A Fated Night

by Kay Loren

  “Don’t be afraid to take a little dip in the pool,” he suggested. “There’s extra bathing suits in the back room over there.”

  “I’ll just probably dip my feet in,” she replied. “Thank you Alek. It was nice chatting with you.”

  “No problem,” he smiled. He looked as if he wanted to say more but he left with a quick wave and exited the room.

  Audrina took off her flat shoes and sat on the edge of the pool dipping her feet in the cold water. She felt relaxed for those few minutes she had to herself just dipping her feet. It wasn’t until she thought about Michael that her stomach started to hurt.

  She knew for a fact he was going crazy looking for her. She had not seen him in a couple of days and he usually kept tabs on her either through text or calls. Then it dawned on her. She did not have her phone nor her bag that she had brought along with her. She wondered where it could be. Everything of hers was in there. Her ID, passport, social security and other important documents she needed to start over were in that bag. She felt a cramping sensation in her stomach but she didn’t ponder on it too long when she heard a familiar clack come into the room.

  She looked up to the entrance of the room seeing Tatiana sauntering in with an amused expression on her face. She rounded the pool and sat on the short edge of the pool near Audrina but still far enough that a considerable space stayed among them.

  Tatiana took off her black heels, dropping them lazily at her side and then dipped her feet in the pool. “This is what I needed after that long plane ride,” she sighed.

  Audrina pressed her lips together and stayed silent, watching her feet in the water.

  “So, you’re the girl my Nikolai is enamored with,” she stated with a smirk.

  Audrina stayed silent. My Nikolai… Tatiana’s dark gaze was beyond intimidating to Audrina. It was as if she could see the very secrets of one’s soul. Audrina thought it best to avoid any eye contact with the stunning beauty if she was going to keep her composure.

  “I always longed for that side of Nikolai,” Tatiana continued looking far off. “That loving, gentle lover that he was when we first married… That was the best month of my life.”

  Audrina let out a shaky sigh. With her raging hormones she was near on the verge of tears.

  “We were young and I was so in love with him it drove me mad,” she confessed. “He was my first love. Every girl wanted him but he was mine.”

  Audrina could not hear another word. She looked Tatiana straight in the eye and asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

  Tatiana giggled softly in a way that was beyond charming. “Because, I envy you.”

  Audrina narrowed her eyes. There is absolutely no reason for Tatiana to envy me.

  “You got the man I longed for,” she whispered, moving her legs slowly in the water as she continued to look off. “He speaks with so much love and passion for you. I don’t see why…”

  “Where is he?” Audrina asked. She would rather go to him than spend another minute with this woman.

  “He’s in his office,” she replied. “Working as always.”

  Audrina sighed and was about to stand up and take her feet out of the water when Tatiana spoke again.

  “Do you want to know why we got married?”

  Audrina was not sure if she wanted to know, especially from this source, but she found herself glued to the cold stone floor.

  “My father was a drunk,” Tatiana huffed. “He was the nastiest drunk you could imagine. He would beat me often, regularly I should say. He said it was because I looked like my mother… the whore of my mother that left me on his doorstep when I was two years old.

  “I used to hang around the bar back home where a lot of the local ‘mafia’ guys would frequent… They were so attractive and alluring to me that I constantly found myself there a lot in my teenage years… I would sleep with some of them here and there… they were exciting men… Especially Nikolai… he was so young but he was smart, sexy, dangerous and I fell in love with him from afar. Well one day my father found out where I was and he came into the bar, drunker than I had ever seen him, and beat me with his belt. He said if I wanted to be a whore then he would sell me like one.”

  Audrina looked at Tatiana in horror. The way she told the story with an amused smile was sickening to a sense but Audrina knew Tatiana had to be masking her pain.

