Chapter 54
GRACE
Grace woke up alone on the cool mattress. The room sank in the early dawn. Her eyes searched for Drasko until they paused on his tall form out on the observation deck.
She slipped into her chemise and tiptoed outside.
The city was waking up, cloudy, pink on the horizon. The tower gave an eagle’s eye view of the buildings beneath.
Drasko stood like the king of the world. Hers. Broad shoulders, strong build, barefoot, only in his trousers.
The tiger, ripping his skin with its claws, was on full display.
Rakshasa , she mouthed. The more she repeated the name, the smoother it rolled off her tongue, as if she were taming the dangerous beast.
Her heart ached at the sight of Drasko, so breathtakingly handsome.
She’d been talking to herself for days, coming to terms with her feelings.
Intimidating? Of course, he was. Dangerous? Undoubtedly. But undeniably, irresistibly magnificent.
The sheer power in his gaze made others steel their spines in a feeble attempt to match his, in vain. She had realized that the men of the ton might have blue blood, but they were exotic birds with inflated vanity.
Her Drasko? Oh, but he was a tiger, free and dangerous and so majestically powerful. And she would rather be next to a tiger in the wild than with a pack of pretty birdies in a gilded cage.
Good morning, husband.
Grace smiled at how much she could read him, the way his head cocked just a bit to the side, sensing her behind him, his shoulders tensing by an invisible fraction of an inch that didn’t escape her.
He moved, and the muscles rippled across his back, bringing the tiger to life.
She reached for it, wanting to hush the beautiful beast, but then pulled her hand away.
Drasko turned. His gaze met hers. His hand reached out for her. “Come here.”
She hesitated, only now realizing how high they were, only the metal railing separating them from the lethal drop.
“I’ve got you,” Drasko murmured reassuringly, and she slid her hand in his.
He pulled her closer and stepped behind her, his big hands gently settling on her waist, holding her against him, for the first time so open and intimate in the daylight.
“Do you see that?” he asked.
“See what?” She only felt . Him, his touch, his strength, seeping into her every pore when they were this close.
He brought his lips to her ear. “Your city, Grace. You wanted to shine? You already do. You’ll play in the most beautiful places, the most magical music. Your music already is.”
She thought it over, wondering why he thought that was what she wanted.
So, she asked him in return, “You already have it all, Drasko. You want your wife to be famous? Is that what it is?”
His hands left her waist. Cold seeped through the fabric where they had just been.
“The world only has the value we give it.” He stepped to stand next to her, his gaze on the city, the breeze throwing a strand of his black hair over his brow. “The same goes for money, pretty things, and fame, yes.”
He slid his hand in his pocket. “You see these?” He pulled it out and opened it—dozens of melee diamonds glistened like specks of glass on his palm.
He stretched his arm in front of him and wiggled his fingers, the pool of glitter catching the light.
“These were simple stones, from the ground, until we gave them meaning and value.”
Grace’s eyes widened, her stomach tightening, as he tilted his hand, and the tiny diamonds started spilling, dropping from the tower into the morning air.
“The more we tell people that these are precious”—the diamonds trickled, one by one, off his palm and down, down, down—“the more people want them. As if these stones are a symbol of happiness. As if they increase a person’s self-worth.
But diamonds don’t shine.” He smiled sadly. “They only reflect light.”
The last diamonds dropped off. Drasko lowered his hand to his side and gazed at the city.
“Most people down there wouldn’t care if they found a diamond,” Drasko said with sadness in his voice.
“They wouldn’t know what it was or what to do with it.
If they wanted food, they would trade the biggest wealth for a crumb of bread.
Because the stones can’t fill you up. Not with food.
Not with happiness. But there are two things that can.
Two things that, throughout history, people were willing to sacrifice their lives for. ”
“And they are…?”
“Talent and love.”
The two words made her feel strong and vulnerable at once.
“It’s not the fame I want for you, Grace, though you have it already. I want your talent to affect others like it does me. Your music inspires people. It makes them aspire for more.”
She nodded, grateful for the words.
“It took two decades,” he spoke again, “a cruel man for a father, deep scars, fractured hopes, and a heart full of hate to realize that I don’t need this city to bow to me, though it already does.
I don’t need tunnels and grottos filled with precious stones to feel powerful, or the rarest one worthy of a kingdom to feel important.
I could flood the Thames with diamonds… A river full of diamonds… Can you imagine?”
His voice was deep and low but so vulnerable.
“I have it all. If I lose it, I will have it again. I rose to the top, and if I get knocked off my feet, I shall rise again, higher yet. Power is a skill that can be learned. Those who achieved it the hard way know it too well. And yet… I am willing to trade it all for one more night of you telling me that you want me, truly want me, in your life. For the hope that you might feel a fraction of what I do. A river of diamonds—I would give it all for you, Grace.”
