chapter 31
Iselyn
He traps me between the door and him, both his hands beside my head. “My gift?”
“Only shameless people ask for their birthday gift like this.”
He nods. “Very true. Now give me my gift.”
I purse my lips and pull out a box from my shorts pocket. “This is your gift.”
He raises his brow, takes the box, and opens it. He pulls out the tie bar and laughs. “Shameless.”
My lips twitch. “Perfect gift for you.”
I had ordered it that morning. I asked the men’s accessory boutique of Nexoil to make a tie bar in the shape of the word shameless.
He closes the box and puts it in his sweatpants pocket. “This is good. But I’m not satisfied.”
I purse my lips. “I’m not giving you any kind of sexual pleasure if you’re thinking about it.”
“I’m indeed thinking about it. But it’s secondary.” He leans down. “What I want you to give me as a gift is an hour of conversation with me—without lying. I can ask you anything I want, and you won’t lie about anything.”
“How will you know if I lie?”
He smirks. “I’m very good at detecting and exposing lies.”
I nod. “Alright.”
He leans up, grinning. Did I make a mistake by saying yes?
“Wait.” I stop him as he turns toward the bed. He looks over his shoulder. I walk past him and stand in front of him. “You said we would talk. Does that mean I can also ask you whatever I want?”
He nods. “You can ask me whatever you want, for a lifetime, not just an hour.”
We sit on the bed, facing each other.
“For the warmup, what’s your favourite colour?” he asks.
“Very Peri.”
He hums. “When did it change from Flamingo?”
I ignore the fact that he remembers it was my favourite colour. “Five years ago.”
“And your favourite dessert, did that change too, from ptichye moloko?”
I shake my head.
“Do you still hate watching horror movies?”
I nod stiffly. How much does he remember? He never showed any interest, so I never thought he paid attention to my words.
“What did you do in these five years?” He chuckles. “I want to know about every day you didn’t tell me about, but I know that’s impossible. So tell me, what did you do that you consider important?”
“Most of the time I spent learning about natural medicines and preparing new remedies. I also learnt cooking. Papa taught me self-defence, which nowadays I feel ashamed talking about.”
He chuckles. “You shouldn’t. You could fight three untrained men and beat a beginner quite easily. I’d recommend you not stop training. It’s also good for your health.”
I nod.
He smirks. “As for me, dear wifey, you can’t beat me no matter how much you train.”
I scoff. “I don’t have such dreams, husband. The man who defeated a lion is far beyond my body’s range, even if I train daily.”
He lunges forward and presses me against the headboard. “Call me husband again.”
I shake my head.
He watches me with smiling eyes for a whole minute, a look that makes my breath stutter and my thoughts blur, heat curling low in my stomach even as my mind struggles to stay clear.
“We’ll talk about it… after an hour.” He sits back in his place, leaving me bothered from heart to thighs. “Who told you I fought a lion?”
I saw the video, shaking in fear. “I heard when Kaz was telling Zan.”
He clicks his tongue, smirking. “Lie.”
I look away from him. “I saw the video of the fight on Kaz’s phone.”
“Why?” he asks, amusement in his voice.
“I don’t want to answer it,” I grit out. My eyes land on his wrist. “It’s my turn to ask you a question.”
His smile widens, satisfaction written all over his smile.
“Why do you always wear this ugly bracelet?” I know the reason behind my hatred for it: because I also gave him a bracelet. And it was much prettier than this one.
He never removes this bracelet. He even wore it on our wedding day.
“It has something special in it, given by a very special person,” he says, rolling the bracelet on his wrist.
My heart clenches. Of course he’s wearing a bracelet given by someone special who is not me. I inhale a long breath. It’s okay. I don’t care, I’m just sad about wasting money on him in the past.
“Won’t you ask me what’s special about it?” he asks, raising a brow.
I shake my head. “I have no interest,” I say, in knowing who and what special you’ve got here.
But he unclips it anyway. He takes it in his palm, and despite my insistence that I have no interest, I take it eagerly when he extends it in front of me.
“Press the tiny button on its top end.” I find it and press it with my nail.
“Now press the other button on the opposite end.” I do as told, and the bracelet opens. I almost drop it from my hand. Inside the bracelet is the one I gifted him.
My fingers turn cold. I lift it up with shaky hands.
Iselyn loves Matleon.
My lungs burn with trapped breath. That sixteen-year-old girl fills my thoughts—giggling, flushing, typing the words on the site for them to etch into this gold bracelet.
The girl who was nervous and excited to confess her feelings to the prince of her dreams. The girl who never smiled the same way again while looking at the word love.
He lifts my chin, and I blink through the blur of my tears to see the frown on his face. He has also come closer to me while I was lost in my thoughts.
He wipes the wetness from my cheeks. “I’m sorry. I know it won’t change what I did, even if I say it every day.” His face and voice are filled with guilt, something I’ve seen only a second time on his face, this time deeper than that night.
“Tell me what I could do to atone for the pain I caused you. Ask me to do anything, Angel. I will do everything you say to heal the heart I broke.”
“Free me from this cage,” my lips move barely.
His eyes widen for a second, then his face falls. “I can’t.”
“Because you’re afraid I’ll fall for someone else?” I whisper.
He shakes his head, then presses his forehead against mine. “Because I would lose everything. The next morning, when I lifted my phone to see your message, I found nothing. I never blocked you; I was only angry, more at myself than at you, because I couldn’t understand what I felt for you.”
He lifts his head and looks into my eyes.
“I waited every day after that for your message. Every time my phone pinged, hope would rise, and then crash when it wasn’t you.
Even then, I wasn’t ready to accept that you were important to me because it made no sense.
You were too young for me to feel any desire for you, and you hadn’t been close to me since childhood like everyone else.
You came into my life at a time when I was becoming the man who had to rule over a nation after my father.
I had no place to keep my own heart, let alone yours.
I was too immature to see your value, but you placed yourself inside me despite my denial, in a way that I couldn’t shake you from my mind.
There wasn’t a single day when you didn’t come to my thoughts, and without you, the place you had carved inside me felt hollow.
I lived with that hollowness for five years, Angel.
Please… don’t ask me to live with it again. ”
His eyes turn red. “I don’t want to feel that again.”
“What about me, Matleon?” My voice breaks when I say his name.
“How do I live? You broke my heart without thinking about me. You forced me into this marriage again without thinking about me. Do you know how it feels to live so helplessly? No, you don’t, Matleon, because Matleon gets what he wants. Always.”
He shakes his head, a trembling smile tugging at his lips. “No, Angel. Matleon doesn’t always get what he wants. He couldn’t get the one thing he wants the most.” His voice lowers. “I’ll send you back to Vladivostok tomorrow.”
My heart stills.
He agrees to set me free.
And yet…
Why don’t I feel the happiness I should?
Why does relief refuse to come?
He lies down on the bed beside me and extends his arms. “Let me hold my world in my arms one last time.”
I lie down near him, turning my back to his chest, facing the other side. He quietly commands the room assistant to turn off the lights, then pulls me tightly into him, as if afraid I might disappear if he loosens his hold even a little.
I lie there with my eyes open, staring at the bookshelf in front of me, its outlines barely visible in the darkness. It was only a month and a week ago when I entered this room for the first time, unaware of how deeply it would entangle my life again.
I hear the soft sound of a drop hitting the pillow.
It isn’t my tear, because mine falls right after it.