20. Sandrine
Sandrine
The next morning, Kirill brings me to the Fairmont Hotel to see Lourdes. As much as I know she wants us to be together, the reality of our lives dictates we must live in different cities.
But now there are no more lies between us. No more secrets. And with my new phone number in her phone, she kisses me goodbye and promises to text me every day to keep in touch.
Ares and Kirill exchange a few more private words before we leave the hotel. From there, Kirill takes me straight to my appointment at Norridge. It was the first place I considered home after the accident.
I finally understand why I never went back to live with my father. Kirill was looking for me.
Norridge Adult Disability Services stirs mixed emotions. I push down the terror I lived with here those first few months of my recovery. Not knowing anything. Anyone. Including me.
Then a sharp sense of pride settles in. How far I’ve come. I can now talk without slurring. I can walk without tilting.
The facility looks the same. The solid terrazzo floors, taupe walls with dull art, low lighting, and the hum of voices.
Past the entrance, Kirill takes my hand and doesn’t let go as we walk through the corridors. I know it’s his brand of control, but the longer his fingers remain threaded with mine, the more the butterflies flutter in my stomach.
Head held high, he struts with such confidence and authority. Kirill Volkov is breathtaking. And mine. But only on paper.
Women here shamelessly gawk at him, bat their eyelashes, smooth their hair, and lick their lips. At my husband. His damnation for us to have a marriage without physical contact stings a little more today.
We made love constantly. Right up until Violet was born.
I close my eyes and wonder if I rode him late in my pregnancy, big belly and all. That I can’t imagine.
After waiting exactly three minutes, I meet with a doctor I don’t know. Kirill gives her a watered-down synopsis of why I’m back in Chicago. Including the forced name change, explaining that lawyers are in the process of changing it back.
Good to know…
In twenty-four hours, this doctor has vigorously studied my records from the New York City facility, Marlowe, and Lakeshore.
The name Volkov moves mountains.
Kirill gets a first-hand briefing. Amnesia is rare. Initial confusion from concussions or other light-headed trauma is most common.
My skull fracture X-ray made me gasp. I don’t recall if I ever actually saw it. Kirill winces too, but comforts me, seeing what I went through. If he loved me, why can’t he trust me?
The only truth we know is that I went to see my father, and while I was with him, I fell, fractured my skull, and he wiped Kirill out of my life.
Yes, I went there when he told me not to.
That’s a regret I have to live with. But I’ve seen no evidence that I left under false pretenses or that I didn’t intend to come back. I had a three-week-old baby at home!
After an initial examination, they run tests to compare results with those from when I was here last. It’s less invasive than I expected. Lights in my eyes, strange questions, identifying and separating shapes and patterns.
“You’ve progressed very well,” the doctor says when it’s over, sounding pleased in a restrained, professional way.
“Five years ago, your prognosis was uncertain. You were in the early stages of physical recovery, and despite receiving virtually no needle-moving treatment for nearly four years at Lakeshore, you made significant improvement at Marlowe. It’s one of the top centers in the country. You’ve jumped several percentiles.”
I nod, though the numbers on the screen mean very little to me. Progress feels abstract when so much of me is still missing.
“I’ve been getting flashes of movement, blurred images when I close my eyes sometimes,” I say, hesitant that they’re a sign of something wrong and I’ll have to live here again full-time. “I’m seeing things in my mind. Things I think happened before the accident.”
“You are?” Kirill jumps in before the doctor. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I bite my tongue and want to say, I didn’t think he’d care so long as I can look good on his arm, smile, and take care of our child. “It’s been a hectic few days.”
I don’t elaborate that hectic is from his abduction, a gun to my head, and being thrown into a cell handcuffed. It’s shocking that I didn’t regress and only had one episode.
“Memories do manage to break through,” the doctor says. “We told you years ago that it was possible. The brain finds its way back, sometimes. Not always in a straight line.”
Kirill’s hand tightens slightly around mine. “Is that a good sign?” he asks.
“Yes,” she replies without hesitation. “A very good one.”
“And long term?” he presses.
I glance at him, knowing the subtext:
How long will she be like this? How long will I have to deal with her like this?
The doctor folds her hands together carefully. “With traumatic brain injuries, there’s no exact roadmap. Sandrine has progressed through many of the side effects. As far as the amnesia, some memories may return gradually. Some may never return at all.”
My stomach flips, hearing that. Again.
“But emotional recognition is important,” the doctor continues gently, looking at our linked hands. “Attachment, instinctive trust, physical familiarity. Those can survive even when conscious memory doesn’t. Stability helps. Familiar people help.”
I glance down when his hand tightens around mine. Instinctively, my fingers curl more around his, too. The warmth of his skin spreads through me. He feels possessive and protective all at once.
He notices, and when he brings his eyes back up, we stare for a moment. Why does he have to be so damn handsome? If I met him now, I would want him just as much.
Those striking blue eyes are impossible to ignore or be unaffected by. I feel that he’s both intoxicating and dangerous.
And our love is buried somewhere. It’s trying to break through.
A spark in the air makes me breathless. A flash comes back again. He’s kissing me. Maybe it’s from the video. No, this is different.
We’re not outdoors. We’re inside. In a bed.
