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Isabella showed the doctor out and came back to show the other guys their rooms. Ivan and I stayed with Sephie. If she was going to allow us to touch her, we weren’t leaving until she told us to. Especially not when we could maybe give her some relief. We stood there for twenty minutes before she started to show signs of relaxing. She finally took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She didn’t have, as she called it, a murderous aura any longer. She just looked tired. She looked broken.
Misha came back to show us to our rooms as Isabella had gone to prepare dinner. We were staying here tonight, but then we had planned on leaving first thing in the morning to make it to Naples by tomorrow late afternoon. However, it now all depended on Sephie. We were traveling by motorcycle, as they were faster, and we could get through city traffic faster on bikes than in a car. I was worried about her riding that long while her hip was in pain.
Misha showed Ivan his room, then showed me where Sephie and I would be staying. I wasn’t sure she would want to share a bed with me, but we really didn’t have a choice. She walked in and sat down on the bed. She looked like a shell of herself. She wouldn’t look at me. She just stared ahead at the wall.
“Do you want to shower before dinner?” Tears welled in her eyes again. She looked down at the floor, trying to control the tears threatening to fall. I sat down on the bed beside her, pulling her to my side. She rested her head on my shoulder, but she made no attempt to touch me. She usually couldn’t keep her hands off me, just like I couldn’t keep my hands off her. It broke my heart.
“Come, we’ll shower. I’ll wash your hair.” She didn’t say a word, but she followed me when I pulled her toward the bathroom.
It took me a little longer than I thought to get all the hair pins out of her hair. She was right. That’s a lot of effort for nonsense. I found myself thinking back to when I first turned around to see her in that dress. It was absolutely perfect for her. She was modest, so it covered everything she was concerned with strangers seeing, but she showed enough leg that there was no missing her sex appeal. I thought about that first dance we had. The other girlfriends I’d had were never good dance partners. They were always fighting to lead. Sephie was different. She let me lead, completely surrendering to me, making the dance magnificent. She trusted me completely.
And I completely destroyed that trust.
I was lost in my thoughts in the shower, busy beating myself up over what had happened. I looked down, catching her staring up at me. She had a confused look in her eyes but said nothing. I was grateful for any eye contact, so I held it as long as she would let me. Trying to silently let her know I was sorry and that I loved her more than anything. She’d always been able to read my mind just by looking me in the eyes before. I’d hoped she was capable of doing so now. She stared at me for a few minutes, her eyes searching. Constantly searching. I let her read whatever part of my soul she was interested in. It all belongs to her. A tear fell from my eye as I looked into her sad eyes. She reached up and wiped it away with her thumb, leaving her hand on my face for a moment before dropping it along with her gaze. She allowed me to pull her to me and hold her. Her arms stayed limp at her sides, though.
She barely spoke at dinner, but she did eat. She ate a lot, even for her. She’d barely eaten the past three weeks, so it was good to see her appetite come back with a vengeance. The guys were quiet as well, all still feeling horrible about everything that had happened.
Viktor asked me in Russian, “Should we change plans for tomorrow? Do we need to arrange for a car instead? Or do you want to wait a day to leave?”
I thought for a few moments. “Let’s see how tonight goes and how she is in the morning. The drive to Naples will still be faster if we take the bikes. I don’t know which is worse, extending the trip out or making her ride a bike for seven hours.”
“Stop trying to change the plans because of me. I’ll be fine,” she said as she stood up and walked slowly back to our room for the night, leaving us all stunned.
We cleaned up after dinner and then all retired to our rooms. Sephie was laying on the bed, on top of the covers. She was laying on her good hip, which meant she was facing the door. She had taken her pants off, her road rash on full display. I took my shirt off and slipped out of my jeans, crawling in bed behind her. I was suddenly exhausted and wanted nothing more than to hold her for a few hours.
