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CORA
You’d think living in an adjoining room with the guy would have us tripping over each other several times per day, but no. Since the night of our not-a-date, he’s been a ghost.
I wake up early in the morning and he’s already gone.
I wait up at night and he stays out even later.
For all I know, he might be a bat sleeping upside down in a tree somewhere. Because he certainly isn’t getting enough sleep in the bedroom next door to mine.
The thought of where exactly Ivan might be sleeping—whohe might be sleeping with—has me burying my nose even deeper in the historical romance novel I found tucked away in the lowest, dustiest shelf of the library.
Angst and confusion aside, all this free time to kick back and relax has been nice. It’s been so long since I’ve had time to read a book or contemplate my relationship with a man. Even having a relationship with a man to contemplate, fraudulent and temporary as it may be, was a luxury before all of this.
Now, I’m lousy with time to ruminate on all things Ivan Pushkin.
I try to focus on the text in front of me. On Jessamine trying and failing to climb atop her horse, so the scandalous rake Duke Andrew has to help her. He grabs her waist and she tenses all over. A man in Victorian England has never touched her like this. She’s aflame.
“Relatable,” I groan, slamming the book shut.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s hard to escape thoughts of Ivan when I’m living in his house. Especially when we can’t talk about what happened the other night.
He found me in the shower and proceeded to raise my standards for all future sexual encounters so impossibly high that I might as well not even bother dating anyone else.
I’ve been ruined on all men who are not Ivan Pushkin.
Yet I have no clue if that was a one-off born out of our undeniable chemistry or if he’d like to repeat it again. Right now. And then an hour from now. And many times more in the future, maybe until we both die from overstimulation.
“Oh, God.” I sink down into the velvet lounge chair and cover my burning face. “What is happening to me?”
The only reason I’m here is because someone wants to kill me, but I’m spending ninety-five percent of my energy wondering if Ivan thinks I’m cute.
It’s pathetic.
I’m lying on the chaise, the book flat on my chest and my gaze stuck on the ceiling, when my phone rings.
I jolt out of the chair and fumble for my phone in my back pocket like my life depends on it. But when I see the number, my disappointment is visceral.
I drop back down into the chair and answer. “You shouldn’t be calling.”
“You called me first,” my mother says. “I can only hope it’s because you’re ready to come home.”
I bite back a humorless laugh. “I called because I thought you could talk to me. I thought things could be…”Like they used to be.“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
When I called the other night, my mom was stunned. Now, she’s had time to prep for this call. She’s playing her part perfectly. “You know how I’m doing, Cordelia. I do miss you.”
I shiver at my old name. It’s like passing through a ghost. The air around me seems to drop twenty degrees.
“I miss you, too.”
Truth is, I’ve been missing her for years. Way before I left. I’ve missed my mom since the day she got married to my stepfather.
“Then come home,” she pleads. “Call off this engagement or whatever it is with Ivan Pushkin and come home.”
I freeze, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Where did you hear about that?”
“It was on the front page of the society section.”
“You read the newspaper?”
