55. Roman
As I left the library, the anxiety inside me shot to the surface with the vengeance of a thousand suns. There was something else I had to take care of before tonight. A single loose thread that required tying up. It was something I’d had been working on for a while, and suddenly it superseded everything else.
I texted Steven. “Leaving in 15.”
When he asked where I was going, I didn’t answer. He’d soon find out anyway. This had to be done, and I didn’t need him to tell me that what I was about to do not only crossed the line but completely erased it. It wouldn’t just be my actions that would piss him off, but also the fact that I’d go to this length.
He’d call it obsession, and one that was not a trait becoming the heir of the Belmont fortune.
* * *
I satin the Range Rover outside Sergei’s small cottage, a storm of conflicting thoughts tormenting me. My plan would trigger the first domino to fall, and create a chain reaction where no reversal was possible after that.
Even as I was setting this in motion, there were a few moments when I almost stopped myself. But my desperate attempt at a splinter of integrity shattered, and the bastard within me negotiated new terms and took the reins.
Someone rapped their fingers on the window.
Steven. Of course.
I rolled the window down halfway, rebellious and in no mood to listen to a lecture.
“What are you doing, Roman?” he asked. But it wasn’t so much a question as it was a veiled warning.
“I want to make sure he stays out of her life,” I said solemnly, as if there weren’t more important issues to deal with.
Steven shook his head slowly, his eyes burning a hole through me. There wasn’t much he could do but appeal to my good sense. Sense that had clearly gone into hiding with zero intention of returning any time soon.
Then I met Steven’s gaze, his judgmental expression irritating the hell out of me. “It’s a little like what my father did with you,” I said, knowing I’d have to back that statement up for full effect.
“Is that right?” he hissed through clenched teeth.
“He knew the only way to keep you away from Emily was to put you in a position where compromising your loyalty to him would cost you severely. By making you an offer you couldn’t refuse. And what do you know, he put you in charge of me. And see how well it worked out for him and Emily. Even if I wasn’t aware of your existence, you stayed in Switzerland throughout my entire time there at school.”
“And see how well it worked out for you,” he replied.
“Well, a little debatable at this point, don’t you think?”
A joyless smile cracked Steven’s lips and he leaned a little closer, his voice a darker shade of lethal. “Go ahead and do this, Roman, I won’t stand in your yay. It’s no skin off my nose. But I’ll tell you this, if Isabel finds out, she’ll walk away from you. She’s not the type of woman who will see this as an act of love. She’ll see it for what it is, that you don’t trust her. That despite the sacrifices she’ll have to make to be with you, you still consider her weak and vulnerable with a man you know full well she doesn’t love.”
The front door to the house opened. The Russian stood in the door frame like a salt pillar, chin raised, daring me to go through with whatever I had planned in coming to his house. His valor reflected in that icy stare slicing through the air.
Steven turned away from the Rover, glancing back at me one final time. “If you ever again use my feelings for Emily as an excuse to validate your fucked-up decision-making, prepare to get hurt.”
He walked off. I stepped from the Rover, adjusting my tie and jacket as if I was about to change the world. Which to a certain degree I was. Only it was my and Isabel’s world.
When I got closer to Sergei, he smirked. “Your babysitter seems upset.” He stepped aside to let me in.
I moved past him into the house. “When hasn’t he been upset?”
I cast a cursory glance over the place inside. It was very artsy, and while I appreciated the coziness it exuded I couldn’t help but wonder where the Russian had ravaged the nymph. Probably everywhere. My throat constricted at the thought.
A small chess set sat in one corner, an unfinished game in progress. I walked over and looked at it, trying to put order to the jumble of emotions raking my insides.
The last time I’d felt this nervous was when I did my first merger for the Belmont Trust, at the tender age of twenty-three. Aside from the extraordinary responsibility, there was the added burden of proving my worth to my father. Which was the really nerve-wracking part.
Only this time there was no pride in what I was doing. None. And yet I pushed on.
My finger landed on the black bishop on the chessboard. “Black could have a check,” I said.
The Russian gave me a smug grin. “Thank you for the clever observation, but I know. I’ll wait until Isabel is here to make my next move.”
I turned to Sergei, all courtesy slipping from the air. He leaned against the wall, folding his arms, watching me intently. “It’s the last game malishka and I played. I’m waiting for her to come back so we can finish it.”
He was baiting me now.
“You’ve had this game sitting here for a year?” I asked.
“It’s been a year and two months.”
I had to admire the Russian’s tenacity, if nothing else. “She won’t be coming back.” I said, taking the liberty to play both sides of the chessboard and ending the game in a few quick moves. “Checkmate.”
“You arrogant prick,” he snarled. “You just lost the game for Isabel.”
“Trust me, she’ll never know.” And with that I removed an envelope from inside my jacket and placed it on a small table in front of the couch. The Russian didn’t move from the wall, but a certain wariness crept into his features. “You think a bribe will keep me away from her?”
I took another envelope out and put it on top of the first. “In the first envelope you’ll find a check for five million dollars. In the second envelope, you’ll find your promotion to principal dancer in New York for the next five ballet seasons. Your mortgage, and any debt you have will be taken care of, as well as any taxes you have to pay on the five million dollars.”
Sergei glided to the table, opened the top envelope and read the letter before he looked at me. “You must have a lot of power to be able to pull this off.”
How he managed to make that sound like an insult was remarkable. I grimaced. “I do… In exchange you will not see Isabel again, and you will not dance with her again. From here on you go on with your life and she goes on with hers. And if she ever finds out about this arrangement, I will do whatever it takes to put you right back to where you are now and make it worse.”
Sergei’s jaw flexed, and a kind of pain I was all too familiar with festered in his eyes. He sat down on the couch, the letter still in his hand. “You and your money, you think you can buy Isabel’s loyalty. What you don’t understand is that her heart already belongs to you. But that’s not enough, you want her soul too.”
He was probably right, but what he didn’t count on was that I was too desperate to care. “When you’re done lecturing me on matters that are none of your concern, I’d like to know where we stand with this deal.”
Sergei dropped the letter back on the table, angst radiating off him. His usually elegant posture sagged, a man hanging onto the most fragile tendrils of hope for a different outcome.
“And if I said no,” he asked. “What then?”
“There is only one way for this go. I think you’ll make the right choice.”
Sergei ran a hand over his face, and I watched this masterpiece of a man shatter into a million fragments of sorrow. I knew it didn’t have as much to do with never being with Isabel, as it did with never being able to dance with her again.
It took all I had not to walk back every minute of the conversation and tell him to forget I’d been there. But I didn’t. I left without looking back, without telling the Russian how sorry I was for causing him so much pain.
All I could think was that Isabel was now mine, mine, and mine alone. The bastard in me pushed any feelings of guilt and remorse aside, inwardly celebrating this successful mission.
But when I climbed into the Range Rover, I couldn’t look at myself in the rearview mirror. The sting of shame permeating the recesses of my soul. A long hot shower was the only thing that could wash away this feeling of total disgrace.
My phone dinged with a text.
Isabel:Did you know more than 99.9% of all the animal species that have ever roamed the earth were extinct before humans appeared?
A tight knot tethered my throat shut, and I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I didn’t deserve to breathe.
Me: I didn’t know that. At least the honey badgers survived the cut.
Isabel:Lucky us, I know! I miss you.
Me: I miss you too, honey badger. I’ll be home soon.
For a harrowing second I considered confessing to her what I’d done, and finding absolution in her arms. But I also knew she could never, never know how low I was prepared to go to make her mine and mine alone.