Sometimes you need to make hard decisions for people you love.
Oh God, I can’t bear it.
Tears well. My stomach churns. My stammering heart clenches so tight I think I may die on the spot.
Igor’s not coming.
As I walk back towards the kitchen, I remember Tammy’s words, and rush to open the envelope she left on the counter.
A bank card? For what? I have nothing to put into an account.
A debit card in my name. A pin code. For what? Why would Lorenzo open an account under my name? I don’t have any money. Do I? Confused and curious, I call the number on the back of the card and give my information to the automatic teller.
Thank you, Miss Wentworth. Your current balance is three million dollars.
Holy shit.
Seven
Igor
“You told her what? It was my place to do that.” I growl and wave a frustrated hand to dismiss Yuri’s henchmen. They groan, look at me, look at Yuri and then look at each other.
“Get out of here. The man’s in pain.” Yuri closes the door and then turns to Lorenzo Moretti, consigliere of the Moretti Family, Leo’s baby brother and my mirror. We work together often. “Didn’t we discuss leaving Igor’s current position out of your confession?”
Lorenzo paces and swings his arms at his sides. “You don’t understand. She was hysterical. She’s a sweet girl. Not a mean bone in her body. I can read human nature and this girl is guileless. Beautiful and innocent...”
“Will you...” My hands reach out in a choking position, but fortunately Yuri intervenes. My blood boils. The air feels too thin to breathe. I pull off my jacket and my shirt clings to my body. For fuck’s sake, I feel like I just stepped out of a sauna. I’m covered in sweat and I don’t need to take my blood pressure to know it’s through the roof.
I need air. I need Charlotte.
“Lorenzo, cut it out before you give Igor a fucking stroke. Get on with your story. Igor, sit your sweaty ass down.” Yuri points to the couches.
“I mean no disrespect. I just mean she looks like an angel. I can’t lie to an angel. Not to her face. She was out of her mind with grief. Inconsolable. Poor thing cried so hard I thought she might need medical attention! The only solace in all her pain was that Igor hadn’t lied about being involved in Bratva. Her disposition brightened briefly when she believed he was nothing but an innocent lawyer with family connections who’d been wronged just like her. How the hell was I going to sit there and let her believe that when he’s a fucking sovietnik for the Ivanov Bratva?” He straightens his lapels and smooths down his sleeves.
My heart sputters and stops. I pull off my tie and shake the front of my shirt to air out my chest. The walls are closing in. He’s right. She’s been through enough. Why give her hope that I’m not a criminal? It’s cruel. She doesn’t deserve anymore cruelty.
Yuri nods. He gets it. Lorenzo did the right thing.
“Did she accept the house? Is she there now?” Yuri pours us drinks. It’s not even noon, but no one cares. It was one of those nights. Between handling Charlotte and helping deliver an irate Alia de Alba to his brother, Lorenzo needs a vacation.
He nods. “Tammy says she was hesitant after she learned the price tag, but the truth is she had nowhere to go. Her parents are on my shit list. Giant assholes. I practically had to hold a gun to their heads to make them act somewhat apologetic. She disowned them and I don’t blame her. They had her living like a pauper in London, only giving her the bare minimum to survive while they’ve been rolling in my family’s dough for years.” He takes a swig of bourbon and pauses with the sting.
“The bank told me she spent thirty minutes on the phone with one of their managers pleading for someone to send the three million back to whoever deposited it. She’s a good kid. When I lied and told her it came from money earmarked for her father’s re-election campaign, she piped down and thanked me. I think she went furniture shopping.” He scratches his head and suddenly becomes aware I’m shooting daggers out of my eyes. He’s spent too much time with her. He’s soothed and comforted her when I should have been doing those things.
I think this fucker wants my woman.
He turns to me and chuckles. “I know what you’re thinking, Iggy. But I have my own lady.”
My mouth falls open. She still calls me Iggy?
“Iggy?” Yuri chokes on his drink.
Lorenzo laughs harder. “That’s what she calls him. It would be a little adorable if he wasn’t a thirty-six year old man.”
“Shut the fuck up. Did she say anything else?” I wipe my soaked brow with my hand.
Lorenzo moves forward and stares me down. “You mean did she show any signs that she still loves you? Yeah, dumbass. She cried her fucking eyes out when she realized she’d lost four years of her life, four years without you, over bullshit and lies. I know you were clueless, but you had your family and friends. She was all by herself, scared out of her wits in a shitty little apartment in a foreign country.” He pauses to take a sip.
“She was eighteen years old, just a kid, and she had the balls to do what she had to do to keep a man who lied to her from going to prison. Why the hell are you still here, anyway? You should get on your hands and knees and crawl from here to Park Slope to beg her fucking forgiveness.”
My chest tightens with every word as my heart shatters into a million pieces. Yuri says nothing. He knows he’s right. I know he’s right. But I also know I don’t deserve her. I never did.
Without a word, I throw my empty glass on the table, grab my jacket and head out the door.
Today’s our anniversary. One way or another, we’re spending it together.
