CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rafe
I’ M SITTING IN a plush gray chair, staring out over the sea, when James calls me.
“Your brother is here, sir.”
There’s a muffled growl on the other end of the line.
“Pardon, sir… brothers .”
I arch a brow. “Michail?”
“Yes, sir.”
The last thing I want is to have both my brothers here. Especially Michail, who I’ve seen all of two times since learning of his existence. Once at Lucifer’s will reading and the other at Gavriil’s wedding, where we exchanged mutual looks of extreme dislike before continuing on to opposite sides of the celebration. He believes Gavriil and I are just like the man who seduced and abandoned his mother. I know it’s unfair, but when I learned my father had another son, one just a few years younger than me, I had felt betrayed. Deceived. Ridiculous, I know, but it doesn’t stop the feelings.
“Send them up.”
Easier to tell them to get the hell out of my house in person. And Michail strikes me as the person who would have no problem bullying my butler with his immense size and glower that matches mine in intensity.
Less than two minutes later, the door slams open. Gavriil strides in.
“There you…” His voice trails off as he takes in the room. “What the hell? I thought you were selling the place.”
“I am.”
Although it will be hard to let go of this room. The room Tessa decorated for me.
A week after she left, James appeared upstairs in my office, looking as close to concerned as I’d ever seen him.
“Sir, there’s a group of people here who says they’re under orders from Mrs. Drakos to update the master bedroom.”
I’d nearly told him to dismiss them. I wanted no memory of Tessa, nothing of her in this house to haunt me.
But a deal had been a deal. So I’d simply told him to let them in, so long as they kept their activities to the master bedroom. I’d avoided that section of the hall while they were here, and five days after they left.
Until one night, when I had to go downstairs to fetch something out of the vault and passed by the gym. Glimpsed my reflection in the mirror and immediately saw Tessa lying limp and satisfied in my arms.
I couldn’t shake her; the sound of her laugh, that occasional floral scent that seemed to appear out of nowhere. I thought I was going mad at times.
I walked up from the lower level and went straight for the master bedroom. If I confronted what remained of her in this house, faced it down and showed myself I could stay strong, then I could move on.
And then I’d opened the door and walked into my own private paradise.
Still the same ivory walls. Still the same vivid blue curtains. But instead of the heavy, claw-footed furniture trimmed in gold brocade, Tessa had swapped it out for soft grays that reminded me of a misty morning on the sea, and clean lines that appealed to my sense of efficiency. Plush rugs covered areas like the floor beside the bed, no longer a four-poster but a massive king with a gray headboard.
But of all the things she’d included, my favorite had been the art. Paintings of the sea, of the olive groves. Artwork, I’d realized, of the villa. Of Corfu. I’d called up the person who had left a business card behind and learned all of the paintings were done by local artists.
I hadn’t slept in here yet. Hadn’t been able to bring myself to. But I spent countless hours in this room, drawn to it in both calm and tumultuous moments over the past week.
Gavriil turns in a circle. “This is… Did Tessa do this?”
I nod. “She did.”
Michail glances around. “Nice.”
“You let her go.” Gavriil refocuses on me and glares. “Again.”
“I believe I recall telling you that what happens between my wife and me is none of your concern.”
My voice is low, dangerous. I already feel like my guts have been ripped out. The void I existed in before Tessa was one of comfort. A blessed nothingness where facts and efficiency ruled.
But this…this is hell.
“It is unless I see two people I care about hurting.”
I shoot up out of my chair. “You saw her? When?”
He smirks at me. I don’t even care that I’ve shown my hand. I just want to know if she’s all right.
“Two nights ago. Her sister’s engagement party.”
“She looked beautiful,” Michail adds.
I whirl on him, this behemoth of a mountain man with his thick beard and eyes just like mine. Jealousy pounds through me as he shoots me a cocky smile.
“You were there?”
“I had business in Paris. I’ve done work for her sister’s fiancé’s company.”
Gavriil’s glare deepens. “She looked like she’s had her heart broken.”
His words gut me, just as Gavriil intended. I turn away.
“Better now than later when we were even deeper.”
“Why?”
I look over my shoulder. “Why what?”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you shoving her away? And don’t give me that damned speech about her deserving better than you,” Gavriil adds as I start to reply. “I want the real reason.”
“As I said, it’s none of your concern.”
Michail shakes his head. “Stubborn ass.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “I’ve heard you’re even more so.”
“From who?”
“Alessandra.”
Bull’s-eye . Michail stiffens at the mention of our father’s estate lawyer.
“When did you talk to Alessandra?” he growls.
“I didn’t.” I allow myself a small smirk. “But it was obvious to anyone with eyes that something is going on between you two.”
“Focus,” Gavriil snaps. “We’ll get to your mess next. You,” he says as he stabs a finger in my direction. “Tessa loves you. And I suspect you love her.”
“Suspect no longer, brother. I love her. As much as I can, anyway,” I add with a slight smile at the shell-shocked expression on Gavriil’s face.
“Then why?”
