chapter 14
Iselyn
“Eat your breakfast before leaving,” I stop in my tracks at the normal tone of his voice. I had gotten up early to leave early, but still I didn’t succeed in avoiding him.
He sets the bowl on the table and sits at the head of the table, starts filling his plate with scrambled eggs and toast.
He looks up at me after filling his plate but doesn’t say anything.
Last night’s conversation resurfaces in my mind.
Last night, he was talking like a human for the first time—a flawed one, but human.
I don’t know why I was so interested in knowing about him, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling bad for him, nor from asking more and more questions.
The way he snapped before leaving only left me curious, frustrated, and a little guilty.
I walk toward the table and sit on the chair beside him. I put some food on my plate and start eating.
We eat in silence. Matleon isn’t giving me heated looks, amused looks, or any kind of looks, he’s simply watching me now and then, like a civilized man. If he hadn’t invited me to eat, I would have thought he was still mad after last night’s conversation.
As I rise after eating, he says, “Wait.”
I pause near the chair. He gets up and stands in front of me, his hands in his pants pockets. “Will you go out with me tonight?”
My brows shoot up, is he asking me on a date? I blink, compose myself, and shake my head.
He nods. “Alright. Have a good day.”
My brows rise high again. I pull myself out of another shock and nod before turning to leave. Matleon has lowered my expectations of him so much that when he behaves like any man should, I’m utterly astonished.
???
“And how’s Matleon?” Dad asks, his mandatory question of the day.
“He is fine, just like yesterday.”
“Did he cook breakfast today as well?” Mom asks.
I nod. Mom and Dad exchange a look.
“Wait. Please, guys, don’t start thinking he’ll make a good husband just because he feeds your daughter breakfast,” I chuckle, but my smile fades at their serious looks.
I groan. “Don’t tell me you both are already thinking like that.”
Mom smiles. “It’s very rare to find a man who cooks good food. He will definitely become an excellent husband.”
And this sentence pulls Dad’s attention away from the whole world and toward his wife. He pulls Mom closer, making her eyes widen. She looks at him.
“You should have said that earlier, songbird. I would have become an excellent chef by now,” he says lovingly.
I giggle, watching Mom blush. My parents love each other so much that you can feel the love radiating from them.
“Okay, guys, discuss whether a man needs to know how to cook to be a good husband or not. I’m going out.”
They both look at me and nod.
“See you after six days,” I grin.
Mom grins back. Papa smiles.
I cut the call, get down from the bed, and move toward the window.
The sun has gone down completely, but there is still some natural light lingering in the sky.
Lights inside the buildings have started to glow, and soon, slowly, all the lights will turn on, making the city shimmer again.
I like this time of day; most people living in New York don’t get to enjoy this short twenty-minute stretch during working days.
Today, however, is Sunday—the sixth day of my stay in this house.
Next Sunday, I’ll be back in Russia. Back home. Away from this city and its people. Away from this house and the man who owns it. I draw in a long breath, an uncomfortable ache, almost like longing, settling in my chest.
The city is now glowing in white and yellow lights; it looks beautiful from this height.
But I’m not registering its beauty. A certain face refuses to let me see any other beauty.
Matleon is a stubborn man, and everything related to him is equally stubborn, including the thoughts of him.
No matter how hard I try, he refuses to leave my mind.
He’s been behaving like an absolute gentleman these past few mornings. Every day, he prepares breakfast for me himself, despite having an excellent chef at his disposal, and then asks me to go out with him. I refuse every single time, and he simply accepts it.
I eat my dinner outside, then return home and lock myself in my room. He could come in, like that night, but, as I said, Matleon is behaving like a gentleman. I’d be lying if I claimed it isn’t working perfectly, letting him carve out a place for himself in my heart, day by day.
Am I forgiving him? Yes, I am. And that terrifies me.
I was comfortable with my feelings when they were one-sided. Back then, every day was the same. I knew nothing would ever move from his side, and that certainty made it safe. I was happy in my own world, in the quiet fantasies I built around him.
Then everything changed. I wasn’t ready for it, but it happened anyway. It took me months to make peace with my heartbreak, to learn how to live with a broken heart.
And now it’s changing again. The wounds are trying to heal, but they’re healing around the very man who caused them. And I am helpless in the hands of my own heart.
I don’t want Matleon.
I don’t want to give him the power to break me again.
I let out a long breath, shoving the complicated thoughts to the back of my mind once more.
I haven’t left this room since breakfast. I don’t know if he’s home or not.
Just seeing him for a few minutes at breakfast is enough to occupy my mind all day.
I can’t even imagine what seeing him more than that would do to me.
I turn around, pick up my jacket, and leave the room. I’ll eat outside today as well.
My heart starts beating a little faster when I open the door of my room, the anticipation of seeing him outside is undeniable. But he is not there. A little disappointment dips low in my stomach.
It’s best that he’s not here. I don’t want to see him.
I leave the penthouse and enter the lift.
The restaurant where I eat is very close to this building as well.
