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21
LAILA
“Laila,” a voice calls, “open the door.”
I came home a few hours ago, arms loaded with bags for everyone. Gifts for myself, obviously, but also for Polina, Dominik, Gedeon, Kira, and Nina. I even restocked a few of Arsen’s secret stashes around the house, though I kept that tidbit to myself. Guilia wouldn’t have liked it if I was out spending Arsen’s money on Arsen.
Then, finally, I dropped the rose pendant in Arsen’s palm and turned for my room.
Apparently, he followed me.
“I don’t want to talk, Arsen.” I answer through the door, punctuating the point with a loud, exaggerated yawn. “Your credit cards are heavy. I’m tired from swiping them all day.”
“No talking necessary. You just have to listen.” There’s a long pause. I hear the soft thud of his hand pressing against the wood. “You’re really not going to let me in?”
My hand inches involuntarily towards the knob, but I tuck it behind my back. “Nope.”
There’s another thud and then a slide. I see his shadow under the door. He’s sitting in the hallway, his back against the door.
Something about it plucks at my heartstrings.
I almost want to open it. I need to see the great Arsen Adamov sitting on the floor outside my room just so he can talk to me or I’ll never believe it.
But that’s what he wants.
So I stand my ground.
“Alright, I’ll talk from here,” he concedes. “I wasn’t trying to bribe you with the necklace. I just saw it… and I thought of you.”
Plink-plink,go my stupid heartstrings.
“I know you’re still pissed at me and I know that diamonds won’t fix anything?—”
“But you thought you’d try anyway? ‘She’s just a stupid woman. She can be distracted with something shiny.’Is that how it went?”
“No one would ever accuse you of being stupid,roza. You’re the smartest woman I know. You and Marie.”
My heart constricts the moment he mentions my mother. “I… Oh, fuck you.” I slump down to the floor to mirror his position, my back to the door, just a few inches of wood separating us from one another. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Some days, neither can I.”
An anger I thought I’d suppressed rises up in me hot and fast. “You’re the one who got to be with her in those final months, and she even wasn’t anything to you.”
“She was my mother-in-law,” he demurs. “And my friend. I visited her every single day while you were away. We’d eat lunch. We’d talk.”
I turn towards the door, wishing I could see his face, read his body language. “What did the two of you talk about?”
“Nothing. Everything.”
I trace a knot in the wood, my finger circling and circling. So much for trying to pretend I don’t care about what he has to say. I’m drinking in every word, every sigh.
“Mostly you,” he admits from the other side. “You were the love of Marie’s life.”
The lump in my heart travels up to my throat. “You lost your mother, so you decided to steal mine?”
The words are out of my mouth before I’ve had a chance to think them over. My guilt rushes in to fill the silence between us.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble quickly. “That was a horrible thing to say.”
