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I pretended to fiddle with my cup, trying to figure out how I could get more information from her. Aleksey was telling me nothing, and if I was going to remain his wife, I needed to know about anything that could affect my future with him.
“I take it that he didn’t care for your father very much,” I tried, pulling in the knowledge I had to make the assumption.
Alya was silent for a few moments before she gave me a single nod. “Something happened between them long ago. Something bad.”
I knew it. Inwardly I was cheering myself along, hoping that another door in Aleksey’s secret life would be opened and I could start to understand where he had come from.
“What was it?” I prodded.
“I don’t know,” Alya replied quickly, her cheeks flushing. “I really don’t. But it changed my brother forever. Please don’t ask me anymore, Elia. Please.”
The pain in her voice was so evident that I knew better than to keep pressing. I tried to put myself in her shoes, knowing that if it was me, I would want to hold secrets about my family close to me as well.
“And I want you to be happy,” she continued, reaching across the table to grasp my hand. “So please don’t ask him either. Please don’t shut my brother out. He might be difficult, but he’s completely worth the time. I swear it.”
I felt in her words that she believed what she was saying, and I couldn’t fault her.
Nor could I fault the fact that I wanted it to be true, and I just didn’t know what I was going to do about it. I should hate Aleksey. I should hate him with every fiber of my being, but with each kiss, each moment with him, I found it harder to hate him.
I was terrified of what he could do to my heart in the end.
Or what I was willing to do for him.
“I will do my best,” I told Alya, hoping to soothe some of her worry. I was going to find out what Aleksey’s father had done to him and what broke Aleksey.
I just had to be smart about it.
“I think you should wear that yellow dress tonight,” she changed topics quickly. “You look amazing in it.”
Despite all my thoughts and attempts to rationalize my feelings for Aleksey, I blushed at the thought of having his undivided attention tonight.
After saying goodbye to Alya, I took the waiting car back to the penthouse, lost in thought the entire way. What was it that had transpired between Aleksey and his father? Would he tell me if I asked?
I wasn’t so sure. Aleksey was clearly a person who kept to himself, and I was just now starting to break the ice wall around him. Besides, he suspected that I had some other agenda by marrying him.
As if I would help my father out in any way right now. I might have followed through with this marriage, but I wasn’t looking to destroy my own husband.
Not anymore.
Things had changed between us. I didn’t want to be my father. I didn’t want to think that everyone was some sort of target, some sort of pawn that he could use to his advantage. Marrying Aleksey might have been just another sentence at first, but now I realized it had opened doors that I hadn’t thought about before. I had yet to tap into what the name I carried brought to me and what it could give me in my life.
After walking into the penthouse, I headed to the bedroom and dumped the bags on the bed, pulling out the yellow dress from its bag. It was a pretty dress, with a V-neckline that would show off my chest. A slit ran along my thigh, which would give Aleksey plenty to look at when he got home.
A secret thrill ran through me at the thought of him not only looking at the dress, but also taking as long as he wanted to peel it off me. I wanted to see that gleam in his eyes, the one that was followed by a searing kiss, or maybe him pressing me to a random wall in the penthouse.
I fanned myself. It was easy to forget anything else when I thought about my husband like that.
Draping the dress over my arm, I headed to the bathroom. Aleksey would be home in a little while, and I planned on letting him see this dress in action.
Maybe, just maybe, by doing so, I could get him to open up a little about himself and this tension that had lived between him and his father. Was whatever happened the reason he had gone to New York in the first place? Was some weird twist of fate between his father and him the reason I no longer had my brother here on Earth?
My steps faltered, and I drew in a breath. It seemed that our families had been intertwined long before I had come into the picture and at a higher level than I could have realized. Had Aleksey’s father sent him to kill my brother in New York?
If so, the contract had apparently been decided for a long time, according to my father. If that was the case, how could Aleksey’s father send his son, knowing that at some point, he and my brother would cross paths?
Shaking my head, I continued to the bathroom, hanging the dress on the back of the door so I could undress. There were so many holes that I needed to fill with information so I could understand it all, and my husband was going to be the start of my investigation. If he didn’t share anything with me, then I would have to give him a reason to do so.
His sister was right. I didn’t want to be unhappy in my life or in my marriage. We couldn’t have secrets between us in order to be happy.