His words made her breath catch. He had never given her a reason to think that he might feel that way.
“I would throw it all to the wind,” he said, “stand bare, with nothing at all, ready to do it all over again and rise to the top if you agreed to stand next to me in life, hand in hand, and accept anything that was to come.” His voice grew low, his eyes still on the city.
“I would give it all to you, make the world bow to you if you gave me so much as a tiny hope that your heart could one day be mine.”
Her heart was already begging to be his, thudded hard at the words. She didn’t know what made him speak like this. This confession was so much deeper than the one last night. She sensed that something was happening or was soon to happen, something important and dangerous that made his words urgent.
She spoke then, trying to choose the right words like she did in her songs, thinking every one of them over.
“You are finally telling me how you feel, but you won’t look at me, Drasko,” she said softly.
He turned to face her, his jaw clenched—the strongest man she knew with the most vulnerable green gaze she’d ever seen.
“Why?” she asked simply. There were so many whys, and she still didn’t have a single answer.
Why now. Why her. Why the marriage. Why she sensed the day he walked into the church that they would end up like this, facing each other and baring their souls. Why that very day it made her scared, like a premonition.
She felt like she was on top of the world and so afraid to fall, afraid they would both fall. It was easy to fly, until the winds changed. And they were changing. Ever since he stepped into her life, she could sense it like never before.
“I don’t need this city to bow, Drasko.” She took a moment to think.
She needed to be calm, though the overwhelming feelings inside her were rising like a tide.
“You must have mistaken my desire to share my talent with people for vanity.” She smiled.
“I don’t need your diamonds either. Nor the approval of others, though only recently I thought I did. ”
He flinched, barely, though she noticed. She noticed so much in him lately, as if they were tuned to the same pitch, like the instruments she played.
Grace thought of every occasion in the past when Drasko had showed up in her life, bringing a strange sense of déjà vu.
“Women say…” she went on quietly, not breaking the eye contact. “Women say, that if they are lucky, they will have one man in their life who will make them feel like a storm is coming. And the first time I saw you, I felt it… I didn’t know you, yet I felt like I did. You must think I’m silly.”
She inhaled and held her breath to keep the emotions down.
Finally the clouds broke above the horizon, revealing the first rays of sunshine.
Grace met Drasko’s gaze again and marveled at the golden light cast onto his face by the rising sun, making him so achingly handsome.
“I am not afraid of storms, Drasko. I grew up alone. With barely any friends. In constant pain that I thought was a curse. With a talent that I thought was a blessing. With a family that wasn’t my own.
Was I happy? No. One man who I thought loved me stood me up on my wedding day.
” She chuckled. “Burned down like that old clavichord. You were right.”
He always was, though she had a hard time admitting it.
“You changed it, Drasko.” She inhaled with her whole chest, trying to hide a sob. “You… You make me feel alive. You make me sing. And you make me play the best music I’ve ever played.”
A sob finally shook her. She’d never felt like this before, vulnerable and yet ready to walk to the end of the earth for the man she was falling in love with.
“I don’t know how and when it happened, but I thought of you as mine.” She bit her lip, ashamed of her words. “And I wanted—silly, I know—for you to tell me that I was yours. I realized it hurt to think this marriage is still an unwanted arrangement.”
“It’s not.”
“I know that,” she whispered, the air burning between them as they gazed at each other.
“I will stand by your side if you let me. I will keep your secrets if you trust me.” The painting in his office came to mind.
“I want you to look at your scars and know they were worth it. And I will look at mine and bear the pain, because eventually, it all led me to you. Or so I’d like to think. ”
Darkness swept across his face, a trace of panic as if she had found out his secret.
His expression was pained. “Do my scars scare you?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think I am a monster?”
How could he ask that?
“No,” she answered. “But you are mine, Drasko.” Her heart bloomed with hope. “Perhaps, one day you will deem me worthy of your secrets.” She smiled weakly.
“My scars were left by a monster. Though he is long dead. Because when he went for something I loved, I was ready to give my life for it.”
An ache seized her heart—at the monstrous visions that had chased her in her nightmares, the same as in the picture in his office.
He took her hand and brought it to his face, letting her fingers feel the texture of his scarred skin, the texture that she knew so well.
Slowly, he turned her hand to expose the inside of her forearm—the scarred lines, faded with years and not nearly as deep as his.
“We are so alike,” he said, his thumb brushing along her scarred skin. “Because my scars are the same as yours, Grace. Haven’t you realized that yet?”
She flinched as the sick feeling grew inside her. The wind suddenly stilled, making his next words so vivid.
“That monster from your nightmares, he was real.”