Eight
Charlotte
I dedicate today to a new Charlotte. I’ve had four hard years, but I’m back in the city. I have a degree I can put to use. Lorenzo wants me to help his girlfriend decorate their new pad in the West Village and she’s already called to set up our first appointment next week.
My first job. Hooray!
I’ve got a dream house I could never afford to buy on my own and I’ve got a chunk of change in the bank. This is an interesting turn of events, but after my past luck, I’ll take what I can get.
No need to ask too many questions.
Although, I’m inclined to build a nest egg in case things go south again, I need to furnish my house. I bought a bed. A big one. They’re delivering it tonight. It was going to take two weeks, but when I gave them my name and address, they made an exception. Same thing happened with the couches and table. I think my house is on a special list. Purchased by the mob or aided by the mob. Something like that.
I will not question it. This is New York. I’m home. I just want to disappear into the crowds, buy my linens, dinnerware and a bit of groceries to hunker down for the next few days. Next week, I’m a working gal in the city.
This is a whole new life. Yes, sir. Charlotte Wentworth is back in town.
Racing home along the leaf-strewn path with a skip in my step and a few bags in my hands, I get the eerie feeling I’m being followed. I look behind me, to the side and every which way in between, but I can’t spot a suspicious set of eyes glaring back. I’m no good at detecting this type of thing. I only know I hear an odd set of footsteps, the same sound every time the noise from the street quiets down long enough to hear. I heard them when I was shopping for furniture. I heard them near the market. And now, close to home, I hear them again.
I consider going an extra block. If someone is following me, I shouldn’t lead them straight to my place. I need to be street smart. This is no different than London.
Clutching my bags tightly in my hands, I barrel through the crosswalk, push past dawdlers and travel an extra street. Thinking I’m slick, I cut through the alley, slide through a gap in someone’s fence and bound back towards my street hoping my covert operation has left this chump in the dust. With my heart beating a mile a minute, I bound up the stairs and almost run straight into a
ginormous bouquet of three dozen pink roses.
Pink roses? Iggy?
I look behind me and see no one. Why wouldn’t he show himself? Maybe it’s not him. Maybe this is a sick joke, or a threat, like a fish on your doorstep or a long kiss on the lips. I don’t know all the signs of imminent death. I’ve only ever watched the first Godfather.
Frightened I might be wrong, I unlock my door, kick in my bags, grab my flowers and slam it shut. Hustling into the kitchen, I yank the card attached to the stems and tear it open.
Happy Anniversary, Baby.
Anniversary? October 22. Oh my word, today’s the 22nd. I never forget. I’ve thought about it all week, but when mafiosos drop a house on your lap, you get sidetracked. I smell the card and get a faint hint of his scent. It’s him. He was here. With flowers. Vision of sweet kisses, icy blue eyes and the sound of his voice flood me all at once. In seconds, the dam breaks and I fall to the floor, sobbing with the agony of lost love.
My Iggy sent me flowers. He remembered our anniversary.
I’m more than mad. I’m furious. He lied and let his uncle tear us apart. Then he dove straight into a life of crime. How can we ever pick up the pieces?
Are there pieces? Well, now we’ll never know.
Part of me wants to strangle him, but the other part wants to climb his long hot body until my limbs give out. I’ve been dead for so long and there’s a tall, auburn-haired Russian walking around Brooklyn carrying my heart in his pocket. The one he stole the day we met.
I want it back. I want answers. I want kisses. I want Iggy.
Where the hell is he?
Nine
Igor
My feet feel stuck in place as I admire the most beautiful woman traipsing around Park Slope without a care in the world. She looks happy. Content. I’m glad she’s not crying anymore. For years, I imagined her as heartbroken as me. We loved each other. There’s no doubt in my mind that she loved me. Now more than ever, I’m certain what we had was real.
But all those years apart made me doubt her. When I thought she’d fled from me, from lies and secrets I’d withheld because I was too much of a coward to confess something that she had every right to know, I doubted its depth.
How could something like that break us apart for good? Why wouldn’t she come to me for an explanation? She deserved to know the truth and I deserved a beating, slaps, kicks, anything but utter abandonment without so much as one goodbye.
My goodbye was her signature on our annulment papers.
For days, I hated her. Only days. I couldn’t go longer than that. I started a search that lasted years. It was like she fell off the face of the earth. After a couple of months, I fought to get over her. I dated. First dates that ended with me crying on my drive home because my date wasn’t Charlotte and there was no one I wanted but her.
The following year, I went through a brief phase of secretly wishing her well and hoping she’d met a new love. Someone who would love her now that our time had passed. That might have lasted six hours before I cursed myself for sending that wish out into the universe. No one else gets to love my Charlotte.
Certainly not with my blessing.
That brought me to this phase of acceptance. I accept my fate. I will never love another woman. I’ll never hunger for anyone the way I hunger for Charlotte Wentworth. If I don’t fix this, I’m doomed to grow into a lonely old man who still walks the streets of Brooklyn, stalking her and dreaming of those three days she was mine.
I watch her purchase a couch and make a call to the store. I tell them if anyone named Charlotte Wentworth purchases anything, she should have same-day delivery or Yuri Ivanov will hear about the slight. I do it to every place she goes. After everything she’s been through, I don’t want my girl inconvenienced for one night without furniture.
