Page 29 of Charmingly Obsessed

“Understanding,” he repeats, his voice dangerously quiet now.

He tilts his head, his gaze pinning me, sharp and intense.

“Understanding. Let me show you some fucking understanding, then, Diana. “Understanding had absolutely nothing to do with what happened between us last night. Or this morning. Or what’s going to happen again. Very, very soon. I will fuck you – we will fuck – however I want, whenever I want. I don’t care how, or where, or in what way.

And we will do so much more than just fuck.

Is that enough understanding for you, wife? ”

I don’t know why, but my face burns as if I were the entire annual Christmas advertising budget for Coca-Cola, suddenly, inexplicably, set on fire. Flames, hot and mortifying, shoot up for miles.

I was not expecting Mykola Frez, the suave, sophisticated man, to just… say it. Out loud. So bluntly. So crudely. So… honestly?

I thought… I thought I’d be left guessing. Wondering. When the next time would be. If there would be a next time.

Maybe he only seduced me, only married me, to get me to agree to this Royce charade.

Maybe he figured out a long, long time ago that I was pathetically, hopelessly in love with him.

A man like him… he must be used to women wearing out their hearts, their dreams, their sanity, over him.

And yet… he does like me. At least a little. You can’t always be that tender, that passionate, that… present… unless something inside you stirs. Unless there’s some genuine connection.

That’s the most tormenting part.

The tiny, flickering, dangerous hint of a chance .

“…Diana?” He’s looking at me from under his brow now, his expression almost… uncertain? Vulnerable? “I… I started off too harshly there. Because–”

“It’s fine.”

“Really?” he whispers, his knuckles slipping slightly off the edge of the countertop. He looks… hopeful?

“Yes,” I force a small, awkward smile. “You have… needs . I… I understand. If that’s how things are…

with this marriage… then it’s just more convenient this way.

For both of us.” I push myself to say the next words, the words sticking in my throat like broken glass.

“I… I really enjoyed last night, Mykola.”

It feels like shedding my skin all at once.

Like finally, finally climbing that endless, impossible staircase from my recurring nightmares, the one I’ve never been able to reach the top of for twenty long, lonely years.

“You’re serious?”

He straightens up, pushing away from the counter, and walks deeper into the kitchen. God, I just want to go home. Run away. Hide.

With him standing half-turned like that, his back to me, I won’t have time to make it to the hallway and out the front door before he intercepts me.

I should’ve gone back to Serafima’s immediately after the registry office yesterday. Better yet, I should have enrolled in daycare instead of accepting this insane marriage proposal.

I sigh internally, a tiny, hysterical bubble of amusement rising amidst the chaos.

Well, at least I’m not such a complete disaster when it comes to my actual work. Small mercies.

“I have a very specific need , Diana,” he says, his voice carefully neutral again as he tosses the empty water bottle into the recycling bin.

He pulls off his sweat-soaked t-shirt, wiping his face with it, exposing a broad expanse of tanned, sculpted torso that makes my mouth go dry.

“Couldn’t be more specific, actually. I’ll tell you all about it…

when you grow up .” He pauses, then lets out a short, crooked, self-deprecating laugh.

“Or maybe you won’t even care by then. Who the hell knows. ”

He shakes his head, the movement sharp, dismissive.

The fact that he actually says “ when you grow up ,” with that casual, patronizing arrogance, kills whatever fragile, hopeful mood had started to flicker within me. Dead.

“I should go, Mykola. When can you show me the first batch of acquisitions? At the other apartment?”

“Whenever you say.”

The way he says it, so formally, feels… cold. Distant. Like we’re strangers again.

“W-would after three this afternoon work for you?”

He gives a vague, noncommittal nod.

I head towards the front door, my steps heavy, my heart even heavier. I wait for him to open it for me. To say something. Anything. But I don’t hear any footsteps behind me.

I try to figure out the complex electronic lock myself. Clearly, I need to use the sleek, integrated screen on the side, which seems to require fingerprint access. His fingerprint. Not mine.

When I glance back, involuntarily, over my shoulder, Frez is standing a little farther away now.

As if he’s just stepped out of another room, another dimension, and stopped abruptly in the middle of the hallway.

Standing still. Tense. His arms crossed over his bare chest.

His hair still tousled from his run, damp with sweat. Looking devastatingly, unfairly handsome. And utterly unapproachable.

I ruthlessly forbid my treacherous heart from thrashing against the bars of its cage like a dying fish.

I have to maintain my composure. I’m holding onto this coldness for a reason: if I let it go, the overwhelming force of this intense, complicated man will consume me completely. I know I’d never find my way back.

“Help me get out, now,” I say, my voice too sharp, nearly closing my eyes in frustration at my own inability to sound calm, cool, collected.

Instead, I just sound… irritated. Bitchy.

“Press 9534.”

I wait for more instructions, for him to elaborate, but he just stands there, watching me, drawing out the moment.

“Place your finger on the screen,” he says finally, his voice still maddeningly calm. “And hold it.”

I obey, pressing my fingertip against the cool glass. But I don’t understand how the door will unlock. My biometric data hasn’t been entered into his system beforehand. Unless…

“Now enter 0313,” he instructs. “Then apply your fingerprint again. So it lets you out.”

With clumsy, trembling fingers, I follow his directions. 0313. My birthday.

And then I press my finger to the screen again. I must have just registered my fingerprint in his highly sophisticated, probably CIA-level security system. Just like that. Easy.

The door clicks open with a soft, almost inaudible snick. But I don’t move. There’s no sound behind me. My hand hovers for a long, agonizing second over the cool metal of the door handle. But I just stand there, staring at it.

Unable to leave. Unable to stay.

Frez starts to say something, my name perhaps, but I don’t wait to hear it. I step out so quickly, so abruptly, the world outside his penthouse door blurs in front of me.

I take the stairs down. All thirty-something flights. Instead of the silent, swift elevator.

The torn trench coat, a pathetic casualty of our earlier haste, hangs off me like a beggar’s rag. My legs are bare, cold, exposed. The simple, unadorned gold band on my finger – it’s so plain, so unassuming, but when I look at it, my vision flickers, dims, with a strange, partial blindness.

Everything dulls, fades to gray.

Except for the faint, almost imperceptible glint of low-karat gold on my left hand.

Yeah. So this is how temporary, convenience-marriage billionaire wives spend their mornings: confused, disheveled, and desperately trying to outrun the ghosts of a night we’ll never forget and will definitely regret.