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She shook her head. “I just need a postponement. I hope nobody will be too upset.”
His eyes filled with indulgence. “Everyone can cool their heels until you’re feeling up to it. Don’t worry about anything but feeling stronger, moya dusha. The world can stand still or even go away completely until then for all I care.”
Feeling it would hurt less if she were the one to go away, forever, she pretended to nod and fall asleep again.
Knowing he wouldn’t leave, she turned her face away from his vigilance, unable to stop the silent tears from pouring out of her soul.
* * *
It had been three days since Anastasia had fainted.
After he’d had Antonio and Isabella examine her again, and again, to reassure him she’d bounce back given time, Ivan had gathered everyone the very next morning, Christmas Day, what should have been their wedding day, and announced the postponement of their wedding.
She’d spent half that day in bed, and the other half curled in an armchair, barely saying or doing anything. The next day everyone had gone back to their homes.
Anastasia had asked to go home, too. Her parents’ home. Feeling more worried and confused by the second, but wanting to give her whatever she wished for, he’d taken her there. He’d been trying to placate himself that early pregnancy, the revelations, the days among such an overwhelming crowd, had proven too strenuous for her. But every time he went to her, it became clearer, until he could no longer lie to himself.
It now pained her to see him.
But he’d been unable to ask why. He was terrified she’d tell him she was having second thoughts.
It was unimaginable, but the only reason he could think of anymore. That now she realized it was going to be real, and she’d tie herself to him for life, through marriage and through a child, his reality had finally sunk in, and she was horrified about what she’d let herself in for.
But three days in a hell of dread and uncertainty had proved his limit. Though knowing for certain would finish him, he couldn’t let her evade him any longer.
He’d just arrived at her parents’ home and again they weren’t there. The maid had opened the door for him, telling him Anastasia had just gone up to her room.
In a matter of seconds he was knocking on her door. He’d heard her moving inside, and he had a distinctive knock, so she knew it was him. The prolonged silence that answered his knock screamed with her reluctance to let him in, to see him again.
This was it, then.
Whatever it did to him, he couldn’t force himself on her. If she didn’t want him anymore, if it hurt her that much to see him, he had to leave her alone.
He’d cross that threshold for the last time. When he left, he’d have no more reason to go on living.
At long last, she opened the door, and any lingering hope that he’d been wrong was incinerated under the inescapable proof of her desolation. She looked as finished as he felt.
His heart about to ram out of his rib cage with the need to take her in his arms, to beg her not to recede, not to shut him out of her heart, he met her bloodshot, swollen eyes.
“Why?” At his butchered groan, she said nothing, her breathing becoming strident. He broke down then, begged, “Is there anything I can do to make you love me again?”
She staggered back as if he’d hit her.
Surging forward to abort her stumble, he grabbed her arm, but she jerked it back as if he’d electrified her.
His arms fell limply to his side, crippled by a defeat he hadn’t even felt when he’d been young and helpless and at the nonexistent mercy of the monsters who’d imprisoned him.
Breath emptied from his chest, for what felt like the last time. “I guess I was always waiting for this, for you to come to your senses.”
Shaking, starting to sob, she fell to the bed. Dropping her head in her trembling hands, she rocked to and fro, moaning as if her soul was bleeding out of her.
He kneeled in front of her before he collapsed, his own soul escaping him with the tears he’d never shed since he was a child except on her account.
“Don’t, Anastasia, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t feel sorry for me, or feel bad because you gave me hope or made me a promise. I beg you. Don’t languish in bed, don’t lock yourself from the world to escape your life altogether because I’m in it. I left you once when I thought I’d only bring you danger and anxiety and misery. I’ll leave again, because I only want you to be happy and at peace. I just came to tell you this. That I’ll always be there for you, and for our child, in any way you let me. But if it hurts you this much to see me, you don’t have to see me ever again.”
Her weeping escalated with her inability to draw full breaths anymore. Unable to bear her anguish, he exploded up to his feet and stumbled towards the door.
His shaking hand was on the doorknob when Anastasia’s words hit him like a bullet between the shoulder blades.
