Chapter 28
S he loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the infinite of thought. - William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Emma
“You need to eat something.”
I rolled away from Mary, hugging my ‘I love Mr. Darcy’ pillow to my chest. “I’m not hungry.”
She sighed as she sat on the edge of my bed. “It’s been a week. I’ve covered for you with your professors and Old Sour Berry, but eventually you have to return to the land of the living.”
She was right, of course, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t seem to care about anything right now. All I wanted to do was stay here, curled up on my bed, and cry.
Dimitri was gone.
I kept hoping he would change his mind and come storming through my door at any moment. He would pick me up in his arms and roughly announce he was taking me home in that controlling way I both loved and hated.
I missed him so much it physically hurt.
I shivered as I pulled the afghan over my shoulders.
I felt cold all the time now. I didn’t think I’d ever feel warm again.
My body ached. I desperately wanted to feel Dimitri’s warmth and strength, wanted to feel his arms wrapped securely around me as I pressed my ear to his chest to listen to his beating heart.
I missed the smell of his cologne. The deep growl of his voice, especially how when he got mad or excited his accent would become thicker and more guttural and so freaking sexy. A few times over the last few days, I’d have sworn I could still feel his firm hand on my lower back.
I missed lying in bed with him. Listening to him talk as I lay cuddled under his arm, absently tracing his various tattoos. Just the thought of that silly little bear tattoo of his would cause me to burst into tears. How he was this big scary Russian who loved JellyBellys of all things.
I lived more in the short time I knew him than in my entire life.
He had shared so many new experiences with me… and I wasn’t just thinking about the mind-blowing sex. Every day with him had been an adventure.
Champagne, caviar, helicopter rides, private movie showings, Morocco.
My stomach twisted. I refused to taint that amazing experience by only remembering the bad.
Yes, there were a few hours of terror but not once, not for a single second, had I thought Dimitri wouldn’t save me.
I’d known deep in my bones he would rescue me.
Our time in Morocco was also filled with romantic, thoughtful moments I would cherish and hold close for always.
I knew he wasn’t perfect, but he was perfect for me.
I loved him and I couldn’t imagine ever loving anyone else.
Reaching past her, I hit repeat on my phone. Matchbox Twenty’s ‘If You’re Gone’ played again.
Mary shifted closer, picking up the copy of Anna Karenina I was reading and setting it on the nightstand.
“Look, I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you’ll get over him.”
My eyes teared up. “No, I won’t.”
She stroked my back. “Everyone feels that way about the first guy they’ve loved, but eventually you move on.”
I rolled back to face her. Sitting up, I pulled the pillow onto my lap. Tracing the heart with my fingertips, my lower lip trembled. “I don’t want to move on. I know you think it’s crazy and will probably say I just met the guy and barely know him but….”
“Actually, I think I’d focus more on the whole he’s-a-dangerous-Russian-mobster angle more than the you-two-crazy-kids-just-met trope,” quipped Mary as she opened a bag of Doritos and placed it by my side before reaching in and grabbing a chip.
Absentmindedly, I grabbed one too. “So he has his faults. No guy is perfect,” I said, crunching down on a chip.
She handed me a pint glass of iced tea before responding. I sipped as I listened, then grabbed for another chip.
“Emma. The man is a fucking mobster! A criminal. I’d say that is a pretty big fault.”
“It’s not like he’s out there robbing banks or shooting up restaurants!
Besides, from what I’ve seen, he’s mostly a businessman.
If you think about it, half of corporate America are criminals in one way or another,” I said, grabbing a handful of Doritos in my agitation, snapping my teeth down into a curled-up one, which gave a satisfyingly loud crunch.
Refusing to meet Mary’s gaze, I brushed at the cheese dust on my blanket.
“Emma, if you are going to accept the man for what he is, then you can’t justify it or paint it a color it isn’t. You have to look at this in black and white terms.”
She was right.
I loved Dimitri for who he was, not what he did to make money. It felt like a lifetime ago that I had wondered if I would be able to separate the two and I now knew I could. I didn’t care what he did.
I loved him… the rest I would just accept as the price I had to pay to be with him.
As far as I was concerned, it was a cheap price to pay to be with a man as intelligent, charming, and exciting as Dimitri.
“Does it make me a bad person if I say I don’t care if he’s a criminal?”
Mary tightened the knot on her red kerchief, which had slipped, exposing her glossy black hair. “A few days ago, I would have said yes. That you couldn’t possibly consider being with a man like that… now I don’t know.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with Dimitri’s friend, Vaska?”
From what I had learned, they had been thrown together quite a bit since the night at the restaurant.
Her cheeks flushed. “That man is the most insufferable, brutish, stubborn, obstinate, mule-headed person I’ve ever met,” she huffed.
“You do realize all those words are technically synonyms?”
“Fuck this iced tea. I’m getting the tequila.”
Mary left and returned with a bottle of cheap Cuervo and two shot glasses. This time they were our Rhett Butler ones that said I Don’t Give a Damn in black scroll. She poured us both a shot. Holding hers high, she said, “To bad choices!”
We drank.
Mary looked down at her glass. “What if he gets you killed?”
I grabbed the bottle of tequila and poured us both another shot. “That’s not a fair question. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Life is random.”
“It most certainly is a fair question! You were kidnapped by a lunatic who held a gun to your head because of him.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“He may not be directly responsible but you have to face facts. If you were there with a boring accountant, the likelihood of something like that happening dramatically decreases.”
We both drank, not bothering to toast.
I thought about what she’d said for a minute, then finally put it in terms she could understand. “Why did Buffy love Angel… or fuck Spike?”
She poured us a third shot. “I get it. He’s your Angel and Spike all rolled into one.” She raised her arm high. “To bad boys!”
“To bad boys!” I repeated before swallowing it down.
Mary rubbed her hands together. “Well, okay. You love him and damn the consequences… so what are you going to do about it?”
I threw my arms into the air. “Hello! He broke up with me!”
“So what? You think Elizabeth or Beatrice or Catherine or Jane or Bathsheba would take that lying down? You think they’d be curled up in bed in their pajamas feeling sorry for themselves? Ask yourself, WWBD?” rallied Mary, rattling off some of my favorite heroines. What Would Buffy Do?
I sat up straighter. “No! No, they wouldn’t!”
“You’re damn straight they wouldn’t!”
I felt this charge of energy and purpose.
I was going to get Dimitri back.
I would make him understand that I loved him beyond all reason and I didn’t care about who he was or what he did or the danger. He was worth it.
If he refused to listen to me… well, I would just have to make him.
And I knew just how to do it…
“Mary, I have an idea, but I’m going to need your help.”
“Hell, yeah! Let’s go get that criminal demon vampire bad boy of yours!”