by Tee, Marian
Tahey had gotten used to Dmitry waking her up and falling asleep in his arms, and in between those, he would have found a way to make her cum several times over. And in truth, it was the times when they were making love that were her favorite part of the day because those were also the only instances when the billionaire's defenses were all down. In those moments, there was always a chance that she'd catch his lips curve, and oh, what those rare-as-unicorn flashes of his dimples would do to her.
Those dimples of his killed her every darn time, but no matter what she said or did, she just couldn't make him smile or laugh when they weren't making love.
Just give it up, the billionaire had advised her. I'm simply not the type.
But surely you weren't always like this before?
It had taken him a while to answer, and when he finally did—-
I forgot how to smile when my sister died.
His words had broken her heart, and she had thrown herself in his arms after that, hugging him so tightly that she had managed to make the billionaire grunt in pain.
I'm sorry, Dmitry. I'm so sorry. I wish there's something I could do to take your pain away.
She had tried to make him talk about his sister once. Just once, but the way his handsome face had abruptly shuttered so terrified her that she never brought it up again. She had tried asking Sasha about it instead, but when the younger Adrianov also proved to be a closed book, Tahey realized with sadness how much their half-sister's death still haunted them.
And she wished, oh if only...if only there was a way she could help them with their grief, she would gladly do it.
Anything, God. I'd gladly do anything.
And she prayed this every day, never realizing until it was too late that what she was also praying for was her own ruin.
DMITRY HAD JUST RETURNED to the office from another meeting when he found Tahey pale-faced and frozen in her desk. He went to her right away and saw that she had in her hand her iPhone, its screen revealing her call log. And the last person to call her—-
Thomas.
And in that instant, the billionaire felt his own face pale as well.
This was it, he realized dully.
His conscience had warned him that he would be punished for his betrayal, and while he had yet to know what that punishment was, Dmitry was certain - absolutely fucking certain - that the moment of his reckoning had finally come.
He forced himself to lift his gaze up to Tahey, and for once he was blind to her beauty. Blind to her kindness. And all he could see was the daughter of the man who had killed Paige.
He forced himself to speak and somehow managed to keep his voice expressionless as he asked, "What's wrong?"
Tahey swallowed hard. "It's Dad."
"He called you."
She nodded.
"He said something to upset you?"
"I don't actually know how to feel yet."
Dmitry had an urge to give Tahey a violent shake and barely managed to control himself. He focused instead on holding on to his patience, knowing full well that losing his temper on Tahey would only make her less inclined to talk.
Pulling himself up, he crossed the room to take a bottle of whiskey out of the minibar. He poured a small amount into a shot glass and handed it to Tahey. "Drink."
Tahey wasn't much into alcohol, but this time she willingly drank the whole thing, its vile taste more than compensated by the burning sensation that followed right after. It made her feel warm when she had been feeling icy cold, and gradually, she could feel her shock receding and her brain start functioning again.
She looked up, intending to thank Dmitry, but instead she heard herself say unevenly, "C-Can I talk about him?"
His clipped nod wasn't the kind of response she would've expected, and at any other time, this might have hurt her and make Tahey wonder if something was wrong. But because she was still so lost in the past, Tahey was just relieved to have a chance to unburden herself.
"He was a good dad," Tahey whispered. "I know I keep saying that, and I know saying that probably makes things worse for...for those he...for those he k-killed, but I can't make myself lie. He was a good dad to me. A g-great dad. He could've gone to pieces when my mom died of cancer, but he made himself strong for me. He worked hard for me, and I just wished I had known...if I had known the truth a little earlier, I might have made him stop."
"How did you find out?"
"I found his journals," Tahey answered painfully. "He was fanatical in keeping records, and one day I found his journals, and when I realized what I was reading, what he had willingly done...I wanted to die. I think a part of me did die that time because I already knew..." Childhood memories started coming back, and her voice faltered.
Oh God, no.
Please.
No.
But it was too late, and she remembered.
Thomas reading her bedtime stories, Thomas working hard at his desk but never too busy to answer her timid knocks on his study door, Thomas sweating blood and tears in the kitchen because he always wanted to be the one to bake her birthday cake...
"He was a good dad," she choked out. "I can't pretend he isn't, Dmitry. I just can't, even though I know he w-wasn't a g-good man."
A good man would not have periodically flown to an ISIS state to deal with human traffickers.
A good man would not have paid thousands of dollars just so he could have warm bodies to experiment on.
A good man would've known - there was just no way that a good man would not have known the most noble of pursuits had its limits.
But because Thomas had not been a good man...
He hadn't cared about the consequences, hadn't cared about the lives he would damn with death if it meant he would be a step closer to finding the cure to the disease that killed the woman he loved.
And yet...
