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“Just to lay down for a moment. Sorry, you can carry on without me. I won’t be long. I just need a little bit of rest.”
“Little rabbit, are you sure that’s all it is?”
“Yes, of course. You don’t have to worry.”
For a second, our eyes catch and he wrinkles his brow. I look away, turning quickly towards the hallway and my bedroom.
I don’t hear his footsteps following me. I lie down on my bed and bury my face into my pillow just in time. The tears begin to pour from my eyes and I cry, the sobs muffled against the soft pillow. I am so relieved that I got out of there before he could not see this.
I feel so utterly and horribly alone.
I want to tell him my fears. Darya was the one who gave me that advice. She told me not to hide things from him. If I am worried about something, I should speak to him about it. But how can I? What if I tell him I am afraid that I am not enough for him—that he is bored with me and with the idea of having a baby with me—what if I tell him those things and he confirms that I am right?
I can’t possibly deal with that.
I need to pull myself together before I am too far gone, but I can’t stop crying.
Chapter 16 - Kiril
I am struggling with these conflicting thoughts and emotions. Every day, I try to push aside the feelings that are growing more intense by the moment. I can’t just deny how I feel anymore. I know I am in love with her.
I am in love with her, even though she betrayed me. How can I live with that?
How can I trust her? If anyone else in my organization had betrayed me in the same way, I would have made them disappear. After a painful lesson.
Their skin would bear the marks of their torture as a warning for anyone else who thinks betraying me or my family is a wise risk to take.
But apart from the fact that Jennifer is carrying our baby, I love her, and I hate to admit that I understand why she did what she did.
She had to protect her friend in the only way she knew how.
I know I would have done the same, and more, to protect my family. From what I have learned about Jennifer, her friend Lauren is the closest thing she has to family. I cannot blame her for the choice she made. She was actually sacrificing herself to protect someone she loves.
And I love her. So, in a way, I know that I have already forgiven her. I am just struggling with that fact. After we had that moment in the kitchen the other night and I realized just how close I was to losing control around her, I accepted the fact that if I spend that kind of time with her, I will end up doing something. I will end up taking her. I don’t want to do that to her; she has to come to me. So, to avoid the risk of that happening, I have been avoiding her again. As much as it pains me, I have to do this for her.
In order to think about other things, I have been focusing my energy and time on the organization. My brothers and I are trying to find a way to make our enemies pay for trying to use Jennifer against me. They are still skeptical of her and worried about me, but I have assured them that I have it all under control. Even though I don’t know that I do.
Our enemies have to pay, though. For what they did to her. For what they did to me. For how they tried to use her.
Fyodor walks into my home. I have been waiting for him to arrive.
“Fyodor, thanks for coming,” I say.
“No problem. Has something happened?”
“No, but I want to discuss something with you.”
He follows me through to the living room and I sit down.
“Shoot,” he says, sitting down opposite me.
“I want a meeting. I want to confront Alexander Golubev and inform him that we know what he tried to do and that it failed.”
“What do you hope to achieve by doing this?” he asks.
I shift in my seat. “I want them to know that they have failed so that they stop waiting for her. Whatever they had planned to get the information they expected from her, they can let it go.”
“I’m not sure it is going to be that easy.” Fyodor shrugs.