  “When he tired of the belt, he beat me with his fists and then the bottle in his hand,” she continued. “I don’t even know what happened next but Nikolai had him by the neck and beat him senseless… So much violence in him… It didn’t help me one bit. My uncle, Misha -my father’s brother- came soon after. He was a top man in the mafia at the time and he saw what Nikolai had done to my father. He wasn’t angry but he agreed that I was a nothing more than a troublesome whore who he could sell for a good price to a man in America. Nikolai found out and he worked something out with my uncle and father. My knight in shining armor… we married many weeks later in a big ceremony that everyone of importance attended.

  “I was so happy that I was marrying this young man who I was so in love with but never said a word to and he danced with me and treated me that day as if I was the princess he rescued. He was always good to me but I know he never loved me in that way. He had many women during our marriage. When we came to the states over ten years ago, he said to me, ‘You are free… you can do whatever you wish for your life… I will always take care of you but I don’t love you the way a husband should love his wife. I love you like a brother loves his sister but that is it’… I was so angry… I was a monster to everyone around. Everyone you see around here… I was terrible to… All because he did not love me the way I loved him.”

  Audrina understood now why Olga and a few others behaved the way they did towards Tatiana. Had she told them this story? Perhaps they would understand her now if they knew.

  “I was young,” Tatiana shook her head. “Stupid. I believed he would love me if I pulled temper tantrums in hopes he would see that I would do anything to make him love me. I pulled a knife on Olga once and she never forgot. She would tell me, ‘Move on, you know he does not love you’. I hated that. I thought I could make him love me. But we were both young and stupid... Now that I am older, I realize now that he saved me. Saved me from a world of prostitution and death… he did not have to marry me but it was the only way my uncle would let me stay. He did it for me and I repaid him with my silly lovesick girl antics.”

  Audrina’s heart swelled upon hearing that he had married Tatiana to protect her. He’s my Nikolai. He’s selfless, loving and beyond kind. Though he did not love Tatiana in the way she wished, he still loved her enough to save her from her family.

  “I’m sorry… for everything you went through,” Audrina whispered after a long stretch of silence.

  Tatiana laughed and gazed at Audrina with her big eyes. “You Americans and your apologies. No. Everything I went through made me who I am today. My father -had the liquor not killed him soon after I came to America- would die to see my life now. I own several spas and a bar close by exactly like the one back home. Avos. You should come by. Everything for you will be on the house.”

  Audrina laughed. Wasn’t this woman saying earlier she did not see what Nikolai saw in me? Nonetheless, Audrina smiled and graciously accepted the welcome even though she had no intention of going anytime in the near future. “Thank you.”

  “You make him happy,” she stated with a genuine smile. “Happy like when his mother was alive.”

  “You knew his mother?”

  “Everyone knew her,” Tatiana said. “She was graceful, quiet, beautiful and elegant. Svetlana looks exactly like her.”

  Audrina felt envious of Tatiana now. She knew the woman who Nikolai had placed on such a high pedestal. Oh what she would have given to have met Nikolai earlier on in life and knew everything near and dear to him. Tatiana and him shared a history she could only long for.

  “Nikolai said she died when he was sixtee
n,” Audrina said.

  “Yes, a few months after we married,” She replied. “She was killed.”

  “Killed?” Audrina whispered. Nikolai never mentioned the manner of her death. She just assumed she passed from sickness.

  “Does he not tell you anything?” Tatiana smirked upon noticing Audrina’s shocked expression.

  Audrina shrugged. “Some things…”

  “Katja, Nikolai’s mother, was killed by an unknown family in Moscow,” she began. “There used to be a code… no wives, daughters or children were allowed to be killed… but this family in particular wanted to send a message to Nikolai’s father. They had just arrived in town. Americans. Well they could not get ahold of Nikolai, so they went after the next best thing…”

  It did not take long for Audrina to realize who it was. “Svetlana,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Tatiana nodded. “Katja was a smart woman. Smarter than any woman I have ever met. She knew what they were after so when the time came, she hid Svetlana in a vent. I believe she gave her something to help her sleep and put her in the vent for the night. When we found her, she was still asleep in there… she slept through it all…”

  “How did she die?” Audrina asked.