"He called to tell me that he'll soon be free," Tahey whispered. "Some kind of technicality, and it's going to let him walk away a free man." She saw Dmitry take a step back at her words but didn't have the energy to comprehend why this was. Pain was still tearing her apart, and it made her blind to everything but her own conflicting emotions about Thomas.
"He told me that even though I b-betrayed him, t-turned him in when I gave the police his journals, he said he s-still l-loves me. That I'd a-always be his most p-precious girl..."
And God help her, even knowing what Thomas had done...
"A part of me still loves him back," Tahey said brokenly. "I tried everything to stop myself from loving him, but I just can't. I just can't." And even though she knew it was her problem - her problem alone, and one nobody else would be able to solve but her, Tahey couldn't help wanting...
Couldn't help waiting...
Just couldn't help hoping that Dmitry would tell her everything would be alright.
Because Dmitry never lied, and so if he told her that, surely it would be so.
And so she waited.
And waited.
But when no words came, she slowly lifted her head, and it was only then Tahey realized...
He was gone.
He had left her.
Again.
She jerked to her feet, confusion and hurt warring inside of her. Where had he gone? Why had he left? Didn't he know - how could he possibly not know...
Tahey heard footsteps, and she swung around, hope flaring inside of her heart. Maybe it was just like before, she thought feverishly, and she was overreacting.
But it wasn't like before.
And she was not overreacting.
Because the man in front of her was not Dmitry.
It was security, and he had been asked by Mr. Adrianov to inform Tahey that her services were no longer required. She was terminated from her job, effective immediately, and she was to clear the premises within an hour.
Chapter Fourteen
He left me. The words seemed to take a life of its own, traitorously slipping under the cracks until they were able to imprint themsel
ves on my mind. And after that, there was no escaping them.
He left me.
My hands shook. I didn't have much on my desk, just my phone, a couple of pens and notebooks, but God, my hands were shaking so bad that it seemed to take forever to get everything in my bag.
He left me.
The words nearly had me gasping out loud, and I quickly dragged deep gulps of oxygen back into my lungs. I can't cry. I glared down at my empty desk. One. Two. Three. I kept counting.
Just kept counting until I realized it was pointless.
Because it was over.
He left me.
I was already crying.
Tears so big and ugly that they made such embarrassing noise as they splashed against the blank surface of my desk. So much noise that in the corner of my eye, I saw the security guy awkwardly avert his gaze from me, as if finding the sight of me too miserable to bear.
Can't say I blame him.
I was pathetic.
Should've known better than to trust someone who had hurt me over and over again without explaining why.
Should've known better than to love a man like Dmitry Adrianov.
But because I didn't know better—-
He left me.
I clumsily brushed the tears away with the back of my hand and turned to the security guy. "My things..." God. Just thinking about what I had to say already made me feel so damn small. "I have t-things in the apartment..." The security guy didn't seem to have a clue, and so I was forced to spell it out. "Mr. Adrianov..."
I saw him wince the moment he realized who I was talking about, and the poor guy could barely look at me now. Understandable. With those words, I might as well have carved the truth on my face.
Impoverished and impressionable secretary falls for billionaire boss, thinking if he took her to bed, it meant he loved her.
But she knew better now.
I knew better now.
And God, I just wanted to get this over with. Just be done with the whole thing so I could finally remember how it was not to cry again.
Because the tears?
They hadn't stopped falling.
Just kept falling like they had always been falling, only I never saw them, never felt them until my whole world came crashing.
"I'm sorry, miss." The security guy sounded so miserable it was obvious he was wishing himself a million miles away. "I wasn't given any information about that. All I was told was I had to get rid—-" He stopped right away, but of course it was too late. Even so, his gaze darted towards me, as if hoping I had become deaf in the past ten seconds.
But I hadn't.
I had heard him loud and clear.
And I could never unhear it, no matter how hard we both wished I could.
"I'm sorry, miss." Poor man. He hadn't asked for any of this. He had come to work, thinking he was paid to do security, and yet all of a sudden, he had been thrust into the unwanted position of breaking my heart.
I forced myself to smile. "It's fine. I'm sure someone will contact me about it."
The man nodded eagerly. "Yes, I'm sure."
"Then I guess that's it." I took a step forward, and the man practically tripped on his own feet in his haste to get to the door. I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. He just wanted to be done with this out-of-his-job-description-task.
But God.
Seeing him in such a hurry to make me leave—-
What was it with this day that everyone wanted to get rid of me?
Was it really bad, having someone like me around?
I wished I had the answers. But all I had was pain.
He left me.
The words played endlessly in my mind as I stepped inside the elevator.
He left me.
I thanked the security guy - J. Felipe, I finally remembered to check his name badge - for his assistance when we made it to the lobby.
He left me.
I walked ever so slowly. Almost as if I was giving someone every chance to hold me back. To tell me he had made the biggest mistake in his life. But nothing happened.
