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“I’m not letting you get any sleep, am I?”
“I can’t sleep anyway.”
There’s a sliver of space between us now, but I can still feel the heat of his body warming mine. I slide a little closer to him and wedge my feet under his legs. His hand comes to rest against my hip.
“The first time this happened, I was alone,” I hear myself whisper.
“Clara.” Misha needs no explanation.
“I spent weeks in my bed with the curtains drawn. I slept constantly. But only because I never got any rest.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Maksim,” I say softly.
I’m not sure why it’s important that we say their names now. Maybe because in some inexplicable way, they’re all linked now. Clara. Maksim. Rose.
They all died with so much life left to live.
“I wasn’t very nice to Rose at the beginning,” I admit. Because why not? I have so much guilt built up inside me; inviting in more won’t make any difference. “I was threatened by her. Because… because I thought you hired her as a replacement for me.”
His silver eyes are hooded, but I don’t miss the shadow that passes over them.
I push myself up onto my elbow. “Misha? What aren’t you telling me?”
His forehead wrinkles.
“Was I right to assume that?” My heart rate is rising rapidly. “Was she meant to be a threat to me?”
“No.” There’s a heaviness to the one-word response that I don’t understand.
“Then what—”
“She was meant to look like you, Paige. That was the whole point. The resemblance wasn’t a coincidence.” I frown and he blows out a breath. “Petyr had already made too many attempts on your life. I wanted insurance. Rose was exactly that.”
I feel a wave of nausea wash over me. “You’re… you’re saying she was… you meant for her to—”
“She was hired to be your assistant, but she was also hired as your body double. She knew the risks involved with the job. I made sure to spell them out for her explicitly.”
“You’re… you’re really not kidding.”
My veins run with ice. Air squeezes in and out of my throat, which is tightening every second with panic and nausea.
Misha squeezes my hip. “Breathe, Paige,” he tells me in the same tone I used with him earlier. “Breathe.”
The tightness in my chest eases and I inhale. “Why would she even agree to a job like that?”
“Because she wanted to provide for her family. She wanted to make sure her daughter never lacked for anything.”
“She was willing to risk her life for it?” I shake my head. I’ll never understand this. He could explain it a million different times in a million different words and I will never, ever understand.
“We can’t always question other people’s decisions. Sometimes, we just have to accept them.”
“You’ll still pay her, won’t you? Her daughter?”
“Of course. The agreed-upon money has already been transferred into Rose’s account. I’ll set up a trust fund for her daughter that will mature when the child comes of age. She will be taken care of.”
I close my eyes for a moment and count heartbeats. My pendant is resting snugly inside my palm, but this is the first time that it hasn’t felt like enough.
