“You caused me so much pain, Dmitri.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I did?” he asked quietly, glancing sideways.
“Yes.” My voice stayed steady, but my chest ached with the truth of it. “And I will never fully forgive you.”
He didn’t defend himself. Didn’t deny it. Just listened.
“We had something sweet once,” I continued, the words pulling themselves free. “I was fifteen. You were nineteen. Secret meetings. Stolen kisses. You made me daisy chains and promised we’d run away together.” I swallowed. “Then life tore us apart.”
The road curved along the lake, dark water flashing through trees.
““Ten years later, you returned,” I said, shaking with anger. “Forced me into marriage, dragged me from New York on my twenty-fifth birthday, and brought me to Lake Como... a place I was never meant to belong.” I stared at him. “Everything after that was hell. Pure ruin.”
His jaw clenched.
I stared out at the dark lake flashing by, the water catching the headlights in brief, broken shards before dissolving back into black.
“You hated me,” I said finally. My voice was calm—too calm. “Or thought you did.”
Dmitri’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, but he didn’t interrupt.
“You blamed me for your mother’s death,” I continued. “Believed I’d cheated on you. Believed I betrayed you.” I let out a breath that scraped. “You punished me for sins I don’t even remember committing.”
The car hummed beneath us, engine steady, indifferent.
“You body-shamed me constantly,” I went on, words loosening now that they’d started. “Called me fat. Compared me to Seraphina—her elegance, her posture, her pedigree. You made it sound like I was something you tolerated instead of wanted.”
His jaw flexed, muscle jumping.
“After our first sex,” I said, “you abandoned me. Months, Dmitri. Months of silence. I was married to you and still alone. Then I found out I was pregnant.”
The word landed between us like a dropped glass.
“You left me to carry that terror by myself,” I said. “No calls. No answers. No protection. Just rumors and servants who wouldn’t meet my eyes.”
He exhaled slowly through his nose, as if every word cut deeper than the last.
“You locked me in a dark room,” I said quietly. “For days. No windows. No clock. I lost track of time. Lost track of myself.” My fingers curled against my thigh. “You ordered me to terminate the baby. And when I refused—when I begged you to listen—you sent me away.”
The lake vanished behind trees. Darkness pressed in on both sides.
“So you could marry her.”
Silence swallowed the car. Not the peaceful kind. The suffocating kind. The kind that pressed against the ears until it rang.
The SUV swerved suddenly.
Gravel screamed beneath the tires as Dmitri slammed on the brakes, the car rocking hard before stilling.
Headlights cut long, blinding beams into a wall of dark pines. The engine idled, a low, restless growl.
He turned fully toward me now, forearms braced on the steering wheel, eyes searching my face in the dim glow of the dashboard.
“I did all of those things to you?” he asked.
His voice wasn’t defensive. It wasn’t angry.