I move over to the sideboard, also done in that misty gray wood, and pour myself a finger of bourbon. Gavriil shakes his head when I hold up the bottle, but Michail nods with more enthusiasm than I’ve seen for anything else.
“You told me at Paul’s retirement party that I left you alone all those years ago. Had nothing to do with you.”
Gavriil’s hands tighten at his sides.
“That’s exactly what you did.”
“For a reason.” I shove a glass into Michail’s hand before raising my own to my lips. “Had I so much as told you things were going to be okay, Lucifer would have kicked you back out onto the streets.”
Gavriil’s face goes slack. “What?”
“He held that threat over my head until the day you moved out. Then it became he would take away your share of the company.”
“You’re saying you stayed away all these years to protect me?”
“That sums it up, yes.”
I almost feel bad for my little brother as he stands there looking at me as if he’s never seen me before.
Michail laughs under his breath. “I’m glad I only met the bastard once.”
“You were fortunate.” I take a drink, savor the rich burn of bourbon down my throat. “Withdrawing from the world was the only way to survive the hell he created.”
“Rafe…” Gavriil’s voice is thick with emotion. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. We were both at his mercy.”
“But…all the things I said…”
I shrug. “When you have a heart of ice, it doesn’t matter much,” I lie.
“Except Tessa does matter.”
My throat tightens. “She does. Like I said at the party, the best thing I can do is let her go.”
“Really? Because I’m guessing by the way she stayed by the railing all night and stared out over the city, she feels differently.”
“I don’t want children, Gavriil. She does.”
But even as I say the words, something shifts in my chest. The certainty that I’ve always had toward children, or rather not having them, is no longer rock-solid. Now it’s faint, interspersed with a suddenly crystal-clear image of Tessa and me on the yacht, sitting on the bow with a toddler between us, with my dark curly hair and her beautiful caramel-colored eyes.
I’ve never allowed myself to dwell on the possibility. To even consider it. Not when those first few years of having Gavriil living in the house, of seeing his eyes following me with mixed hatred and yearning as I ignored him, left scars etched so deeply on my heart I can never be rid of them.
I was backed into a corner by a monster. But at some point, I became one, too. The deeper I retreated into the void, the more it angered Lucifer, drove him to the brink of losing control by simply feeling nothing.
What will it be like to let go? To feel…everything?
“You’re nothing like him.”
Gavriil’s pronouncement has my head snapping around.
“Really? I could have sworn you’ve been saying the opposite all these years.”
“I wouldn’t be working with you if I thought you were truly like him. I was angry, yes,” Gavriil admits. “Hurt. The worst part was not understanding. But damn it, Rafe, you’re an honorable man. You’re a great leader. I’ve learned a lot from you.”
The rare compliments fly straight as arrows into my chest.
“I’m glad I could—”
Before I can react, Gavriil crosses the room in two strides and envelopes me in a hug. I freeze, shooting Michail a look over Gavriil’s shoulder.
“Don’t look at me,” Michail says as he takes another swig of bourbon. “I just came because he told me we were coming to kick some sense into you.”
“Gavriil…”
My brother pulls back and grasps me by the shoulders.
“Thank you.”
The gratitude behind his words, the unspoken acknowledgment of what Lucifer put me through in an effort to set Gavriil up to fail, hits me. I nod.
“You’re welcome. You can thank me by never hugging me again.”
Gavriil’s smile flashes white and bright.
“What can I say? Love does crazy things to a man’s head.”
They leave five minutes later, Michail saying something about an important meeting he has to get to in New York. He avoids my gaze as he says this. I make a note to call Alessandra in a couple days. We’re not friends. But I respect the hell out of the woman. She’s the only estate lawyer who Lucifer didn’t fire or scare off.
Blessed silence descends. I sit back in that gray chair, the one with the high armrests and slightly inclined back. It invites me to sit, to relax.
Just as Tessa would have.
I stand and move to the balcony. Even out here, I can see her touch. The swapping out of the ostentatious patio furniture for white lounges and dim lighting that, when it grows dark, will enhance the intimacy of the terrace.
Quiet. Privacy. Rest.
She knows me. Has known me for years. She never once said she loved me. But I saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice as she talked to me, especially on that last day when I could feel her heart breaking. When mine broke along with hers.
I turn and glance back at the master suite. It’s perfect, right down to the framed photograph on the bureau of Gavriil and me from our first press conference in California following Lucifer’s death. A subtle touch, but one that matters, especially in light of Gavriil’s and my conversation today.
The room is perfect. Except one thing’s missing.
Tessa.
Just like that, the puzzle pieces of my relationship with Tessa fall into place. The room doesn’t make sense without Tessa here. My life doesn’t make sense without her.
And I let her go. Again.
Urgency grips me. I yank my phone out of my pocket, start to dial the number for my secretary in Corfu as I rush to the door. I need to get to Paris, need to tell her everything, need to ask her to cancel the petition for divorce—
A knock sounds on the door. I grit my teeth, not in the mood to deal with Gavriil’s or Michail’s machinations.
I grab the door handle and yank it open.
“I told you two…”
My voice trails off as I realize who’s standing on the other side of the door.
Tessa.