Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Ilya
I didn’t know who I hated more, myself or her. I was betting myself, but she was close behind, and the fact that I couldn’t stay away from her just made me hate her even more.
She didn’t even have to do anything. Like earlier tonight, I had expected her to come out to start another argument with me. I had wanted her to do that, but her bedroom door had remained closed, and I had been powerless to do anything but go to her.
God, I hated her.
I hated that one look at her sitting cross-legged on the bed, smiling down at her phone, had me craving the taste of her more than anything in the world.
I wanted to be the one to put that kind of smile on her face. No one else.
I wanted to love her, and fuck her, and ruin her in all the ways she had ruined me.
That’s what Marguerite was. A way to destroy the woman I actually loved.
Was it cruel and filled with bitterness?
Yes. I was more than aware of how it looked.
But I didn’t know any other way to make her pay for leaving me six years ago.
The hard dick in my hand went limp as I was plunged back into the past.
The door to the hospital room opened, and my head snapped up so quickly that I felt the corded muscles in my neck snap.
It had been hours since they had dragged Daisy away from me, and I could still feel her small hand clutching mine to the very last second. I could still see the tears and absolute misery on her face as they wheeled her down to surgery.
It had been six hours.
I didn’t know much about C-sections, but I knew they didn’t take six hours. Not unless something was wrong.
I pushed the thought away.
I would not let myself think like that. Daisy was young and fit. It was just a difficult birth. She would be fine.
The nurse stepped in first. A wide smile on her tanned face and a bundle swaddled in blue blankets held in her arms.
Blue!
My eyes locked to the little bundle. Blue meant boy. Did I have a son? My heart leapt in my chest as I jumped to my feet.
"Congratulations, Mr. Popovitch," she beamed up at me. "You have a son."
I reached for him without thinking, flicking back the corner of the blanket to reveal a bright red, screwed-up little face and a tiny fist that flailed around.
"I have a son?" His hand closed around the tip of my finger, and I felt a rush of emotion like I had never felt before. Tenderly, I took him from her, cradling him awkwardly in my arms. "Is he healthy?" He looked healthy. In fact, he looked perfect.
"He’s perfect," the nurse nodded. "As healthy as can be. Did you have a name for him?"
Daisy and I had discussed names. "Not yet. I am waiting to speak to Daisy first."
The smile on her face fell. Sympathy filled her eyes, and my stomach twisted.
"Where is Daisy?" My voice shook more and more with every word.
"Give the nurse the baby, Ilya." My grandfather appeared in the doorway. His face as troubled as the nurse's.
"No." I shook my head violently. "Where is Daisy? Can I see her?"
I didn’t know why, but my voice came out almost boyish. Like I was a little kid begging for something not to be true.
"At least sit."
I fell into the chair hard, but kept my son nestled in my arms. "What happened to her?" I could feel tears fill my eyes. "Is she dead?"
"Yes."
Surely God would not be this cruel. He wouldn’t make me unlovable and then give me someone like Daisy who could love me for me, only to snatch her away from me so soon.
We hadn’t had enough time with each other. I needed more time.
"How does that even happen? Women shouldn’t die in childbirth these days," I ranted.
"She didn’t die in childbirth, Ilya. Daisy was involved in a five-car pile-up on her way to the airport."
Confusion pinched my eyebrows together. I stared down at my son's face. There were drops of water on him, and I wiped them away with a gentle swipe of my thumb. My tears. My son's face was covered with my falling tears.
"I don’t understand," I began to say, but I did. Deep down I did. She had left me. That’s why I had stayed alone, panicking and worrying for half a day in this room, because she had headed to the airport as soon as she was able to move.
She hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye. That’s how little we meant to her.
Anger burned through my chest.
Daisy had never loved me; she had just made me love her so she could ruin me. If she wasn’t dead already, I would kill her with my own hands.
A sob ripped its way out of my throat, startling the sleeping baby awake.
Daisy was dead.
Slowly, I lifted my head to meet my grandfather's cold eyes. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, son. I am sorry. I know you were beginning to care for her, but girls like that are not for men like you. She gave you the gift in your arms and left without a second thought for either of you. She didn’t want you, Ilya. And now she is dead."
I swallowed hard. Daisy had left me, and in the process, she had lost her life.
She wanted away from my love so badly that she had killed herself in the process.
The anger in my veins turned to rage. My arms shook with it. "Take him," I muttered.
"Sir?"
"Take him, now." My voice was steely as I handed my son into her waiting arms. "I don’t trust myself around him right now." Without looking back, I headed towards the door.
"Where are you going, Ilya?" my grandfather called out after me.
"To the crash site. I need to see for myself," I ground out, and when I had done that, I was going to hurt someone. Maybe several someones, because I needed to pass this pain on.
I needed to make the world hurt like she had made me hurt.
It was only fair.
