Page 53

The word slices through me. I care about him, too. In fact, a part of me was starting to embrace the depths of my feelings for him. To accept that I was falling in love with my husband. I’d even started to hope he might be falling for me, too.

But love without trust is nothing. No, it’s worse than nothing. It’s having the promise of something wonderful and beautiful, only to have it crumble into ashes as if it never existed.

“You care, but not enough to trust me. You said so yourself just now. I should have listened weeks ago, but you can bet I’m listening now.”

I start down the stairs. Each step feels like I’m walking through wet cement.

“You’re running away again.”

I stop, one hand clenched on the railing. A frisson of anger darts down my spine. Slowly, I look back at him.

“It’s not running away if you’re leaving something that’s not good for you.”

I turn and walk toward the car. The driver is still waiting. As I climb into the back seat, a stupid, foolish part of me waits for him to call out. But as the driver closes the door and there’s no sound but the thudding of my pulse echoing in my ears, I know I’ve made the right choice.

Even if it breaks my heart.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Michail

A helicopter soarsabove Central Park, the blades whipping about in their endless circular pattern and sending a cascade of noise up toward my balcony. I lift the glass of whiskey to my lips. The noise is a welcome change from the graveyard silence of my penthouse.

I glance at my watch. Six o’clock. The florist should be delivering a bouquet of red roses to her apartment now.

My fingers tighten around my glass. It’s been a week. One week since Alessandra walked away without a backward glance. One week since I went back into my mother’s house to find her still sad but strong. The trails of her tears had still been evident on her face.

But instead of finding her catatonic, she’d been standing in front of the easel, her shoulders back, her chin determined. She’d looked at me, then frowned and glanced over my shoulder.

“Where’s Alessandra?”

I told her part of the truth, that she’d decided to go back to the city and give us time to work through this. What I didn’t mention was how much I had screwed up, how I had pushed my wife away in the blink of an eye. All because I couldn’t take the risk she had and let myself fully trust the woman carrying my child. The woman who had repeatedly given herself to me,letting down her own walls even as I fought to keep mine in place.

When Alessandra said she had been contemplating more for us, a future beyond that first anniversary, it felt like someone had reached into my chest and cracked it open, releasing the feelings that had been building since that first night in Santorini.

Love. I had been falling in love with Alessandra for months. But I had been so fixated on keeping her at arm’s length I couldn’t see it. Then, just when she was preparing to offer even more of herself, I had once again blazed right past the facts of the situation and demonized my wife without a moment’s hesitation. Had I told her before about my mother, if I had trusted her with the truth, we could have faced everything together.

Now, less than two weeks into my marriage, I’m drinking alone.

I showed up at Alessandra’s apartment just a few hours after she left my mother’s home. I knocked for fifteen minutes, talked through the door. I’ve called every morning and every night. My voicemails are short. But they’re honest. Telling her good morning and I miss her. Sharing something that happened in my day, something that made me think of her, the baby. Wishing her good night.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve almost said, “I love you.” I want to tell her in person the first time, have her see the truth of my feelings so she doesn’t think I’m trying to manipulate her into coming back for the sake of the will or the baby.

But there’s just silence. No texts, no phone calls, not even an email.

The worst part is, anything I would have done in the past to get a woman’s attention, to apologize, would mean nothing to Alessandra. Jewelry, clothes, a luxury trip. They don’t matter.

Having my trust meant the most. Now, when I want to offer her not only my trust but my heart, she’s out of my reach.

As I wrack my brain trying to come up with something, anything that will show her how sorry I am, how much I need her in my life, a ding sounds behind me. Hope shoots through me. I sit up and look over my shoulder. Then groan as my brothers step out of the elevator. Gavriil spots me in an instant and makes a beeline for the terrace door. I slump back down in my chair as I hear the door open behind me.

“We have got to stop getting together like this.”

I rub the bridge of my nose. “I don’t disagree.”

Fingers pluck the glass from my hand.

“Hey.”