With my hands in the pockets of my jacket, I stride out of the building.
The cold has been increasing rapidly over the past few days, and my ears are starting to feel numb.
I unclasp my hair so that it can fall over my ears, walking down the road toward the Russian restaurant.
I shake my head, letting my hair tumble back into place, when I suddenly freeze.
About ten feet away, a couple is hugging outside the restaurant.
My heart lurches. I recognize the man instantly.
A familiar sound rings in my ears, the same one I heard four years ago.
My chest hammers violently, and yet, in the same breath, I wish my heart would stop altogether, desperate to numb the pain rising fast enough to suffocate me. Just like four years ago.
The woman steps away, and the man finally turns his gaze on me. I’m frozen in place. He frowns when our eyes meet, then strides toward me with long steps.
“Who is she?” I ask in a hollow voice. My throat and eyes feel so dry, as if I’ve been standing in a desert for ages.
“A colleague,” he says, and I finally blink. I look down, but everything inside me is still as disturbed as it was before he spoke. Now, I’m unsettled by how much Matleon can affect me.
He comes closer. First, his smell reaches me, then his warmth surrounds me. He stops when he is just inches away, the tip of his polished black shoes almost touching the tip of my mules.
“What did you think?” he mutters. I’m still looking at his shoes, I don’t want to meet his eyes, they’ll see the parts of me I want to keep hidden, even from myself.
He chuckles lightly. “There’s no room for another woman, Angel. You’ve claimed every corner.”
I look up at his face slowly.
He tugs strands of hair from my face behind my ear, then runs his cold knuckles across my jaw.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I couldn’t rationalize its effect on me.
I didn’t understand what it was making me feel.
I never realized how precious it was until I lost it.
” His face fills with regret. “My Angel’s love. ”
My pulse drums violently in my chest. With his hand pressed to my face, can he feel it? I don’t care.
He cups my face in both hands, pressing his forehead against mine. I close my eyes. He murmurs, “Forgive me, Iselyn. I will spend my whole life earning it. Give me another chance.” He pulls back slightly and looks into my eyes. “Marry me, Angel.”
Matleon
It’s not in the script. What am I doing right now? I don’t know. These are not the words I planned to say. These are not the words that will make her pity me and forgive me. I ruined my chance. I got carried away by those alien feelings and emotions and fucked it all up.
My heart drops when she shakes her head. Damn it.
“I can’t, Matleon,” she mutters. “I need more time.”
“How much?” I ask, a little desperate.
She stares at me, then says, “I don’t know.”
I let her go and take a step back. I had a foolproof plan: act like a gentleman, propose like a gentleman with a touch of self-pity, say things that would make her feel bad for me, and then ask her to marry me.
It should have worked, but I fucked up the very important part.
I rarely fuck my plans, and she is setting a record of making me do it more than once.
“You could take your time after marrying me.”
I just need to make her my wife as soon as possible. I’m a little impatient in this matter.
She shakes her head again, my gentleman persona melting away.
“That’s not how things work, Matleon.”
“I don’t know how things work, nor am I interested in figuring out.” She watches my gentleman act dissolve, her eyes widening slightly. “You will marry me. I gave you a chance to approve; you didn’t take it. Now don’t even think about complaining later that it was non-consensual.”
She frowns, then laughs sarcastically. “And here I was thinking you changed. Narcissistic asshole.”
I smile, slipping my hands around her waist. She reacts instantly, trying to pull away, but I’m quicker. I draw her into me.
I release a satisfied groan. Finally, I’m holding her after a week of the torture of staying away from her. I had to keep my fists clenched in my pocket every morning when she looked at me with her ocean-blue eyes full of curiosity—to stop my hands from moving.
“I tried, Angel, but the results don’t satisfy me.”
She tries to push me away. “You don’t know how to court someone, Matleon. You are so full of yourself, you don’t care what the other person is feeling.”
I let her go. She moves far away from me, glaring the entire time.
“I care what you feel. I want to see you happy, but happy with me. You can’t understand how desperately I need to make you mine. So whether you like it or not, you are going to marry me.”
“Why are you so desperate about it?” she snaps.
I take a step toward her. She takes one back. I chuckle and stop. “I have my reasons.”
She can leave me anytime she wants and return to Vladivostok, out of my reach.
Stalking her from that far is impossible.
I have already suffered enough because of the distance.
Once I stopped convincing myself that I wasn’t obsessed with her, the miles between us started killing me even more.
And when she came here, I had only one month.
Far too little to win her heart. I knew it from the start—that’s why I have plan B ready.
Marrying her will erase the distance. She’ll live in my house. I’ll see her whenever I want. I’ll touch her whenever I want. She’ll be mine forever. Once she marries me, I will never let her go. She will learn to love me again. I won’t leave her any choice.
“Let’s eat,” I say, turning toward the restaurant.
She doesn’t move. I raise a brow. She rolls her eyes and walks past me, inside the restaurant. I follow her to the table and sit across from her.
Watching her without glass separating us is far better.