I’m naked. He’s naked. My heart beats wildly at the sight of what he wants in his eyes.
He works his way down my body, suckling a breast, kissing my stomach.
He keeps going until he reaches the heat between my legs.
They open for him, and he licks my center. Slow and gentle. Carnal. Perfect.
Arousal thumps between my legs and I let out a small gasp. A flush of heat crawls up my neck before I can stop it. Am I reading his mind? Are these his memories or mine?
The machine I’m still hooked up to lets out a sudden, sharp beep from my quickening pulse.
I jerk slightly, my breath catching. Kirill keeps looking at me, and the slow curve of his mouth tells me he knows exactly what triggered it.
Heat floods my face, and I look away, suddenly very aware that my body can betray me.
It might have betrayed me initially. I had to know getting involved with the heir to the Chicago Bratva was a risk.
I wanted him anyway.
The doctor disconnects the machine. And the rest of the appointment is talk of outpatient therapy and medication.
“I don’t see a recent pelvic exam?” the doctor says, swiping through records on a tablet. “I see we never did one. Probably because your injuries were so new. Did you have one at Lakeshore or Marlowe?”
Kirill tilts his head to me with an eyebrow raised.
“No,” I say. “One was scheduled, though. The primary physician at Marlowe wanted to get me on routine screenings.”
“We can do one now.” She doesn’t wait for a response. She taps a few things on the tablet and then hands me something to sign. “Your consent.”
I glance at Kirill, who nods. I sign it, and then I go out into the hall.
“I can do this alone,” I tell Kirill. I want to do this alone.
He nods and then brushes a kiss on my cheek. Acting like the doting husband, but is he acting?
In a different wing, the exam room is colder and more clinical. The paper on the vinyl table crinkles softly beneath my butt as I sit there, waiting. I press my palms against my thighs, trying to steady the small, creeping unease in my chest.
A nurse comes in and tells me to lie back. I focus on her voice, on its cadence, on the simple act of breathing in and out as she slides something cold and metal inside me.
I wait for pain. I wait for her to tell me there’s blood.
Nothing.
I swallow past the tightness in my throat, and ask the delicate question before I can second-guess myself.
“Did I have a baby?”
The nurse’s head pops up from between my legs, her expression carefully neutral. “Your records didn’t indicate a previous pregnancy or childbirth.”
And they never did any kind of exam here. Or this would have come out years ago.
I rear up on my elbows. “It turns out, before my accident, I was married, and I had a daughter.”
The nurse’s brows draw together. “Your father never disclosed that,” she says.
“I just found out,” I murmur. “My father didn’t approve of my husband.”
“And he kept that information from you?” The alarm in her voice has my heart pounding.
“He passed away shortly after I was brought here. I’m sure he would have told me eventually. It’s in the past. I’m home now. Back with my husband. With my daughter. I just wanted to be sure. You can imagine not knowing.” I clear my throat and look down. “Or maybe you can’t.”
“No, I can’t imagine that.” She returns to the exam. Nodding a few moments later, she says, “You have scarring consistent with childbirth. And it looks like you had an episiotomy.”
When I ask what that was, and she tells me, I clench. “Ouch.”
“Part of the process.” She finishes the exam. “I’ll get your cervix cells to the lab. When you’re back for your next visit, we’ll have the results. But you look healthy. And married. Shall I put in a script for birth control?”
The question hits me in the chest, and a sob builds in my throat. Kirill said we’re not those people anymore.
I shake my head. “We’re taking things slow.”
She snaps off her gloves and comes around to the head of the exam table. “Even in the marital bed, you have choices.”
I just nod. No marital bed.
I’m conflicted about how much that bothers me. By the time we leave Norridge, the sky outside has dulled to overcast gray, the wind a little less kind. I pull my coat, the old green coat, tighter around myself as Kirill guides me toward his car. Other SUVs wait in a formation.
I stop him and look into his eyes. “Violet is mine, isn’t she? The nurse confirmed I’d had a baby.”
Nodding, he shoves his hands into his coat pockets and says, “Good. I want you to have your voice. Our marriage was never supposed to be a prison.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s the only thing I can offer him right now. “You asked me not to go see my father. And I did anyway. I believe you.” I wrap my arms around myself, more for comfort than warmth. “This is all my fault.”
He stares down at me and says, “For the sake of your relationship with Violet, for the peace in our home, and for the success of my reign when I am officially crowned Pakhan, I have to accept that what’s done is done.”
The measured words are very conciliatory but restrained and tightly controlled.
“We have to move on,” he adds, sadly.
Move on.
Together. But alone. Separate bedrooms. Separate beds.
The driver opens the SUV’s rear passenger door, and I slide inside. Pleasant warmth envelops me against the cold. Kirill follows, and the door shuts behind him. The locks engage, feeling so final, trapping us in this place. Man and wife. Roommates with rings.
I don’t think I want that. He wants me to have a voice. Damn it, I’m using it.
“The gynecologist asked me if I wanted to get on birth control.” I turn toward him.
He shifts in his seat, looking uncomfortable. “More children will be expected. At least one son.”
“So will I eventually move into your bedroom?” I ask.
His brow lifts, a flicker of amusement passing through his expression as he signals the driver to move.
“Maybe,” he says, low and throaty.