Chapter 13 #2
For one second, my heart stops, but then it returns to a more normal rhythm as I turn my head from one side to the other, analyzing the state of my throat.
The marks left by his fingers don’t seem that obvious.
But they are there.
Proof left by a man who wanted to kill me.
And could do it at any moment.
But even in a time like this, when fear haunts my body like a cold ghost, the memory continues with the passionate kiss he gave me afterward. I move from one state to another, my mind a mess and my heart more confused than ever, all because of someone I should not even be thinking about.
I sigh.
“Fuck.”
One single word from behind me, and I scream in fear when I hear the deep voice.
More precisely, less than half a meter away.
When did he appear?
Before I can understand what is happening, Artem is pressed against my back, looking in the mirror at the marks.
His face is transformed.
He is always serious, frowning, and always looks angry or ready to kill everyone.
But his gaze at this moment is a thousand times darker.
It does not seem filled with anger, but with something far more dangerous, even though his gesture is the opposite when he touches the bruised skin very slowly with his fingertips.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers in a cold voice, without looking into my eyes, making my heart ache. “I will not touch you again.”
He turns and leaves as quickly as he appeared, leaving behind only a cold breeze I feel all the way into my soul.
His decision should make me happy.
So why the hell does it bother me so much?
Unable to control my steps, I follow him into the bedroom, but he is gone. The room is empty, and so is the dressing room.
He must have gone somewhere to shower, because he was dressed in workout clothes, but I choose to give up my search and hope I will have the chance to understand something about this whole story before the end of the day.
Spoiler: I don’t.
After breakfast, which I take alone because everyone seems to have vanished, Dima accompanies me to the gallery, where I plan to spend almost the entire day.
Except in the car, he insists on opening a very... lovely subject, one he begins by mentioning the only person who makes my heart beat harder.
“Pakhan gave me an order a few days ago to remove all microphones and all cameras from your room.”
I raise an eyebrow, and he sees me in the rearview mirror.
“Plural?”
“It no longer matters,” he adds quickly. “The bedroom is clean now, and I was told to let you know you are free to decorate it however you wish. The housekeepers will move your personal things back into the room, so you don’t need to trouble yourself with that.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” I mutter very quietly, low enough that he cannot hear.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
Dima looks at me for one second too long, but until we reach the gallery, we do not engage in any further conversation. He stays focused on the road and our surroundings.
All this time I lose myself in thoughts spinning around the complicated situation my heart is in.
And my life, entirely.
The next days pass one after another, slow and agonizing.
Time becomes a routine I move through without enthusiasm, my only real emotion coming from the moments I practice for the recital I will perform in less than a week.
I practice, go to the gallery, have lunch with Oksana, sometimes dinner too, eat, sleep... and that is all.
Every now and then, the wedding planner responsible for our event sends a message or an email, which I usually answer after Oliver tells me it is my choice, because he wants the wedding to be exactly the way I want it.
Lately, we have spoken a little less than usual, but he still makes me smile when he tells me what Japan is like and how excited he is for us to go there together. The plan is to visit Tokyo after the honeymoon we decided to spend in Singapore and Maldives.
Maybe now I am convinced that the love I have for him does not reach even a quarter of the storm I feel in the Pakhan’s presence, but I am also convinced that once we start spending time together again, we will find our way back to each other enough to have a relationship based on respect,
friendship, and stability.
From the way he speaks to me, he seems excited and impatient to return to London in a few days. I smile when he tells me he misses me, and I force myself to answer the same, even though in my heart, only one image takes shape when I say those words.
The monster’s face.
Artem is almost nonexistent.
Everything that happened in the first three
days seems to be turning into a dream my mind created, because he now keeps a cold attitude toward me. We barely cross paths around the house, without exchanging many words.
That is all.
I cannot say my overall mood is pleasant because of it.
Quite the opposite.
I grow sadder with every passing day, and at night, when I lie in my bed, I think about the pleasant feeling I had when he was beside me.
Or when he was holding me in his arms.
A painful revelation becomes clearer one night, while heavy rain strikes my window and sleep refuses to come.
It is a little past two a.m. when the emptiness created by all these feelings turns into the image of the forbidden man, and I realize that something in my heart beats hard and warm whenever I think of the moments spent with him.
Few, but pure.
Raw.
As if you cut into flesh and saw exactly what was there, because that is what it felt like with Artem: no pretense, nothing false, only truth and a transparency I have never encountered in anyone, never experienced with anyone.
And not only attraction.
Feelings.
I don’t even have the chance to panic, because the acceptance of these forbidden emotions has happened gradually, enough for me to say with certainty that I have fallen in love with a man I cannot have.
That I crave the touch of someone who is not my alright.
That I have only a few weeks left until the wedding, and I feel as if I am making the greatest mistake of my life by binding myself to a man I don’t love, just because I feel too much for another.
These thoughts manage to stir an agitation impossible to ignore, and I decide to go downstairs, to the kitchen, to make myself some tea.
The first floor seems quiet, but the closer I get to the ground floor, the more I realize voices coming from Artem’s office.
This is nothing new, because almost every night, lately, he has had many men making noise in there until late.
There is no one in the kitchen, and after I put water in the heater, barely a minute passes before Sasha makes his presence known. His eyebrows lift, surprised to see me.
“You’re not sleeping?”
“I’m not tired,” I tell him, gesturing toward the water waiting to boil.
“Why? Did you eat chocolate?” he asks, visibly interested.
I smile.
“No. I think it’s because of the rain hitting my window.”
He shakes his head hard, making a blond strand fall over his forehead. “Those are the ghosts.”
I’m staring at him, a little frozen by the strange answer.
“Ghosts?”
“The ghosts of everyone who had ever crossed Artem under his own roof.”
Why does this possibility not surprise me?
Especially since he says it as if he were talking about pizza delivery on a Friday night.
He whistles through his lips and looks around.
“You sure you don’t have chocolate?”
“No. And stop scaring me with ghosts. They don’t exist.”
“But chocolate exists,” he declares, looking around. “And Artem hid it from me. Well... he told Polina to hide it.”