by Lana Sky
He gets me.
“Does Maxim know you’re here? I have to say that I’m surprised you came over.”
A hint of unease slips into her weary grin. “He’s out of town,” she says. I remember the conversation I’d overhead a few days ago between Vadim and Milton—Maxim was in Russia apparently, dealing with some kind of business disruption. “I told him Ainsley, and I were going out today—but I didn’t say to where. Ainsley’s been begging me for the past two days, and Lucius promised to cover for me. We have about an hour before we need to head back, though.”
Lucius, I suspect, is the kind, older man who allowed Magda and I onto their property the other day. And his sudden leniency most likely has everything to do with the former’s charms. I look over to find her relishing in the attention from both her father and her new friend—a different girl from the surly, brooding figure who came here just over a week ago.
“Is there a reason you’re thinking about marriage?” Francesca asks, her tone gently probing.
With another sip of wine and a sigh, I relent. “Yes. There is a reason. A twenty-four-carat reason.” I’m eyeing the fake engagement ring on my finger, but who knows what Vadim would spring for as the real deal. Something obscenely expensive, I suspect, and the thought of it terrifies me. Denying him terrifies me. As afraid as I am of the potential downfalls, I’m quickly realizing that I don’t want to lose him. Not like this.
Because as volatile as his mood has been these past twenty-four hours, something tells me that one culprit is behind the shift. Irina. She said something to set him on edge, making him jump to a hasty marriage as his only solution.
“But I’m not ready,” I admit out loud. “I’m not.”
“And if Dima is anything like Maxim, you feel like you don’t have a choice,” Francesca says softly.
There’s lingering pain in her voice, alluding to a wound that I suspect is every bit as deep as the one festering in my heart at the moment. Sadly, I tilt my glass as my gaze finds the sole cause of my torment. “I’ll drink to that—”
“But,” Francesca adds without lifting her glass to her mouth, “You can’t have a relationship built on just one person’s rules. There has to be a give and take…” She trails off, her gaze fixated somewhere in the distance. After a few seconds, she shakes her head and sighs. “I don’t think you should let anyone pressure you if you aren’t ready. You’ll only lose yourself in the end.”
“It’s not that,” I say, feeling some need to defend Vadim from the picture my dancing around the subject is creating. “It’s just…”
I’m not sure just what point I’m trying to make. To avoid the subject entirely, I down the rest of my glass as the girls scamper around the paddock.
But the niggling, defensive feeling won’t leave. Finally, with a sigh, I’m forced to confront it. “I lost myself once,” I admit. “I swore to myself I’d never let it happen again.”
Francesca eyes me simply, her gaze conveying more maturity than her age should allow her to. “Then don’t,” she says, as if it’s that easy.
But in the realm of Vadim Gorgoshev, I’m not sure that anything truly is.
The second, Francesca and Ainsley leave, Vadim helps Magda cool down and stable Dasha while I watch from the safety of my lounge chair. Together, we finally return to the house, and I sense an even firmer boundary settling between us.
An ocean of emotional distance separates me from Vadim as we file into the kitchen, and he heads to the fridge, presumably to make dinner. He doesn’t look my way once, his shoulders rigid, his warm tone solely reserved for his daughter.
“Spaghetti?” he suggests to her while rummaging through various cupboards.
“Okay.” She nods in agreement, clutching her riding helmet to her chest.
“I’ll get it ready. You go get washed up, oui?”
“Okay!” She dutifully sets off, and I don’t even realize I’m following after her until his voice reaches me, a cautious rasp.
“Tiffany…”
“I should help her get ready,” I say, practically running for the stairs. Magda looks surprised when I enter her room, but like the princess she is, she promptly points to her closet.
“I want to wear my pink pajamas,” she declares, and like a good servant, I rush to obey.
As she showers, I lay out the clothing on her bed. The moment she reappears, I make a show of fussing over her, helping her towel dry her hair and braid it.
“You took a very steamy shower, you lobster,” I tease, running my hand over her scalp. “You’re still boiling.”
