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The thought of Anika fighting for her life downstairs, and Yelena begging me not to leave again, are all that puts me back together. I cling to that, forcing myself to stand up, to find a light switch, to walk to the bathroom. They need me, even if no one else does. Even if I have nothing else left.
I turn on the shower, letting the water run as hot as I can stand it, and then I slip underneath it. I scrub every inch of myself, trying to wash away not just his touch, but the memory of how much I enjoyed it. I scrub hard between my legs, trying to wash his cum off of me, out of me, ignoring the throbbing that I feel at the memory of him cupping me, pushing it back inside of me, murmuring to me as he fingered me to another orgasm. He’d wanted to keep all of himself inside of me, and I know the purpose behind it—to get me pregnant. To keep me here with him, bound to him, as if I already wasn’t beyond all hope.
I want him out of me. I don’t want to have his child, even if I already can’t. I think of the life a son of ours would have, and I’m suddenly glad for the fists I took to the gut, the fact that I might have had my fertility literally beaten out of me.
Glad that I can’t give Viktor the thing he wants most from me since he can’t give me the thing I want most from him.
When I’ve scrubbed my skin pink, my thighs, and between my legs raw and clean, I sink to the floor of the shower, letting the hot water run over my hair and my face, washing it all away. His touch, his scent, his words, his lips. The way he’d made me feel, just for a little while.
I have to forget it, or I’ll go mad. If I’m going to sleep alone,bealone, I have to forget. I’d thought tonight would give me something to remember when I was lonely, but instead, it just hurts, a knife twisting in my chest just like the one I know I left in Viktor’s.
Our marriage was supposed to heal a war, but we’ve started a new one instead.
—
The rest of the night isn’t easy.
I lie in bed in the dark for a long time, wrapped up in the robe, crying silently. I don’t want anyone to hear me, least of all Viktor, but I can’t entirely hold it in either. I’d thought the night with him would make things better for me, but it just made it all so much worse.
I’d always dreaded the idea of a cold, unfeeling marriage, even though I knew that was likely my fate. But this—a marriage where we want each other so desperately but can’t find a middle ground, is so much worse. I hadn’t known how awful this could feel.
Or how awful Viktor and I could be to each other because I know I’m not blameless in this. We’re both at each others’ throats, and I regret saying some of the things that I did during that last fight.
But I can’t exactly take it back now. And it was all I could think of to keep him from ignoring my wishes and continuing to take what he wanted from me.
I’d gone for the nuclear option, and it’s opened a gulf so wide between Viktor and me that I don’t see any way that we’ll ever bridge it.
When I finally wake up, the morning light starts to grey and peek through my curtains; I lay in bed for longer than I usually would. I don’t have any clothes in here, and I don’t want to go back into my old bedroom with Viktor still there. I know I’ll have to face him at some point, but I can’t yet, and definitely not in the room where so much happened between us last night.
It feels excruciating, watching the minutes tick by, thinking of what he’s doing. Wondering if he’s hurting too, if he missed having my body next to his when he woke up this morning, hating myself for caring at all, or missing him. Wanting things to be so different when they so clearly can’t be.
Finally, when I’m sure that it’s late enough that Viktor will already be up and going about his day, I slide out of bed, wrapping the robe tightly around myself and stepping out into the hall.
I ache all over, as if I’d run a marathon. Not just the lingering soreness from Viktor’s flogger last night, but my muscles, from the sex and adrenaline. It should have been a pleasant reminder of all the pleasure I’d experienced last night. Instead, it just makes my chest ache, in a way that feels worse than anything before this.
I feel empty, hollow, as if Viktor carved something out of me that I can’t ever get back.Or maybe I did it myself when I ruined any chance of us ever having a real marriage. When I threatened—
Is this what Vera felt? This empty, endless sense that nothing will ever get better? That I’ll never be happy again?
I’ve been through so much in a short time. It feels as if I’ve lived years since my engagement to Franco, but it’s been months. Not even a full year since I’d married one husband, been widowed, and married another—since I’d been kidnapped, brutalized, started to fall for the husband that I was never supposed to be given to in the first place and realized that there’s no place for those kinds of feelings in this marriage. There was no room for anything other than the marriage of convenience that it was always supposed to be.
The bedroom is empty, as I’d hoped it would be, empty and as cold as I feel right now. There’s no fire in the fireplace, and the lights are off, just the daylight coming through the curtains. Any sign of what Viktor and I did last night is gone—the bed made, the flogger put away somewhere, the scraps of my slip discarded. It’s as if it never happened, and I wonder if that’s how he feels, too, as if it’s forgotten.
Everything except the fight that came after. I know he hasn’t forgotten that.
I go through the dresser drawers, scooping out clothing to take back to “my” new room. Once I have an armful from that and the closet, I head back down the hallway, feeling a sense of loss as I close the door to the room that Viktor and I shared. I don’t know why, exactly. It’s not as if this place was ever even our home. It’s just a safe house, a luxurious fortress for us to wait out Alexei’s plots and plans until Viktor can put a stop to it. This place shouldn’t mean anything to me, but somehow closing the door on that bedroom feels like closing a door on something else, like it’s imbued with a finality that I haven’t felt at any other point.
Pushing it out of my mind, I walk back down towards the new bedroom I’m staying in, dumping the armful of clothes on the bed. I dig a pair of jeans and a sleeveless silk top out of it, throwing a soft cashmere cardigan over that and then going about the business of putting everything away. I could leave it for the maids to do, but something about that feels wrong. I don’t want to leave them needless work, and besides, it feels good to have something to keep my hands busy.
It’s almost noon by the time I finally make my way downstairs and force myself to go to the kitchen and find something to eat. I’m in the process of trying to use some leftover roast to make a sandwich when I hear footsteps and look up sharply, my heart skipping a beat in my chest as I imagine that it’s Viktor. I don’t know if I’m hoping for or dreading that possibility.
It’s not, though. It’s Sofia, walking into the kitchen and pausing as she catches sight of me. “Caterina!” She sounds surprised. “Are you okay? We noticed you weren’t down for breakfast this morning. We thought you might not be feeling well. Or that you might be sitting with Anika—”
“I, um—” I swallow hard, the butterknife that I was using to spread mustard on a piece of bread suddenly shaking in my fingers. “It was just a long night, that’s all.” I don’t know what else to say. I know Sofia would understand if I told her everything, but it feels too intimate, almost embarrassing.
“Something to do with Viktor?” she asks, picking up on it anyway. “Caterina, if you need to talk about anything—”
“I don’t know what to say.” I set the knife down, gripping the edge of the countertop. It feels cold under my fingertips, made of marble or something ridiculously luxurious like that, fancier even than anything I grew up with. I might have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, as Viktor so viciously threw in my face last night, Viktor has managed to ascend to heights of wealth that I couldn’t have imagined even in my family. Even Luca’s astonishingly luxurious, expensive penthouse can’t compare to this house, and this isn’t even Viktor’s primary residence. It isn’t even one that he uses all that often. It’s anemergencyresidence.
