Akim sighed as if he were carrying a burden he didn’t choose. “The boss bought the hotel your father is staying in under your name. All we need is your signature. I already reviewed every document before bringing them to you, so you can sign and keep your copy to go through afterward.”
I stood with that for a second. Dmitri bought a hotel and put it under my name. What on earth? “Meaning I own the hotel,” I said.
“That is exactly what hotel ownership means.” He delivered it flatly, and I took a breath because this man had gotten on my nerves.
“Okay, listen, Akim.” I kept my voice even because I was a reasonable person. “I don’t know what I did to you or why you find me so unbearable, but your rudeness is unnecessary. You just walked up and told me I own a hotel. Do you expect me to smile and sign without asking a single question?”
“Yes,” he said without blinking.
I looked at him for a moment and accepted that I was arguing with a wall. He was executing what he was instructed to do. Theonly person with actual answers was Dmitri. That was where this conversation ended.
I looked at the papers. “Can I sign these later?”
“No. I need—”
“I will sign them once I’ve reviewed them.” I was the boss’s wife, and if that meant anything in this house, then it needed to mean something right now.
Akim stepped back. “I will let the boss know.”
“Thank you.”
He turned and left. I stayed standing in the hallway, letting the silence settle around me for a moment before my thoughts circled right back to Caitlin. I looked down at my phone and thought of calling her again, but stopped myself.
I had seen bruises on her, and she brushed them off with explanations that never sounded convincing. She mentioned hitting a fridge. I also remembered the way Ivan pressed his hand into her shoulder the other day. My stomach twisted painfully. Was he beating her?
I looked in the direction Akim had disappeared. He knew Ivan, and I didn’t really understand why my first instinct was to run after him, but that was exactly what I did. I rushed through the front door just as Akim’s car started pulling away from the building. I waved my hand as I ran after him. By some miracle, he actually stopped. When I reached the driver’s side, he rolled the window down and looked at me. “Can I help you?”
He was the wrong person to talk to, but it was good trying. “I was wondering if you know Ivan well.”
“Sorry?”
“I just called Caitlin and heard some noises. She was crying, and a man was yelling at her.” Akim stayed quiet, actually listening while I spoke. “I probably shouldn’t be getting involved, but it sounded like they were fighting. The man told her to stop pretending she was bleeding to death.”
Akim pulled out his phone immediately and started tapping across the screen. I caught Caitlin’s name before he pressed call and held the phone to his ear. His fingers drummed once against the steering wheel before he muttered a curse under his breath and looked back at me. “Call her.”
“Oh. Okay.” I called her again and held the phone between us on speakerphone. The call went through and kept ringing long enough for my stomach to sink.
Caitlin answered just before it disconnected. Screaming hit the speaker, and a door slammed hard enough that the sound cracked through the phone.
“Caitlin,” I called. “Cate—” The words died in my throat when a loud banging noise echoed through the line, and Caitlin screamed again.
“Shit.” Akim started the car instantly, and I jumped back from the window as he sped out of the driveway.
I stood there frozen with the phone still clutched in my hand long after Caitlin ended the call. My legs refused to move. Ivan was hurting her. He was actually hurting her. And all I could do was stand there, replaying every moment. She had bruises she explained away, apologized for things that were never her fault, and smiled nervously. All of it suddenly had a face behind it.
I just hoped Akim was going there.
The waves rolled in and pulled back with the same rhythm, the water catching the last bruised colors of the sunset before darkness slowly swallowed the sky. I sat on the beach with my knees pulled against my chest, the wind pushing strands of hair across my face.
I came here because I couldn’t stay in that house and sit with my thoughts any longer. Not when Caitlin might be hurt somewhere, and not when there was suddenly a hotel sitting under my name.
I twisted the ring on my finger, wondering why Dmitri would buy me a five-star hotel. When I agreed to this fake marriage, nobody explained that the terms would keep shifting beneath my feet like this. Nobody mentioned that every new day would arrive carrying another reason for me to feel things I could not afford to feel. First, Dmitri rescued my father and treated it as nothing more than another task on his schedule. Then he showed me exactly how jealous he could get. Now he was out here buying an entire expensive hotel and stowing it under my name like that was a normal gesture between two people pretending to be married.
The arrangement was temporary, which meant falling for him was not an option. So why was I slowly feeling things anyway? The feelings didn’t even have the decency to consult me before arriving and settling in my chest.
“What are you doing here?” Dmitri asked suddenly, and I turned so quickly, my heart racing. He stood behind me in the dark,
“Hey,” I said, because somehow that was the only thing my brain produced.