“Can you teach me to swim tomorrow?” she asks, her eyelids heavy.
“Sure,” I say, oddly touched by the request. At least someone wants me around. “As long as it’s not too cold out. Maybe we can go out on the boat, too?”
She holds out her tiny hand, raising her pinky. “Promise?”
Chuckling, I curl my own pinky around hers. “Promise. Now let’s go eat.”
Clutching the newly restored It to her chest, she bounds downstairs for dinner.
But I don’t follow right away. Instead, I retreat into the bedroom and strip my own clothing. Then I enter the shower and linger until the water runs cold, and my shivering serves as a cover for my own silent sobs.
Get a grip, Tiffy, I try to tell myself. You’re a bad bitch, remember? Stop second-guessing yourself!
But that’s all I seem capable of doing while in the realm of Vadim Gorgoshev. Second-guessing. Fearing. Doubting. Questioning.
Something that can feel this damn good, and yet hurt this damn much… It can’t be real, can it? Let alone healthy?
I haven’t decided by the time I finally leave the shower and slip into a robe. The second I take a step over the threshold to the bedroom, however, I stop short, my gaze fixated on the creature watching me from the edge of the bed.
He’s stripped his shirt, wearing just his slacks, his hair mussed like it is only when he’s been tearing through it ruthlessly. Dark, his eyes track my every movement, hunting me with a predator’s intensity as I tentatively take a step. Then another.
Still holding my gaze, he rises to his feet. His eyes blaze anger, but as they trace the low neckline of my robe, the lids lower, his lips parting. My heart hammers in response, and I don’t shy away from his gaze, even with the tension simmering between us.
Lust is the one language we speak that transcends all others, and I’m so desperate for a connection…
It’s like I lose control over my body. Myself.
With Jim, sex was always used as leverage. Or as a reward, if I’d jumped through various hoops and pleased him enough to deign indulging me in the moment.
With Vadim, sex is wild. Untamable. Communication. It is the only way I seem to be able to understand him. In groping, hungry touches the second I come close enough. In a fierce, mind-melding kiss that renders me defenseless against him.
Hungrily, he grasps my hips, twisting around to shove me onto the bed. His gaze intent, he mounts the mattress after me. Hooking his fingers beneath my hips, he flips me onto my back, easing my legs apart before I can protest. This angle robs me of any leverage, forcing me to buck into him. Chase him. Crave him.
I shiver as he enters me, thrusting deep, taking what he can and battering down any resistance I may think to put up. His chest cages me in, his hands crushing me flat, controlling the pace. Angle. Everything. Mindless, I rock against him, letting him stretch me to my limits. Take me beyond them. Leave me quaking on the edge of sanity and then watch me fall.
This isn’t over, I sense, even as we both gasp out in relief. Just a reprieve. A truce.
The real war is only beginning, and when he finally withdraws from me, spent, he collapses with his back to me, his shoulders rigid.
I go limp, panting against the sheets, my thoughts scattered, body still burning alight. If I had the strength to move, I would. Run far, far away—put distance between us any way I can.
Physically at least, bec
ause emotionally, we might as well be on different planets.
Chapter Four
I wake up, blinking at a partially darkened ceiling, though I’m not sure why. Closing my eyes, I’m already drifting back off when I hear it—a voice low with concern.
“Magda?” Vadim murmurs. I turn to find him rolling upright, dragging part of the sheet over his body. Magda stands on his end of the bed, her eyes half-closed, lips pursed. Seemingly in a daze, she tugs on his hand until he faces her.
“What is it, ma chérie?” Vadim questions, stroking her hair. But something makes him frown and press his palm to her forehead. “Shit! You’re burning up.” He lurches to his feet, snatching his pants from the floor. Once dressed, he lifts Magda into his arms, racing into the hall. “Ena!” I hear him shout. “Bring the car around! Now!”
