Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Lauren
The truth. Alexei had always had a slippery relationship with it, yet I had felt a change in him, an openness that presaged promise for our future.
“What do you mean?”
“That isn’t the entire story.”
I moved away from him, to behind the desk, needing the protection it would give me. Here, in the midst of my crumbling business, I readied myself for the blow to come.
“What’s the entire story?”
He inhaled deeply, obviously readying himself for battle. “I knew we were married, but I wasn’t ready to hear all the reasons why we shouldn’t be.”
I had suspected it, hadn’t I? That he lied. That he knew all along. “You knew the morning after? Or you made it happen at the time?”
“I did not trick you into marrying me. I was as drunk as you, but marrying the woman of my dreams did not seem like a mistake. The next morning, you were so horrified that it might have happened, so even though I knew—”
A chill washed over me. “You decided I didn’t need to have that information.”
“Admit it, Lauren, you would have demanded we get it annulled. I needed time to come up with a strategy.”
He was right. I would have insisted we fix it with a signature and a goodbye. Instead, he let me think nothing happened while I went about my day. My month. My year.
While I met someone else. A user. A criminal.
“You knew we were married but you still let me date someone. You … you let me hook up with that loser.”
A flash of pain scored his handsome features. If he had any regrets, that was probably one of them. That I had been with another man while married to him, not because of the damage to me, but the damage to his ego.
“If I had told you, what would have changed? You would have insisted we divorce, then spent another fifteen years ignoring me. I didn’t have the bandwidth to chase you, Lauren.
To put all my effort into persuading you that we should be together.
I had to set what I wanted with you aside until I fixed things with my father.
I already knew he was ill—I just didn’t know how much until I got that call from his neighbor. ”
I shook my head. “That’s not good enough, Alexei. You can’t hold the cards close to your chest, keep this massive secret that affects me, and tell me you did it—what, for my own good? Again?”
He leveled that frigid blue gaze at me. “We would have missed our chance.”
“Yes. Where you see the universe pushing us together, I see the signs pointing in a whole other direction. We missed our chance because it was never meant to be. And this confirms it!”
His expression turned to stone. “I don’t believe that. There were obstacles to overcome, but that’s what makes this worth it. The harder it is, the sweeter the victory.”
Fucking athletes! “This isn’t the playoffs, Alexei. I’m not some prize to be won after you’ve worked your ass off. You say you do these things—push me away, lie about being married, blackmail me into dating you—all because you apparently know better.”
“I don’t. Apparently, I know very little about women.” He sounded so glum. I didn’t believe it for a second.
“This is not a man versus woman thing. Honesty isn’t confined to a single gender.
I could cut you some slack for how you played things at graduation all those years ago.
You were young and had a lot going on. We both did.
Neither of us were mature enough to handle what we were feeling, the intensity of it.
You believed you were protecting me from your father’s enemies, and I’m prepared to honor that. But …”
“But what?”
“If you wanted me, why didn’t you seek me out when you came back from Russia?” I hated how desperate I sounded, but I had to know.
“I thought I had missed our chance,” he said. “That I’d hurt you too much.”
“Or you didn’t give me much thought at all.”
Was that what I was angry about? The wasted time, not just the last few months when he knew we were married but the years when he claimed to have cared about me, but he stayed away?
So he had important work to do, whatever it took to rescue his father.
I would never have begrudged him that. If he had told me about the fears he faced, the obstacles he had to overcome, I would have understood.
I would have waited. Done anything he asked.
But he didn’t ask. And because he didn’t, because he didn’t tell me how he supposedly felt, then or in Vegas, I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust any of them.
My father’s lies had bent me to the breaking point, but I survived.
Thad’s barely registered, almost like an annoying gnat, one I was happy to swat away as soon as I found a good excuse.
I was more upset about how it affected my business than the doom it signaled for our relationship. You lied and used me? Bye bye.
Except I knew now why Thad’s betrayal didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
Because he was here. My great love waiting in the wings. Alexei was back in my life, appearing everywhere I looked. And we were married! The targets were lined up in the net and I was pounding pucks, hitting every one.
But my targeting was off. Tripped up at the last minute by my blind spot when it came to Alexei Nazarov. I had always been a fool for him, but no longer.
Now it was his turn to look wounded. “I have thought of you, Lauren. But we did not end well, did we? It didn’t mean I did not keep you inside, but a lot has happened.
Playing in Russia, getting my father to the States, and for me to intrude in your life, it seemed like a long shot.
I did not want to hurt you again, but when we met in Las Vegas, I started to believe that maybe there were more chapters to our story.
But to convince you? This would be the most difficult challenge of my life.
More than winning the Cup, more than pushing through the years of exile in Russia.
To win you would be my greatest achievement. ”
“That’s all I am to you. Another check on your bucket list—the Cup, your dad, a stellar career, oh, and you’re getting on, so probably time to settle down. Feather the nest pre-retirement. Make sure you have a warm body to come home to when it’s all done and dusted.”
He offered a mirthless laugh. “Do you think so lowly of yourself?”
Yes, I do. Daddy issues galore, which I fully recognized. But I couldn’t fix it with a guy as controlling as Alexei. He had always been too much for me to handle, and now I saw just how much I risked being consumed by him again, to the point where I vanished to nothing.
“I think I know you and guys like you. It’s always on your terms. And anyone else in your life is on a need-to-know basis.”
“I stand by what I did.”
Interesting strategy. Dig in your heels. Double down.
“You don’t see anything wrong with how you handled this?”
“Of course I do. But I also know that telling you the truth would have sent you running. Mezhdu dvukh ogney.” At my wave of query, he translated, “I was between a rock and a hard place.”
I shook my head. “Well, we’ll never know. Because you’re so fond of deciding how this should play out that you don’t even think for one second that I might have some say in the matter.”
He moved closer to me. “Lauren, I love you. I always have.”
My heart stuttered. Here he was saying the words I’d so longed to hear all those years ago. Now, I was older, maybe not wiser, but certainly more cynical about these things.
“Say something,” he whispered, the sound raw and heartbreaking. “Anything.”
I offered up the only words I could in this moment. Words that broke me but were necessary for me to finally move on.
“I want a divorce.”