I sucked in a rasping breath, and the memories drifted away, leaving me sitting alone on my bed, my shoulders heaving as I tried to catch my breath. I lifted my hands to scrub at my face, surprised to find tears running down my cheeks. That day had been the most painful in my entire life.
And for years afterwards, I had teetered on the edge between grieving for her and hating her guts. I made the city hurt for the pain she had caused me. For almost two years, I had been the monster everyone thought I was.
I had killed, I had tortured, and I had enjoyed the sound of other people’s screams because they drowned out the screams in my own head.
For two years, I had destroyed everyone in my path. The only time I allowed myself to take a breath was when I watched my son's face as he slept, but even back then I hadn’t trusted myself around him.
He looked so much like Daisy. A little living reminder of the woman who had betrayed and used me.
Right until the day before his second birthday.
Usually, I didn’t take much notice of him.
I loved him as much as I was able to, but I kept my distance.
Until he had wandered away from his nanny on the rooftop sun deck.
I’d heard him cry out, and it had felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart when I realized he had wandered up there unsupervised.
Never in all my life had I run so fast. By the time I got to him and gathered him into my arms, my heart was beating so hard and fast I was sure I was about to have a heart attack.
There was no way he could fall to his death, but my brain hadn’t remembered that. All I had felt was panic that I was going to lose another person I loved.
I had gathered him into my arms, crying as much as he was as he showed me the graze on his chubby knee and called me Papa.
That was the day I actually became his papa, the day I had come back to life because my son deserved at least one parent who would love and cherish him.
We became a team, Ilya and Alec, and I made sure that the ugliness of my world never touched him. Right up until she had turned up in that graveyard and turned our world upside down.
She was ruining me all over again, and I was letting her. That was the worst thing. I was letting her do it all over again.
I didn’t love Marguerite. I would never love her, but she would become my wife because I knew that would hurt Daisy. Not because she loved me, but because she would watch her son learn to love another woman and call her mom.
"You’re going to pay, Daisy," I whispered into the quiet darkness. "I’m going to make you feel all the pain you rained down on me, and then I am going to rip your heart out."
Saying it out loud didn’t make me feel better. None of this made me feel good. In an ideal world, Daisy would have been my wife by now. We would have been married years ago, maybe even with another child or two. But she had spoiled all of that when she had left and faked her own death.
Stroking my fingers over my chin, I frowned. I didn’t get it. Why? She could have left me. I might have even let her go. Although probably not.
And more importantly, how? How did she manage to make the whole world think she was dead?
A sigh rattled through my chest. It didn’t really matter. This was the way our lives had gone.
This was our path.
Climbing from the bed, I went to check on Alec. Fast asleep with his cheek resting in his hand. I hesitated by Daisy's door before pushing it open an inch. And there she was, lying in the exact same position as our son. Her cheek resting in her palm. They both looked angelic.
They both made me feel like my heart was going to burst. I wanted Daisy to pay in tears for what she had done to me, but I couldn’t stay away from her.
Silently, I slipped into the room, sliding my body under the covers with hers. I pulled her willing body into my arms.
She came willingly. Her lips were already searching for mine before I had even decided to kiss her.
My tongue swiped against the seam of her lips, and she parted them for me without me having to ask twice. Groaning, I sucked her tongue into my mouth.
Gasping for air, she tore her mouth away from mine. "Ilya, we shouldn’t."
Even as she said the words, my hands closed around her breasts, squeezing the heavy globes in my palms and pulling her back against me. Back arched, she moaned. Her ass rubbing against my crotch.
I knew we shouldn’t. I knew I shouldn’t have even opened her door, let alone crawled into her bed, but when it came to her, I couldn’t help myself. I wanted her with a need that bordered on obsession.
"I know, but I can’t help but want you." My teeth grazed her shoulder, pulling another whimper out of her lips. She wanted me too. Even when she hated me and pushed me away. Daisy was as powerless as I was.
We belonged to each other.
And it would probably kill us.
Yanking down her sleep shorts, I had my dick out and lined up with her before I knew what I was doing. Sliding into her wet warmth, I moaned her name, and it sounded like a prayer.
Yeah, we would love each other until it killed one of us, I realized as I began to move. Egged on by the sound of my name trembling from her lips with every stroke.
One hand on her breast, my thumb teasing up her nipple.
The other parted her legs for me more so I could make her cum before I did.
I circled her clit in hard little circles.
Her wetness coated my cock, my fingers, and soaked her inner thighs, but I kept working her until my name was the only thing she was crying out.
It was the only thing I ever wanted her to say.
Around me, her channel tightened, gripping me like a warm velvet glove that had been made just for me.
"Cum for me, Daisy." I bit down on her shoulder. My words were muffled, but she must have heard, because when she came, she dragged me right over the edge with her.
Completely spent, I went still, Daisy still pressed against my front, and I felt her shiver. It felt like she was quietly sobbing. And I got that.
When it came to us, I got her completely.
We would hate each other, and we would fuck, but we would always want each other.
And maybe that was our punishment.