He left me.
I just kept walking. Didn't even think I had a place in mind to go to until I realized I had already reached the only place that would welcome me, no questions asked.
Keagan answered the door on the third ring of the doorbell, took one look at my face, and her own face crumpled as well.
She knew I was in love with Dmitry.
It was the only thing I felt safe and proper for her to know. And now—-
The fact that I didn't even have to say a word, and Keagan...
"Oh, Tahey." Keagan pulled me inside. "He left you?"
Oh God.
Hearing those very words from someone else—-
It was just too much.
And my knees gave out without warning.
"I d-don't even know w-why."
I crashed down.
"He just l-left me."
Weeping.
"Even k-knowing w-what it would do to me."
Broken.
"He still...left...m-me."
A NEW DAY BEGAN. AND another. And another. Keagan fussed over me without asking a single question. It was why she was good at her job, and why people like Dmitry those who built Strakh Inc. preferred working with her.
And the words—-
He left me.
They were still there. No longer as vicious, but more a dull throbbing pain, like an old injury you'd just have to learn to live with for the rest of your life.
He left me.
I obsessed over them even though I knew it was wrong. Tried to make sense of the unexplainable. Tried to find the smallest clue - God, any clue would do at this point - just so I could understand why.
Why?
Why?
Why?
I just needed to know. So I could move on. And I was desperate. So desperate that I swallowed my pride and tried to call him...only to find out that Dmitry had already blocked my number.
When Keagan learned what he had done, she had erupted like a volcano and told me in no certain terms that I'd be a fool if I continued to love an asshole like him. And of course, she was right. But...
I just had to know why.
Why?
Why?
Why?
So I swallowed my pride again. Called Sasha this time, but this turned out to be a mistake.
I'm sorry, Ms. Baskerville. I'm so goddamn sorry. If I had known he'd hurt you this way, I would never have encouraged your feelings for him.
Then tell me why, I begged him.
But on this, Sasha remained tight-lipped. I'm sorry. It's all I can say. It's all I have the right to say. I'm sorry, and I hope for your sake that you'll eventually be able to forget him and move on.
His words, God...his words made it so clear that he had never been in love.
Because if he had ever been in love, he would know.
I would never be able to forget Dmitry.
I could learn to stop loving him. I could learn to start hating him.
But to forget him?
Never.
Because that was just how love was, when it was at its most precious.
And it was this very love as well that made me unable to refuse a call when Keagan told me the next day that Thomas was on the phone, wanting to talk to me.
"Dad—-"
I didn't get a word in edgewise after this.
"Oh thank God."
Thomas started weeping then, and I couldn't help remembering the last time I heard him cry like this. It was when my mom died, and the memory made me forget my own pain.
"Daddy." It had been years since I last called him this. "What's wrong?"
"He told me he killed you," Thomas said hoarsely. "I didn't want to believe him, but the things he knew about you..." A choked sound escaped him.
"Who told you—-"
"Dmitry. Dmitry Adrianov."
And I felt my world start to crumble.
Again.
If this continued, Dmitry would soon overtake my dad's record, and he'd win first place for the number of times he made my life hell.
"H-How do you know him?"
Thomas let out a hollow laugh. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"
"Just tell me." My voice shook. "Please."
"His sister," Thomas said tiredly.
"Paige?"
"That's her real name, but the men I do business with...they listed her name as something else. Told me she used to be the woman of some arms dealer but was let loose when she double-crossed her lover."
"And of course," I said dully, "you didn't bother to check if their story was true." He never did. It was why Thomas kept insisting he hadn't done anything wrong. He had paid in good faith. Purchased lives of people who had hurt other people.
And yet...
His journals said otherwise. In them, his own truth came out to damn him. He had written frequently of how some of the subjects passed on to his "care" didn't seem to match the profiles he was provided. But in the end, he had chosen to be blind, deaf, and dumb to all the clues around him. And because of that—-
"I'm just glad you're alive," Thomas said.
But I'm not.
"When he told me he had avenged his sister's death by killing you—-"
He had.
"I was terrified. I didn't know...I don't know what I'd do—-"
He might not, but I did.
Because now...everything was suddenly clear.
Painfully, devastatingly clear.
"I love you, Dad."
I heard Thomas inhale sharply from the other end of the line.
"I tried to stop loving you after finding out what you've done, but I couldn't. And now I realize...I don't want to."
Thomas started to weep.
"But Daddy...I need you to do something for me."
"Anything—-"
"If you really love me, and you want us to be a family again—-"
And now, I was weeping, too.
"I need you to do one thing."
"Anything, baby girl."
"The last day of your trial's coming up soon—-" Oh God. Tears rushed down my cheeks, and I could barely hear myself over my sobs. "—-and I want you to tell the court you're guilty."