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The second lamp, the one closest to the door . . .
Well, a girl’s gonna need a weapon if one of those monsters comes creeping in the middle of the night.
I hug my knees to my chest and shut my eyes, drawing the comforter up around me. It smells of cinnamon and vanilla, and I curl up as best I can and try my hardest not to let my thoughts spiral.
It’s a futile effort. My thoughts swirl around Andrei, Ezra, the new guy Mikhail, until finally, I think of my mom.
It’s impossible not to when everything around me screams her name. Golden roses, vanilla creme, silken sheets . . . all of her favorite things in one place.
A tear slides down my cheek and a sob breaks free.
I shouldn’t have to stay in my mother’s old bedroom, haunted by her ghost. It might be the cruelest thing anyone’s ever done to me.
Chapter 5
Ezra
The last thing I expected to wake me up in the middle of the afternoon was a ghost from my past.
Mikhail shrieking about the latest problem with one of his businesses? Sure. Men rushing into the clinic, needing immediate medical attention? That’s just another fucking day at the office.
But Valentina? The girl who left?
No fucking way.
Yet there she was.
Bathed in sunlight, just like the day she left. Holding something in her hands, staring out the window like a lost girl. Like a ghost.
The curtain fell across her shoulder like a veil, and I thought I was dreaming about her again. Imagining she was really here, like I have a thousand times.
But then I heard her. Stomping about. Ruffling the curtain. Saw her holding my pants, as though she’d stumbled upon some kind of treasure.
And then she was naked.
Not completely, but more than enough for me to get an eyeful.
Running a hand down my face, I groan.
Valentina has haunted my dreams, and now she’s haunting my life—again.
It’s one thing to know you’ll never have her. To watch as she marries another man. To be sworn to protect her, always.
It’s another thing to watch her betrothed nearly hate fuck her into his desk, to see how turned on she was by it. By him.
The woman who slipped through my fingers. The one I was never meant to have.
The one I still want.
I stew on that thought for what feels like eternity. She was out of reach for years. Dead. A ghost.
My heart seizes in my chest, and I curse it for its stupidity. I hate her for leaving, but part of me will always...
I clench and unclench my fists by my sides. This is stupid. She belongs to Andrei, as she always has, and nothing about that will change.
With a scowl, I walk down the hall in silence, Mikhail’s constant humming at my side the biggest fucking nuisance in the world.
“Stop,” I grumble, shutting my eyes. “You give me headache.”
