assumed it was.
Maxim frowned. “I made it.”
“What?”
“ I made it for you. Breakfast?” He folded his burly arms. “Spent all morning on it. I wanted us to talk and eat together. I missed you, malyshka. Desperately.”
My throat closed up. That was hard to hear. It was hard like a sock in the chest, and my throat heated when I shook my head. “And again, that’s supposed to fix things?”
“It was supposed to be a start. Yes.” He eased closer, but I backed away.
“I don’t have time to talk, and I definitely don’t need you to do my job. My chores? Last I checked, everything to do with Polly is my job. I’m your employee, remember?”
Sheer stubbornness had these words flying out of my mouth, and I certainly hadn’t missed their effects on Maxim. He winced like I struck him with a hot poker.
“You haven’t been just my employee in a long time, Sia,” he said, but when he crossed the room I winced, cringed. Maybe I hadn’t been his employee, but the way he’d treated me once he left made me feel worthless. Like I was just some object he could use then throw away when he didn’t need me. Where was all his thought and care when he’d been ignoring my text messages and calls? People who missed each other didn’t do that.
“Sia—”
I couldn’t even look at him. I gave him my back, and eventually, abandoned my cereal all together. I’d rather go without it today. In fact, I’d rather starve than be in this room one more minute with him.
He called after me again when I left, but I didn’t care. Maxim Petrov couldn’t just charm his way back into my life.
It just wouldn’t work this time.