Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Like you don’t deserve to exist.
“The funeral is set for tomorrow evening,” Ruslan says. “I’m making the arrangements. You’ll be there, right?”
Alexei’s hand is still cold in mine, his fingers unbending in my grip. “We’re flying back first thing tomorrow, so yes.”
“Chekhov filled me in,” Ruslan says. “I’m going to fly separately tonight. Just in case.”
I blink. In case of what? But Alexei seems to understand because he nods and says, “See you at the funeral.”
Without another word, Ruslan heads for the elevator. As he walks past us, I touch his arm and murmur, “I’m sorry.”
He flashes me an indecipherable look. “Thanks.” He steps into the elevator, and the doors slide shut behind him, leaving us alone.
I turn my full attention to Alexei, who’s stepped away to remove his jacket and boots. I remove mine as well. My chest aches for him and Ruslan, for the ordeal that’s still ahead of them. Because the death of a loved one is just the beginning. What awaits them is the funeral, the sorting of the belongings, and all the other painful things that go along with the end of a life. I was in no shape to handle that after my parents’ traumatic passing, so my brothers took on that burden. I heard them talking about it quietly, when they thought I was asleep or drugged. I heard the strain in their voices, the stress that no amount of wealth or power can shield you from.
My brothers stepped in for me, but there’s no one who can step in for Alexei and Ruslan. Their sister is gone as well—another loss they’ve recently endured.
I wasn’t there to help him with his grief then—we were still enemies at that point—but I can be now. The way he was there for me during my battle with cancer.
The way he would’ve been there for me after my parents’ deaths… if I’d let him.
The thought ambushes me, cutting into me like a butcher’s knife. And for the first time, I let myself wonder about the “what ifs.” What if I hadn’t sent Alexei away when he brought me home after my one-and-only shrink visit? What if I’d leaned on him in my trauma and grief instead of pushing him away and relying on the pills?
What if I’d gone with him that awful winter evening instead of returning home to find my parents in the middle of their last, deadly fight? Would the outcome of that fight have been different if I hadn’t been there? Would my mother have ended up with bruises and maybe a broken jaw instead of getting slashed beyond recognition by the blade that I used to attack my father in order to help her?
Bile fills my throat, and it takes everything I have to swallow it down and force back the tears stinging my eyes. I can’t think about all of that now, or I’ll unravel. This isn’t about me—it’s about Alexei and his pain, his loss and grief.
Drawing in a steadying breath, I cross the room and do what I wanted to do when I heard about his sister’s accident.
I wrap my arms around his waist and hold him tight.
His powerful body goes stiff. For several long moments, his arms remain at his sides, unmoving. But then he wraps them around me, hugging me so tightly air vacates my lungs. Bending his head, he presses his face against my hair, and a shudder ripples through him, his own breath exiting in an audible exhale. His familiar pine-and-leather scent surrounds me, and the rough stubble on his jaw scrapes against my temple, a grounding, masculine abrasion in the midst of the silent storm of his grief.
We stand like that, holding each other, for a minute or two. Maybe ten. Time melts away, like ice dissolving on windows in the spring. There are no words I can say to lessen his pain, but I can do this—I can lend him the physical warmth of my body, the animal comfort of my embrace. I can give him at least a fraction of the support he’s given me in recent weeks.
The support he would’ve always given me if I’d accepted it, I now realize.
When he finally pulls away, everything feels different. Not resolved, not fixed—nothing that simple. We’re just more… attuned to each other in some subtle way.
Silently, we walk together to the bedroom. I hold his gaze as I undress, and I see the bleakness in his eyes transform into dark, volcanic heat. Once, I would’ve been frightened by it—and by my body’s irrepressible response to it—but no longer. He’s taught me to crave it. To crave him. Or maybe that craving has always been there, so potent and uncontrollable that the only way to fight the violent pull of it was to reject it altogether, to run as far away from it—and thus from him—as I could.