Page 17

17

ALEK

I ’m always careful not to let anyone see me without my clothes. But after midnight, with the mansion completely still and quiet, I feel safe going out to the hot tub.

No one will see me this late. And the thought of soaking in hot water, the jets massaging the muscles that feel like they’ve been wound tight for the last five years, is impossibly tempting.

Evelyn and Dahlia are out, and I have no doubt that by the time they come back, they’ll go straight up to bed. Dahlia isn’t going to seek me out—she’s gone out of her way to avoid me whenever she can, especially after our encounter in the library. The staff that live off-property are gone, the others gone to bed, and Dimitri went upstairs hours ago. So I throw on a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, and head outside to the pool deck.

It’s incredibly peaceful outside. The estate is far enough away from the city that there’s almost no ambient noise—just the sound of the occasional breeze rustling through the trees. It’s a clear night, the sky glittering with stars, and the quiet peace of it makes my shoulders relax ever so slightly. I draw in a deep breath of the fresh air, and I’m reminded that despite everything, I’m free. I’m no longer caged, no longer subject to someone else’s whims and impulses.

Turning on the jets in the hot tub, I strip off my clothing, leaving it nearby as I step down and sink into the bubbling water, letting out a low groan as the heat sinks into my muscles. Pointedly, I try not to think about how I walked out to see Dahlia here earlier today, in that scrap of an emerald green bikini, covering so little of her that I might as well have almost been looking at her naked.

Not that the image of her naked body hasn’t been burned into my mind since that one night that we spent together.

I reach down, adjusting my swelling cock. It jerks in my hand at the contact, and I lean back against the edge, letting my head fall back as I lazily drag my fingers over the stiffening shaft. I don’t have any intention of finishing the job, but after so many years of denial, the pleasure of lying naked in a hot tub and toying idly with my cock feels nearly hedonistic. I need to find some place of my own, if I’m going to stay, I think as I lie there. I can’t live here forever. The thought of this kind of silence and privacy with no one else around is impossibly tempting, and I let myself linger on it.

And Dahlia ? I have a wife now. Someone who I’m supposed to provide for, live with, like it or not. I don’t like it, and I don’t think she does either, but right now that doesn’t change anything.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the baby isn’t mine. A likely possibility, as far as I’m concerned. And if that’s the case, I’ll be free of her as quickly as I can get a divorce finalized.

“Alek?”

The sound of her voice, almost as if my thoughts summoned her, jolts through me like an electric shock. For a brief moment, I start to turn around—until I remember that I’m naked, and she’s not all that far away from the sound of her voice. If she comes any closer, she’ll see everything I tried to hide that night in her bed.

“Turn the fuck around!” I snap. “Don’t fucking come out here right now.”

I hear her sharp exhale of breath, and the sound of her footsteps. “I swear to fucking god, zhena , if you come any closer?—”

“Oh my fucking god, Alek!” Her voice rises, sharp and frustrated. “I came out here because I needed to warn you about something. Something happened . I didn’t come find you for my own fucking enjoyment, you can believe that!”

She sounds pissed, and it stirs something in my chest. I don’t know what it is about Dahlia angry, but it makes me want to push her buttons even harder…makes me want to tease and taunt her until she flies off the handle entirely. Something about her anger, the way she looks when she’s lost all her patience, makes me so turned on it’s nearly painful.

As evidenced by the fact that my cock is hard enough to breach the water at this point, just from hearing Dahlia’s voice shouting at me across the deck.

“Quiet down,” I growl. “You’re going to wake someone up. You can tell me tomorrow.” I sink further under the water, and I hear her make an irritated sound.

“Fine,” she snaps. “You can just discover the consequences of your own actions, then. I don’t know why I even bothered.”

Something about her tone of voice, angry as it is, tells me that she’s genuinely worried. I growl in the back of my throat, pissed that my peaceful evening was interrupted, but I call out to her all the same.

“Turn around, and don’t look until I tell you,” I call across the deck. “And then you can come over here, and we’ll talk.”

“Fine,” she bites out again, and I look over to see her standing at the far edge of the pool deck, her back turned to me and her arms crossed over her chest.

I push myself up and out of the hot tub, grabbing a towel and drying off cursorily before reaching for my clothes, despite the fact that I’m still damp. When I’ve got my sweatpants and shirt back on, I call out to her.

“You can come over here now.”

“Thanks for the permission,” she drawls sarcastically, turning to look at me. Her gaze sweeps over me as she starts to walk over to where I’m standing, and I see her eyes linger for a moment on the tented front of my sweatpants. I reach down and adjust myself slowly, enjoying the slight falter in her step as she suddenly tries to look anywhere except at my hand on my cock.

She might say she’d rather die than let me touch her again, but her body language says something different.

“What is it?” I cross my own arms, glaring at her. “You’ve interrupted my night, so I hope it’s something good.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s good .” Dahlia sinks down onto the edge of one of the lounge chairs, and the sudden gravity in her expression sets off an alarm in the back of my head. Whatever’s going on, this isn’t just her trying to ruin my night. She’s genuinely concerned.