  Tatiana took in a deep breath before she continued on. “They beat her and then strangled her. No one found her until the next day... they killed the maids, the nannies and the guards who watched over the house… It was terrible… So terrible Nikolai’s father had the house burned down a month after it happened.

  “When Nikolai found out… he went crazy… I have never seen him angry like he was when his mother died,” Tatiana stated lowly with a shake of her shoulders as if it was chilly. “He was scary. He scared me to death and that is impossible… I didn’t see Nikolai for a few days but when I saw him again, he was different. His eyes were cold. His demeanor changed drastically. Later I found out he killed almost every member of the family that his father could not get ahold of.”

  Audrina let out a shaky breath. As much as she did not want to believe Nikolai to be a capable of killing anyone she could not fool herself. That’s apart of his work. The idea sent chills down her spine.

  Tatiana took a case out of her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. She offered Audrina and instinctively she reached out for one but remembered she was pregnant and dropped her hand.

  “I need one, especially after hearing that, but I can’t,” Audrina shook her head.

  “You can’t?” Tatiana furrowed her thin brows after lighting up the white stick.

  “I’m pregnant,” she blurted out without a second thought.

  Tatiana’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open. She glanced down at Audrina’s stomach and shook her head. “You don’t look pregnant.”

  Audrina chuckled and pulled her dress tightly over her stomach to show Tatiana her small, growing bump.

  “Is it his?” she whispered.

  Audrina knew Tatiana was speaking of Nikolai. She wasn’t sure if she should tell Tatiana about Michael and her current situation when she did not even know herself. She just met this woman and thought it best not to say anything so she just nodded.

  Tatiana opened her mouth and then closed it. She looked down at Audrina’s stomach, struggling what to say next.

  “There you are,” Nikolai said when he came into the room and walked towards them. He glanced at Audrina for a moment before he looked at Tatiana. He said something to Tatiana in Russian.

  Tatiana looked up at him, recovering from her blank look and smiled with a soft chuckle. She stood up, kissing Nikolai on the cheek and then placed the cigarette from her mouth in between his lips. Nikolai mumbled something to her with a smirk and she laughed again, touching his arm lightly. He hugged her for a quick moment and then released her.

  Audrina sighed seeing the affection they both clearly had for one another. She thought back to when Tatiana said she envied her. From where she sat observing them, she was the one who was envious.

  Tatiana slipped back into her heels and turned her eyes to Audrina. “It was nice to meet you. I enjoyed talking with you.”

  “Me too,” Audrina politely replied when she too stood.

  Tatiana pulled Audrina into a hug and kissed both her cheeks. “I will see you later.”

  Tatiana left soon after, leaving Nikolai and Audrina alone. Nikolai stepped closely to Audrina placing a kiss to the top of her head and then stepped back, taking a drag from the cigarette.

  Audrina looked at Nikolai. “Your wife is lovely.”

  Nikolai exhaled a cloud of smoke and pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry I never told you… I never imagined she would come to my home, especially while you were here.”

  “Would you ever have told me? Had she not come?”

  “Eventually,” he shrugged after another inhale of cigarette. “Our marriage was, or is, not as you think. I married her when I was young and we never divorced, but I promise you there is nothing between her and I in that way. We haven’t been together as husband and wife in over ten years.”

  Audrina pursed her lips. “I know, she told me.”

  Nikolai exhaled. “She told you?”

  “She told me a lot,” Audrina said coyly. Everything you never told me.

  “Anything in particular?”

  Audrina shook her head. “I could use a cigarette after it all, I’ll say that much.”

  Nikolai handed her the one in his hand and then retracted it quickly. “You’re pregnant,” he said and quickly put out the remainder of the cigarette with his shiny black shoe. “I’m sorry. I should not be smoking near you… or at all.”

