AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m right outside the door,” Jonathan reminded me before he left me in the living room, he and Kavan the last to depart after Rose and the therapist. My husband was struggling so badly he neededa therapist.What kind of wife was I to not get him help before now? It shouldn’t have taken him locking me up and passing out from stress for me to realise how bad things were.
Iknewthey were bad. I knew he was having a hard time getting over me being kidnapped. He could barely stand to open the door, for fuck’s sake. Guilt chewed me up and spat me out, and I rubbed my thumb over the sharp edges of the small key. It wouldn’t happen again; I had Dr. Korte on speed dial, and he promised to be available whenever Damien needed him.
It was stupidity and ego that made me think I could help Damien alone. I might have been his wife, might have loved himto the ends of the Earth, but I had no qualifications in mental health care.
“Why are you nervous?” I whispered to myself. The sun had set an hour ago, but I sat in the dark, staring at the living room under the yellow glow of street lamps. I couldn’t deny that Iwasnervous. Not because I worried Damien would lock me up again, but—what if I did something and set him back? What if I threw him into another episode? The very last thing I wanted was to hurt him.
Eventually, after a spirited pep talk, I pushed to my feet and slowly crossed the hallway. I would have liked to have the twins at my side, but Kavan locked them in their playroom when he got here and other than coming out for meals and water, they’d been snoring on the massive beds Damien got for them.
My chest tightened; I expelled it with a sigh, my eyes on the door to Damien’s office. I didn’t know how I’d find him, if he’d be the Damien who killed a hundred people for me or the Damien I’d known this past month. But standing here was only delaying the inevitable, so I twisted the handle and opened the door, my heart thudding hard at the sight of him typing at his computer, his movements fierce and powerful.
He was okay, in one piece, and when he glanced up at me it wasn’t a vacant expression on his face. It was devastation.
“Damien.” I left the door open and hurried across the room, my chest hurting, eyes stinging fiercely.
“Vasilisa,” he said evenly.
“Nomy queen?”I didn’t expect that to hurt so much. He used my name all the time, I reminded myself as pain twisted up my chest, but this time it felt intentional. A lump burned in my throat.
He typed three more words and pushed the keyboard away, but he didn’t quite look at me. “I wasn’t sure you still wanted to be my queen.”
“Always,” I breathed, crossing the rug with more confidence. He still wanted me; he just worried I didn’t wanthim.“Sorry it took me so long, I—”
“Don’t come closer,” he rasped, pain in his black eyes.
I froze, my stomach plummeting in a nauseous swoop until he breathed, “You should stay far away from me.”
“Fuck that,” I muttered and straightened my shoulders, closing the distance between us. Close enough to touch him, I brushed dark gold hair out of his eyes and leaned down for a kiss.
“Vasya,” he whispered against my mouth, a strain in his voice, pulling the cords of muscle in his neck taut. “I hurt you—”
“Scared me,” I interrupted, dropping myself on his lap and holding him tightly. The world seemed to settle back on its axis when his arm came around me, his scent filling my lungs, the warmth of his body pressed to me. “There’s a difference between hurting me and scaring me. My dad hurt me for years, and he did it out of anger and a need for power and—I think deep down he might have hated me. You locked me in the bathroom out offear,Damien. It’s not okay, and if it ever happens again Iwillmake good on my threat to shoot you, but it’s different.”
I’d spent half my life fearing fists and kicks, braced for pain,used topain. Damien could have turned his strength and power on me at any point today, but he didn’t. His panic clashed with my unease at being cooped up for so long, and like chemicals, those two emotions didn’t work well together. We exploded. After thinking about it for hours, I decided it was inevitable.
“And all things considered,” I said, trying to catch his gaze and failing, “today could have been a lot worse. We didn’t break the door this time.”
I waited for him to smile, for light to enter his eyes, but his gaze shuttered, his eyelids closing for a long moment.
“I fucked up by locking you up. Nothing will absolve that guilt.”
“You listened when I used my safeword.”
“You forgive me,” he realised, his voice hoarse with emotion, eyes dull with pain.
“I forgive you,” I agreed, running fingers through his hair and relieved to finally have him back to myself, to be able to touch him again now everyone had gone, and now I’d got up the nerve to come and speak to him. “Damien, I—I’m so sorry. I should have listened when you said you couldn’t handle us sitting on the balcony. Something like this would have happened no matter what, but I didn’t help. I made it worse.”
That was why I’d hesitated in the dark for so long.
“None of today was your fault,” Damien argued, his eyes closing, torment cutting lines into his face. “It’s only partly about your kidnapping. I—fuck, it’s hard to talk about this.”
“You don’t have to,” I soothed, brushing a kiss over his cheek, my chest full of pain and sympathy.
He shook his head, opening his eyes to meet mine, tumultuous with a dozen different emotions. “I’ve been ordered by Dr. Korte and Dad to talk to you. And … I want to. I just don’t want to put the weight of my problems on you.”
“They’re already there, Damien.” I kissed him again, a knot unwinding in my chest when his hand rose and slid into my hair as he kissed me back, lips moving in gentle brushes over mine. It was the softest kiss we’d shared. “I’m your wife. I take your problems as mine, like you take mine as yours. You never once hesitated when you learned about Finch; you just started planning his death. So tell me who I have to kill, Saint, and consider it done.”
He groaned, grazing his fingers down my jaw to stroke my pulse. This time he kissed me fiercer, rougher. “I love you so much it kills me. You’re right. And I don’t want to face any ofthis without you. Well.” He paused, shadows moving through his eyes. “I’d rather not face it at all, and pretend everything’s normal.”