“Vadim?” Shrugging off my exhaustion, I scramble to my feet and hunt for my discarded nightgown. By the time I make it downstairs, Vadim is already carrying Magda through the front entrance. Beyond them, a stern-faced Ena is waiting beside the compact gray car, opening the door to the backseat.
“Get her a change of clothes,” Vadim commands, cutting his gaze to me. The raw, frantic desperation in his eyes takes my breath away, and I run off, anxious to help. Panting, I tear into Magda’s room and find her gray suitcase under her bed. I snatch a change of clothing from her closet, along with pajamas and her toothbrush. Last but not least, I grab It and Biphany, still tucked beneath her blankets.
“I’ve got it!” I call as I peel down the stairs. But the front door is closed. When I wrench it open in confusion, I find the driveway empty.
And it’s nearly a solid minute of staring before the truth sinks in.
They’re gone.
And I’ve been left behind.
I spend all of five minutes searching the house for a phone before I realize that I don’t even know Vadim’s cell phone number should I find one. Or Ena’s. Hell, I don’t even know where the car keys are kept. A trip to the garage reveals nothing but mocking, empty vehicles I have no way of driving.
“Damn it!” I’m crying, I realize, as my hoarse sobs echo back to me. I’m not even hurt, not really. My overriding thought is that Magda needs her teddy bear. She needs her pajamas and a ribbon for her hair. She needs me to tuck her in—and God forbid she’s sick enough to need intensive care…
I should be there.
I need to be there.
That driving thought has me running from the house on a whim, cutting through the woods that shroud the west side of the property. At the back of my mind, I try to imagine the picture I make—I’m barefoot, wearing only a thin nightgown, clutching a tiny suitcase to my chest. Only God knows how I appear to the older man approaching the edge of Maxim’s property to meet me.
Lucius. He’s wearing a suit, murmuring into an earpiece. “Stand down,” he says to someone on the other end of the device before turning his attention to me. “Are you alright—”
“Please help me! I need to get to the hospital. Please. I need to be there. I don’t know how. I don’t…”
Lucius’ expression shifts into one of stoic concern. As I shiver in anticipation of his reaction, he shrugs off his suit jacket and drapes it over me. Within minutes I’m being ushered into the back of a black car as he takes the wheel.
I barely even know what I’m saying. Just that Magda needs her bear. Her pajamas. Me.
“Do you know what hospital?” he asks gently.
I think I try to say something, but all I wind up doing is sobbing. Openly. Loudly. I don’t even know why I’m upset. Maybe by the implicit understanding that this is it—my worst fear coming true. When hell breaks loose, I’m left behind, forced to scramble on my own. He didn’t even think to wait for me, so used to forging ahead.
What kind of marriage would this be?
By the time we finally make it to the hospital, I’m resolved. Gritting my teeth, I swipe the tears from my face and school my expression into one of calm. I start to scramble from the backseat on my own, thanking Lucius profusely.
“Wait just a moment.” He exits the car, but rather than open the door for me, he enters the hospital directly, leaving me to squirm and contemplate running in anyway. I deflate with relief, however, when he returns and presents me with not only a change of clothes—a sweater and pants with the price tags still on—but a sturdy pair of decent shoes and a visitor’s badge with my name on it.
“She’s in room 2207,” he says after I quickly change in the backseat. How he knows as much is far too unsettling to question at the moment.
I’m more grateful than alarmed.
“Thank you,” I tell him, grasping his hand. “Thank you so much!”
Inside, a woman at the front desk directs me to a set of elevators that bring me to the second floor. The moment I see the sign over the archway leading to the section of rooms Magda’s belongs to, my heart sinks—Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
When I gather the nerve to step over the threshold, I’m faced with yet another woman at the desk.
“Hello,” I tell her, struggling to regain my charming persona. “I’m here to see the patient in 2207. My name is Tiffany Connors.”
The woman nods and turns to her computer screen. Whatever she sees makes her frown and rise from her desk. “I’ll be right back, Miss.”
