38. Anya
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
ANYA
“Let’s go skydiving, wife.” Jetmir poked his head through the door of the library where I spent most of my days.
I didn’t bother to look up from my special edition book. “Only if we’re jumping separately and you do so without a parachute.”
“Or maybe we can recreate another one of your scenes?” Damn it, why was my rage-baiting not working?
“Sure,” I answered, smiling sweetly. Hope flickered in his eyes, but my next words succeeded in extinguishing it. “You can start by lying down so I can slice you into tiny pieces and bury you in the Paris catacombs.”
I returned my attention to the book resting in my lap, shifting my curled legs against the couch cushions. Dozer stretched, then shifted away, tired of my constant fidgeting. This had become our routine over the past week. Jetmir would try to spend time with me, and I would swiftly shut him down.
A whole week, trapped on an island with no one but each other. A whole week of Jetmir shadowing me, searching for an opening to talk about “us.” Of me refusing to give him one. Of nights filled with orgasms and days where I pretended they didn’t mean anything.
God, why was it so damn hard to hate him?
I had fought him, negotiated with him, and pleaded until I turned blue.
I’d tried to make him see reason, reminding him that my parents were probably frantic with worry—and that his were too. I warned him that my kidnapping could have already sparked a war, one that would cost innocent people their lives.
Jetmir refused to hear any of it.
So I resolved to sit in the library and ignore him. Sometimes it proved impossible, like when he forced me to eat, claiming to be scared for my health. Even the memory made me scoff. He should be scared for his own health.
I lifted my head, half expecting my husband to still be standing in the doorway, watching me with that infuriating patience of his.
He wasn’t.
I closed my book and set it on the coffee table with a soft thud. It wasn’t as though I’d been doing much besides rereading the same page, not absorbing a single word.
My gaze drifted toward the lone desk.
Jetmir spent hours sitting at it every day, scribbling notes, typing away on his computer, and filing papers away. If he was hiding something, I intended to find out what it was. Plus, if I could somehow log into his computer, I’d be able to send an email to my parents.
I could at least tell them I was all right and maybe even convince them I’d left on my own because I needed space. The last thing I wanted was for our families to kill each other.
I rose from the couch, startling Dozer who I swore glared at me.
He got up, then jumped off the couch and disappeared through the same door Jetmir did while I padded quietly to the desk.
There was a map of the island. A few bills.
And a notebook. I opened it and found something scribbled in it, but unfortunately, it was in Russian.
If I had my phone with me, I could use Google Translate. As it was, the notes were useless.
Next, I moved to the drawers.
The first held nothing more than neatly folded documents and a few leather-bound notebooks. The second was filled with loose papers stacked in careful piles. I pulled them out, expecting to find something important.
Instead, I froze.
Nestled beneath the papers, as though it had been deliberately tucked away for safekeeping, lay my wedding ring.
For a long moment, I simply stared at it.
It looked so small sitting there, the gold band gleaming softly in the afternoon light spilling through the window. Beckoning me.
My throat tightened.
With trembling fingers, I reached for it, lifting it from the drawer as though it were something fragile enough to shatter. The familiar weight settled into my palm, bringing with it a flood of memories I didn’t believe myself strong enough to revisit.
Before I could think better of it, I slipped it onto my finger. It slotted into place effortlessly. The tiny diamonds caught the light, shimmering delicately across my skin. It fit perfectly, as though it had never left my hand.
My chest constricted.
I yanked it off so quickly it almost slipped from my grasp.
“What are you doing?” I muttered under my breath, scolding myself.
Of course it fit. It wasn’t as though my fingers had changed.
I squeezed the ring tightly in my fist, irritated by the warmth lingering against my skin, by the way wearing it had felt so… right.
Damn it.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I tossed the ring back into the drawer as though it had burned me. It landed with a soft clink.
Grumbling under my breath, I reached for the stack of papers I’d pulled out, ready to shove them back where I’d found them, when a line at the top of the first page caught my eye: My forever one and only Mrs. Volkov-Tijuana.
My hand stilled.
A frown tugged at my brow. The greeting was penned in Jetmir’s unmistakable handwriting.
My pulse quickened as I read the words my husband had written to me. Words of longing, yearning, and love. Words of eternal devotion.
I reached for the next sheet that started with My dear angel. The one beneath it began with My forever love. And the next. And the next.
Every page started with some variation of the same greeting, each one addressed to me.
Confusion slowly gave way to disbelief. There were dozens of letters. No… hundreds.
I thumbed through the stack, the pages blurring together beneath my fingers. Every single one bore a different date, spanning three years. Some were creased from being folded and unfolded. Others had smudged ink, like the words had been scrawled in haste—or rewritten after being abandoned.
I held a hand against my pounding heart. Why would Jetmir write hundreds of letters to me and never send a single one?
Because you left him, my mind whispered.
“What was I supposed to do?” I muttered under my breath. “He blinded my brother.”
“You were supposed to stay.” Jemir’s voice startled me and I spun around and found him leaning against the doorframe.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Does it matter?”
I shook my head, trying to clear his words from my mind. Even worse, the feelings it had stirred—or rather heightened—inside me.
After all this time spent longing for me, he’d kidnapped me. Years spent writing letters he never sent, all to decide that stealing me away was easier than letting me go.
And now… Now he was determined to punish me until I was moaning his name instead of cursing it.
I almost choked on my bitter laugh.
No matter how desperately I wanted to hate my husband, I couldn’t. All that remained was confusion.
Every lie and cruel thing he’d done warred against the tenderness I’d discovered in those letters, against the man who cooked for me, watched over me, and looked at me as though I were the center of his universe.
Of course, it didn’t erase the kidnapping. It didn’t excuse the lies. It didn’t make any of this right.
And yet, no matter how fiercely I told myself I wanted to leave, another part of me whispered that I stay. That it was only natural to gush over the man who wanted to give me my happily-ever-after.
That terrified me more than anything.
There were some wounds neither longing nor stolen moments could heal. His greatest betrayal still stood between us, and so did my brother’s blindness. Those two things remained an impossible wall neither of us had managed to tear down.
But I wanted to. God, how I wanted to!