“You can handle it?” I asked, still perversely trying to get a rise out of him. “Even if I don’t go home with you at the end of every day?”
“It’ll tear me up, but I’ll find a way,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”
I said nothing as I watched him walk out the door. It closed with a quiet click, and his footsteps got farther away until I couldn’t hear them anymore. What the hell was I doing? I should be running after him. Everything in me was fighting my old, ingrained fears so I could go back where I belonged and be who I was supposed to be.
Rurik Fokin’s wife.
And yet, I just couldn’t. I was rooted to the spot, tears streaming down my face. The lack of sleep hit me like a tidal wave, and my body sagged, no longer buzzing and glowing from Rurik’s touch. It was only nine in the morning, but I foundmyself back in bed, burying my face in the pillow that still smelled like him.
Later on, when I could drag myself out of bed, I went outside to ask the guard if his boss had arrived yet. Rurik said he’d come for dinner the next day, but foolish hope made me peer down the street, looking for a car with a tall presence inside, watching in my direction.
Foolish because I had been the one to send him away. He wasn’t there, and I ate a frozen meal that tasted like cardboard, ending up throwing half of it away before collapsing back into bed. The next day, I decided not to go to work. The truth was, I wouldn’t be able to handle it either.
I spoke to my Aunt Gigi for over an hour, not telling her everything because she would have been on the next plane to console me, or rescue me, or whatever it was I needed. She only knew I was having a hard time, and told me I was the greatest and I’d get through it because I always did.
Nice words that didn’t do a thing to raise my spirits or help me figure out what was right.
“Why are you even thinking about this?” I asked myself out loud as I flipped through channels with the TV muted.
Rurik was a criminal, and the only crime I ever committed was shoplifting a candy bar when I was ten. And I couldn’t even eat it because I was convinced it would make me sick. The last time I got a traffic ticket, I cried the whole way home, wracked with guilt that my impatience might have gotten someone killed.
And yet… I didn’t feel a speck of guilt when I thought about the scuffs on Rurik’s knuckles when he admitted they were there because of whatever he did to Jordie. I found I didn’t give a single shit what happened to the man who used to makeme jump with fear every time he put his damn game controller down.
I wasn’t that woman anymore. I had found the strength to get away, and Rurik had helped me believe I could do a job I never thought I’d even get without my degree. He didn’t mock the goofy sci-fi books I read—he read them along with me. He told me I was beautiful instead of warning me that if I ate a second slice of pie, I’d get fat.
His hands only ever gave me pleasure, never once pain.
I may have saved myself from Jordie, but Rurik took him out of the equation. I no longer had to look over my shoulder or flinch at every gangly guy in a hoodie who was anywhere near me. Even if I never went back to Rurik, I was safe. Because of him.
Oh, hell. Could I deal with a little crime or not?
A knock on the door jolted me out of my thoughts, and I jumped up, hoping it was Rurik to convince me to at least come back to the office.
Instead, it was three of his cousins at my door. Mila, Nat, and Lilia were decked out in Beverly Hills finery, looking incredibly out of place in the outer corridor of my apartment.
“Lunch,” Lilia said, the first to crowd in. “You need lunch.”
“And shopping,” Mila added.
Nat scowled. “I thought we were taking her on a gallery crawl?”
I couldn’t get a word in edgewise as they told me to get out of my pajamas without a hint of judgment that I was still wearing them so close to noon. “Hurry up,” Lilia said. “I skipped breakfast.”
The other two snorted and teased her for still being a newlywed, insinuating she’d been occupied in bed for too long that morning.
“It’s a benefit to Gavril working from home.”
I threw on some designer jeans and one of the nice silk blouses from all the clothes that Rurik had bought me, and let them steer me out to their chauffeured car waiting at the curb. Seeming to recognize the guard, they waved and greeted him by name.
“You don’t think that’s a little weird?” I asked when we were pulling away. “I think he might be armed,” I added.
They burst out laughing, nodding toward their driver. “Do you think he’s not? He’s not just there to carry our bags, you know.”
“So not weird, then.”
“Now that you know the truth, we’re here to answer any questions,” Mila said. “And no, Rurik didn’t send us.”
“Gavril’s sick of listening to him complain, though,” Lilia said. “And I don’t like seeing him suffer, either. He’s my favorite, no offense to you guys,” she told Mila and Nat.