She disappears down a hallway only to return seconds later with Vadim in tow. He looks awful, a man apart from who he was only a few hours ago. The darkness once again has claimed his expression, but glimpsed without the filter of his wall…
It’s terrifying.
“Thank you,” he says to the clerk. Then he advances toward me and inclines his head to a small sitting room just off the unit entrance. “We need to talk.”
I follow him, still clutching Magda’s things to my chest. Before he can even say a word, I feel the need to place her suitcase on a nearby coffee table, open it and fish out It. “She needs this,” I tell him, shoving the bear into his hands. “And I brought her brush and some ribbon.”
He accepts the offering, but his expression doesn’t ease one damn iota. If anything, the line of his jaw hardens against me. “You shouldn’t have come.”
I blink. “What… What do you mean? She needs her clothes and her bear, and—”
“I mean this is the time when she needs stability,” Vadim says, his tone harsh. “A parent. Someone she can trust not to leave when she needs them the most. Someone who won’t be cavalier with her health—”
“What…” I’m still processing his word usage. Cavalier—reckless. “What are you talking about?”
His eyes flash. In a violent motion, he tosses the bear across the room so hard it rebounds off a nearby couch, and I’m left stunned in the face of such a display.
“I mean, you refuse to adopt her,” he growls, straining to keep his voice low. “You refuse to marry me. And now you want to tease her at a time when her health and safety is of the utmost importance? Was this your aim all along when you got her soaking wet in forty-degree weather? Slip out while she’s rushed to the hospital? And what, you got cold feet and came back in guilt?”
I turn away from him, hunting for a chair, and I hurriedly perch myself on the edge of it. My brain is spinning, thoughts so tangled, it’s almost painful to form coherence from his statements, pairing his anger with his words. But when I finally do, the resulting implication is soul-crushing.
“Are you saying I got her sick on purpose?” I whip my head around to face him. He doesn’t even have the nerve to flinch. Look guilty. Anything but face me with such a cold, hostile expression.
I can feel something inside me crack—right in my chest. No therapy, sex, or wine could ever soothe this pain. And I know there’s no way he could be doing this on purpose.
“You’re upset,” I say, staggering to my feet. “I can understand that. Let’s just go see her—”
“No.” He steps back, denying me the ability to reach for him. “You should leave.”
A startled laugh escapes me before I can bite it back. “I’m not leaving her alone. No. I’m not.” I picture the stoic figure who held a grudge against her father for leaving her in foster care, paired with the innocent girl who begged me to teach her to swim. “I’m not,” I insist, shaking my head.
“She needs me,” Vadim says, flicking his collar. “Someone she can trust.”
“How…how dare you?” I can’t breathe. My chest feels so damn tight. Looking at the man before me, I can’t reconcile him with the figure who held me at night or bathed me with care. I’m numb, barely aware of the wetness sliding down my cheeks until my vision blurs, and I’m blinded by tears. “How dare you?”
“How dare I?” I sense him move—his shape distorted as more tears fall, impossible to stem. “You’ve already denied her once,” he points out. “I think it’s better if you leave now. Let her heal from your mistake, and your absence before your eventual departure hurts her more.”
He grabs her suitcase and crosses the room, snatching It from the floor. Then he heads toward the unit, leaving me to scramble after him.
“Vadim, don’t do this. Just let me see her—”
He stops short, so suddenly I nearly run into him. “I think it’s best for everyone if you just go. Now. Ena will take you back to the house. Help yourself to what you wish. Just be gone by the time I return.”
He marches forward, breezing past the front desk. When I try to follow, the woman seated there stands, her voice apologetic. “I’m sorry, Miss, but due to the nature of our unit, I can’t let you by without permission from a parent or guardian.”
I keep blinking at her as if that single action will make her disappear. Make this pain go away. I’ll wake up in bed beside the Vadim I thought I knew, and this will all turn out to be some horrid nightmare.
I just keep blinking, as my legs move woodenly to navigate my way back into the elevator and down to the lobby. I keep blinking even as I find Ena waiting out front, his expression stern.
I just keep blinking.