It’s not entirely selfless. I haven’t had sex in four years. If I can find the courage to approach her and if she’s amenable, I’m nailing her on that king-size bed later tonight.
Goddamn I’ve missed her. Those three days were fucking heaven. She imprinted herself on me, branding my cock as hers forever. No one else turns me on. No one else gets me hard. Now that she’s back in my hemisphere, in my city, close enough to touch, I need to sink back into her flesh and stay there forever. I’ll die a happy man.
While she walks into a small boutique for linens, I head into a flower shop near her house. She loves pink roses. Those were her flowers. All while we dated, I surprised her with bouquets of pink roses. My doll loves pink. For our honeymoon, I had our hotel room filled with roses and our bed with petals. She loved it.
And I loved making her happy.
Every year for our anniversary, I’ve bought three dozen pink roses and given them away to some random woman on the street. I couldn’t miss our anniversary. I just couldn’t. There was something about not buying her flowers that made me feel worthless. Maybe I couldn’t give them to her. I didn’t know where she was. But more than anything I longed to be her husband again, and a husband buys his wife flowers for their anniversary.
“Will that be all?” The young woman wraps thirty-six roses in bright cellophane tissue and attaches an enormous pink bow around the stems. Like I said, my doll loves pink. It’s her favorite color.
“That’s all.” I hand her three hundred-dollar bills and tell her to keep the change.
“Thank you! I’m sure she’ll love them!” An enthusiastic wave and bright smile follow her chirpy goodbye. Although the words sting, I give her a lackluster grin and dart out the door. I don’t know if she’ll love them. My girl loves flowers and she was a sucker for surprises. I don’t think those things change with time. But she may not want them from me.
While she continues to shop, I fill out the card, run to her stoop and place them in front of her door. The entire building is hers. No one else should be on her stairs, so she’ll know they’re for her. I hope the pink roses give it away.
As I climb down the steps to leave, I admire the architecture of this old home. I hope she loves her place. It’s a great house. But Leo Moretti didn’t buy it. Even if he claimed it was a debt repaid, there was no way I’d place Charlotte under any perceived obligations. I bought this house for us years ago.
I was sure she’d come home. This was supposed to be my surprise and apology all rolled into one. I oversaw every repair and installation as a labor of love, remembering all the things Charlotte said she wanted in the home we’d eventually buy together. The three million came from Yuri, but since his father did this to us, I let it slide.
When I see her walking home, I follow close then move towards a bench. She stops and listens. I think she thinks she hears something. She grips her bags tightly and walks faster. No one is following her. No one would dare. Only me. My poor doll is paranoid and I can’t blame her. But I’ll never let anything happen to her.
I sit back on my bench and watch her every move like a lovesick boy in love for the first time. My weary eyes can’t get enough of my doll. She’s so beautiful. A thousand times more perfect than I remember and I never envisioned anything that wasn’t wonderful.
Eighteen-year-old Charlotte has nothing on the goddess before me. She looks stronger, bolder, her curves are sharper, her legs look a little longer. The soft waves of her long brown hair are pinned high off her face and I can see every exquisite angle of her gorgeous face. When she laughs at children in the park, her dark lashes and her bright eyes beam with love.
So many times, I imagined us taking our children to this same park and then chasing them home through these sidewalks. I want to stop chasing that dream. I want to catch it and wrap myself in it, in Charlotte and our babies forever. She has to give us another chance. I’ll do anything she asks. But I need one more chance.
I was so close when it all slipped through my fingers. If I’d come clean with her in the first place, she would’ve known everything they told her was bullshit. She would have seen through their lies. I can’t keep blaming everyone else.
In the midst of my pity party, I gaze up at my girl and watch her race through the crosswalk, weave through the crowd and fly past her street.
Where the hell is she going now?
I move to follow, but she ducks into an alley and appears through a fence. She’s terrible at this. Any goon would nab her in seconds. Checking her street for any signs of creeps, she runs towards her house, bolts up the stairs and stops just before she tramples her roses.
Shocked by the sight before her, she covers her mouth and looks behind her. She’s looking for me.
I know she is.
Lurking behind a tree, I don’t want her to see me. Not yet. But maybe it’s a mistake. She looks frightened.
In a quick move, she grabs her bouquet, swings open her door and jumps into her house. Any minute now she’ll know it’s me. She’ll know I want her back.
The words on the card were brief but left nothing to chance.
Ten
Igor
This is it. I don’t know what I’ll say, but it needs to be good.
Sorry, I’ll start with sorry. And I love you. She needs to hear me say I never stopped loving her. Not for a minute. Not for a second. I love her as much now, if not more, than the day we married.
Just as the sun sets, I pin my broken heart to my sleeve and walk the short distance to her front door.
Charlotte, I’m an asshole. Please forgive me.
No, why state the obvious. And if she doesn’t think I’m an asshole, I don’t need to put that in her head.
Charlotte, please give us another chance. I’ll never make you regret it.
Love Interrupted Page 4