  Audrina did not even think of it. She was too focused on everything Tatiana had said about Nikolai to even care abut the cigarette smoke around her. Audrina tried to reason within, that that was many years ago and he was young and wanted revenge for his mother. She ran both hands over her face and into her hair as she kept on replaying the conversation in her mind over and over.

  “She asked me for a divorce,” he stated.

  Audrina could feel her heart palpitate. “Is that why she came?”

  Nikolai frowned with a shrug. “Well there was more to her arrival than that, but that sums it up.”

  Audrina sighed. He was being coy. “She still cares a lot about you.”

  “As do I for her,” he said. “But I cannot give her what she wants.”

  “What does she want?” she pressed.

  Nikolai sighed and sat on the edge of one of the white lounging chairs. He placed his elbows on his knees and his long fingers in front of his mouth. His eyes flashed to Audrina before he took in a deep breath. “She wants a child.”

  Audrina’s eyes widened. “A child?”

  Audrina thought back to a few minutes before when Tatiana asked if Nikolai was the father of her child. It all made sense to her now, her reaction and why she looked at Audrina the way she did.

  “She says she’s getting older and since I am her husband she thought of no one better to have a child with,” he said and then ran his hands over his face. His eyes glanced up at Audrina for a quick moment before he continued. “When I told her no, she asked me why and I told her about you… who you were and how crazy I was for you.”

  Audrina’s heart fluttered. She could feel her cheeks warm up. “She thinks I’m having your child.”

  Nikolai’s eyebrows shot up. “I did not tell her.”

  Audrina let out a long sigh. “I showed her my stomach and she asked if it was yours and I, stupidly nodded. I must have hurt her feelings.”

  Audrina instantly felt bad for Tatiana. She briefly wondered why Tatiana wanted a child. Age may have been a factor but surely there was something more to her wanting a child than that. Maybe she wanted a piece of Nikolai forever. Audrina placed a hand to her stomach.

  “Perhaps,” Nikolai shrugged. “She would have found out regardless.”

  “Did you ever love her?” Audrina asked the question that had nagged her.

  Nikolai fr
owned, staring off into the distance. He didn’t answer for a long while and it made Audrina nervous for his answer.

  “I love for her as in I want the very best for her,” he stated. “But I was never in love with her.”

  “But you married her,” Audrina said sitting closely next to him. “You had to have had some sort of feelings for her.”

  Nikolai shook his head with a sigh. “I felt sorry for her. What her uncle had in mind for her was, terrible, I could not see that happen to her. I didn’t really know her but she used to hang around the bar back home a lot… always smiling, her eyes full of life. I told myself I could fall in love with her, but no matter how hard I tried, I just could not.”

  “Then why did you stay with her for as long as you did?”

  “Life happened and she was always there,” he shrugged. “No matter what happened or what I did, she always stuck by me and I felt as if I owed her. When we came to the states, I just could not lie to myself anymore, so we went our separate ways.”

  “Have you ever been in love? With anyone?”

  “Just you,” he replied quickly without a second thought.

  “Just me?”

  “Yes,” he said and placed his hand on her knee.

  Audrina shook her head. That had to have been impossible given his age and just how good looking he was. “Surely there was one woman at least that you were in love with once upon a time.”

  “Audrina,” he turned his body towards her and took both her hands in his. “No woman has ever come close to how I feel about you. What I feel, I cannot even describe it. Every time you look at me, smile at me, kiss me…” he let out a deep breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them up again they were clear and burning into Audrina’s eyes. “Every time I am around you, my chest feels like it is about to burst. When I first laid eyes on you on that street corner that day… I felt it then.”

  “Street corner? You met me after my show remember?”

  Nikolai smiled shyly. “I actually saw you two weeks prior to that. You were walking back to your apartment I believe. I had Sergei follow you and then look you up, and then we went to your performance.”