I stare at her, willing her to continue, and she draws in a slow breath.

“A man came and talked to me at the bar tonight. Not just any man,” she adds quickly, before I can cut in and say something sarcastic. “He knew things about you. About both of us—about Dimitri and Evelyn. He told me you were dangerous, and that he knew you.”

My eyes narrow at that, a jolt of something that almost feels like fear sparking through me and chilling my blood. Is it possible they’ve found me? That they’re here ? The thought of that, the idea that I might be being watched, that my past might be something I can’t escape, twists my stomach into knots.

“What did he look like?”

“Bald. Light blue eyes, dressed all in black. He had a very thick Russian accent, thicker than you or Dimitri.” Dahlia hesitates, and those knots in my stomach tighten further. “Does he sound like someone you know?”

“What did he tell you?” I can hear the defensiveness creeping into my tone, can feel all of my muscles winding tight again, the urge to flee rippling through me. To leave this house, Dimitri, Dahlia, everything , and find some way to hide so that they can never find me again. Remembered pain sparks over my skin, like a thousand cuts grazing over my flesh, and I grit my teeth against the phantom sensation.

“He didn’t really tell me anything useful.” Dahlia bites her lip. “He knew that I’m pregnant. He said he wanted to talk to you. He—he made me an offer.”

My gaze sharpens. “An offer?” That sensation of needing to run intensifies, suspicion bleeding through me, an old wound reopening. I was right not to trust her. Not to tell her anything that she could use against me. I’m all too familiar with the sensation of betrayal, and even though she hasn’t done anything yet, I can feel myself getting angry, primed to unleash all of those emotions onto her as they start to bubble up again.

Fuck her for making me feel all of this again. For dragging up these old hurts. For ? —

“He asked me to bring you to the bar tomorrow night. To go there with you, and then leave and go to the ladies’ room. He said someone would be waiting for me, and they’d pay me so I could bail after that.” She swallows hard. “He offered me five million dollars.”

“So why are you sitting here right now?” The words come out bitter, sarcastic, and I see a flash of hurt across Dahlia’s face as she looks up at me.

“You think I’d sell you out? I don’t know who this guy is, but he seemed dangerous. I got a bad feeling from him. You think I’d just trick you into going to meet someone like that? If what he wanted wasn’t something bad, then he’d come find you himself.”

I shrug, even as something starts to churn in my stomach, a sense of shock at everything she’s saying. “For five million dollars, most people would.”

Dahlia’s gaze holds mine. “Well, I guess I’m not most people, then.”

For a moment, neither of us speaks. She didn’t take the offer, a small voice in the back of my head whispers. She’s not the person you think she is. The person you think everyone is, now. Maybe she’s telling the truth about everything.

“Why didn’t you wait and go to Dimitri with this in the morning?” I ask tightly. “It’s not as if our conversations are ever pleasant.”

Dahlia raises an eyebrow. “You’re right about that,” she says dryly. “But I’ve seen that there’s problems between you and Dimitri, too. I don’t understand it any more than I understand what’s going on with you personally, since you won’t talk to anyone. But I didn’t want to cause more division between the two of you. You’ve been an ass to me, but you’re the father of my child. And this is clearly your problem.” She shrugs. “So I wanted to give you a chance to handle it.”

Something softens in me, when she says that. A pang in my chest, a feeling that I’m not even certain how to give a name to, because I haven’t felt it in so long. I try to shove it away, but it remains as I look at her, wondering if I’ve been wrong.

She came to me first. She was honest about it—about all of it. Have I just been an ass to her this whole time for no reason? If she told the truth about this…

I look down at her still-flat stomach, and for the first time, I consider—really consider—what it might mean if she really is pregnant with my child.

If I’m actually going to be a father.

I swallow hard, that pressure in my chest more painful than before, tight and making it feel hard to breathe. If she’s telling the truth, if she’s not trying to fuck me over in some way, then I haven’t been the kind of man I want to be. And they’ve ruined me more than I ever thought possible.

“Thank you,” I manage, and I see her eyes widen slightly. She clearly wasn’t expecting me to appreciate any of this, and that makes me feel even more like shit. “I’m glad you told me. I—don’t say anything to Dimitri, alright? I’ll deal with that. With all of this. Don’t say anything to Evelyn, either. Just…keep it between us.”

I wonder if she’ll refuse. If she won’t agree to keep my secrets, now that she’s told me. But she just nods, and the gesture startles me so much that it takes me a minute to realize that she’s willing to do just that.

“I won’t say anything,” she says quietly, getting to her feet. “Sorry I interrupted your night.”

“Dahlia—” I start to speak, but she’s already walking away, her steps quick, as if she can’t wait to put distance between the two of us. I watch her go, my hand rising to rub at the ache in my chest, as if it’s a physical thing that I can wipe away.

My stomach clenches, and something else washes over me, that possessive feeling that, strangely, she’s made me feel since the moment I met her.

She was in danger tonight. And now, everything has just become far more complicated.