As carefully as I could, I wrapped my arms around her. I had hoped she would snuggle back into me. She did not. But she made no moves to get out of my grasp either. This will have to do for now.
Sometime during the night, I woke to her struggling in her sleep. She called my name and then she called for Ivan. She was replaying the scene in the ballroom. She did it over and over on the plane. She would call out my name, then Ivan’s name, then she would struggle. That’s when I started to talk to her. It seemed like it would help to calm her and it seems like it’s what eventually broke the cycle.
I tried it again. “Sephie, I love you, solnishko. Please come back to me. I can’t live without you.”
She sighed and I felt her push her body back into mine. I held her tighter. She was calm for a few minutes. Just when I thought she had fallen into a peaceful sleep, she called out for me again. Then Ivan. Then she began struggling.
“Sephie, I love you. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t care how many times I need to tell you for you to believe it again, but you’re my everything.”
Quiet. Instead of waiting for her to start the cycle again, I kept talking to her. “I’ve loved you since the first night I saw you, when you were standing at the bar. Your eyes were so wide when you saw Viktor and Andrei walk in. It was adorable. But then you locked eyes with me and I saw the look in your eye immediately change, giving me that spark that only I can see. Your friend Max had to push you to come show us to the meeting room. You almost tripped on your way to us. I was trying desperately to control myself as you walked closer. You were so cute. When you asked what you could get us to drink and Viktor told you waters for all of us, you cocked your head to the side and said, ‘Different.’ Then you immediately got worried you had offended me. It was all I could do not to kiss you right then. I stepped close to you, able to smell the floral scent of your shampoo. It drove me crazy. I sat down at the table and all I could think about was running my hands through your hair and what it would look like not in a braid.”
She sighed and made the quiet cooing noise she sometimes made when I would run my hands through her hair while she was sleeping. I reached up and ran my hand lightly through her hair. She started to roll over to face me but cried out when she hit her bad hip. She sat up, cursing, but still asleep. I got up and moved to the other side of her so she could lay across my chest, without having to lay on her bad hip.
She settled onto my chest, my hand still running through her hair. After just a few minutes, her fingers were lightly playing on my chest, and I knew she was having better dreams. I drifted back to sleep, while she played her favorite songs on my heart.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ivan
We all retired to our rooms for the night. I laid on the bed, trying to sleep. I was physically and mentally exhausted, but there was going to be no sleep in my immediate future. My mind kept replaying the look on Sephie’s face in the ballroom as she saw Boss going down. She looked to us for help and we had to run right past her. I glanced over my shoulder as Armando’s man grabbed her. I’ll never be able to forget her face when she felt him grab her.
Fear. She was legitimately scared for her life, but I think she was more scared for Adrik. I’ve seen that look before. When the one you love more than life itself is dying in front of you. That’s a look I wish to never see again.
When we were on the plane, Sephie had finally passed out from stress, but her mind was replaying the nights events too. We’d never heard her talk in her sleep. She’s fallen asleep around all of us at least once and never once had she talked in her sleep. Adrik thought she was awake at first.
She would desperately call for him, but then she would desperately call for me. She knew I was the closest one to her before everything happened. She trusted that I would save her and I ignored her. I could hear her voice calling to him, then me, over and over again while we were on the plane. It felt like it went on for hours. My heart broke a little more each time.
Now I was stuck replaying those scenes. Thinking about how I had let her down. The one woman I had let get close to me again. I knew she and Adrik belonged together, but I couldn’t help but love her too. We all did.
After a few hours of staring at the ceiling, I got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen. I stood against the counter, now staring at the floor, my mind still on the loop of everything that had happened. I knew we had fucked up bad when she wouldn’t look at me on the plane. I was the first one to see her. She was so scared that she couldn’t see past it. She didn’t trust her own brain to recognize me. Or Adrik. We fucked up bad.
I refilled my glass, sighing. I heard footsteps approaching the kitchen. Misha. He looked at me, “You can’t sleep either, huh?”
