Page 14

Dimitry

Malaga, Spain

Present Day

I wake in Abby’s apartment with a pounding head, dry mouth, and sickening feeling that has nothing to do with the stupid amounts of alcohol I consumed last night.

I lie on the couch where I fell asleep, trying to muster up the courage to look at my phone. Despite my drunken state, I managed to dig out my old phone charger before I went to sleep.

Part of me wishes I’d never left a charger here. Then I could hide from whatever answer does—or doesn’t—come.

Without sitting up, I reach over and tap the phone resting on the coffee table. The date glares up at me like a death sentence. And the blank screen beneath it leaves me as hollow as death itself.

It’s nine a.m. here, which means it’s five p.m. in Australia .

There’s still time.

I drink water from the bottle I left on the coffee table and collapse back down onto the couch. I have no desire to go anywhere or do anything, even though I know I’m going to have to leave at some point.

I’ve muted messages from Roman, because I know there’ll be a dozen. I can’t face him or Darya right now.

Abby’s is the only number set to get through my phone’s Do Not Disturb filter.

I need to get through this day, then start planning the rest of my life. After today, there’ll be no more indulging in memories, in torturing myself with what could have been.

So until I actually have to leave, I intend to make the fucking most of my memories while there’s still some kind of chance.

I turn my face to the couch and lose myself in the sweetness of the past.

Malaga, Spain

Two Years Ago

I’m sitting in my car, on the phone to Roman, watching Abby through the glass window of the Malaga café.

She’s packing up at the end of her shift. When some of the African street hawkers begin stacking her outside tables, she waves and smiles with such open delight that I find myself smiling back, even though she can’t see me.

I watch as she insists on filling the men’s water bottles, then putting a foil tray of leftovers on the counter for them to take.

One of the hawkers offers her a pair of sunglasses from his sale board, and she waves him away, laughing.

He insists, shaking his head when she tries to pay him.

Finally she puts the glasses on and poses like a model, to everyone’s mutual hilarity.

I don’t miss the money she stealthily tucks beneath the foil covering on the tray as she waves them goodbye.

I never tire of watching these exchanges. Whether it’s slipping a leftover pastry to the homeless man down the street or a surreptitious free coffee to someone who looks a bit down, I can’t count how many times I’ve seen Abby make people smile.

I’ll go inside eventually. But I take a secret delight in watching these small acts of kindness before she realizes I’m here. It’s like a glimpse into an inner Abby, a soft part of her that lives somewhere beyond the sass and tough exterior she shows the world.

Not to mention the delicious sense of anticipation I get from looking at her long legs and perfect ass.

“Dimitry.” Roman’s voice crackles impatiently through my phone. “I said, are you still there?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, not really listening to him. “Yeah.”

I love watching the way she dances around the café when she thinks she’s alone, smiling to herself or singing the snatch of a song.

“Are you with Abby right now?” The annoyance in Roman’s voice makes me smile. “You sound distracted.”

“I’m about to be. She’s just closing up.”

I’m not going to pretend like creeping on my girlfriend is high-level behavior.

But her ridiculously tiny shorts climbing up over the curves of her ass, not to mention her perfect handful-sized breasts bulging out of her T-shirt, visible in the mirror behind the bar, is a delicious treat that I’m in no hurry to rush.

Especially given that inside an hour from now, both the T-shirt and the shorts will be on her bedroom floor, and those gorgeous long, tanned legs will be wrapped around my back while I lose myself inside her.

“Lucia tells me Abby has started pulling some casual shifts at Pillars.” Roman’s voice jolts me out of my extremely pleasant fantasy.

“Some, yes.” I frown. I’m not a huge fan of her working shifts at Nikolai’s nightclub, not least because I know exactly the kind of questionable fucks who hang out there.

But I also know she needs the money. And even so early into our relationship, I know better than to offer Abby help, or—God forbid—tell her what to do.

“You might want to be careful there, brother. If Abby’s hanging out at Pillars, she’s likely the kind of trouble you don’t need.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I manage to keep the annoyance out of my tone.

Barely.

Roman snorts. “Copy that. Have a good night.” He hangs up without waiting for a response. Luckily, since any further attack on Abby would have left us in a very awkward space indeed.

Because the truth is that after thirty years of very emotionally detached encounters with a series of infinitely interchangeable women, whatever this thing is between Abby and me has come as something of a revelation.

Abby is funny.

Fascinating.

Incredibly talented, when she lets me actually look at her artwork, which she’s seriously shy about doing.

Utterly loyal to, and fiercely protective of, her best friend, Lucia.

And surprisingly unafraid of Roman, which pisses him right off and I secretly find amusing as hell.

Quite apart from all that, Abby is mind-blowing in bed .

Not because she has some secret tricks I’ve never come across. Frankly, after the wild years Roman and I have spent drinking and whoring our way around the world, there aren’t many tricks that would come as any kind of revelation.

Sex with Abby is mind-blowing precisely because she doesn’t employ tricks of any kind.

Not in the way she talks with me, and never once we’re naked.

Sex with her is both simple and yet also like walking into a foreign land, one that is utterly fascinating and full of endless wonders.

The way I feel when I’m inside her is nothing like anything I’ve ever known before.

I can’t explain it, even to myself. All I know is that before her I never understood why any man would settle for one woman.

And now that I’ve found her, I know that no other woman will ever interest me again.

In only a matter of weeks, being without Abby isn’t something I even want to contemplate.

I’m about to leave the car, go into the café, and sneak up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist and cupping one of those delicious breasts while I kiss my way up her neck, when the door to the kitchen opens and a man walks in from the rear of the café.

“Pete,” I hear Abby say resignedly, her voice drifting through the café’s open door. “I wasn’t expecting you to come back at closing.”

Pete. Her boss. This is the first time I’ve seen the man in person. Abby normally refers to him as Revolting Pete, and now I can see why. Fat, balding, with a greasy face and narrow, unpleasant eyes, Pete has a cigarette dangling from his mouth and an enormous belly hanging over his trousers.

“It was a busy night.” He has a blunt English accent that smacks of middle-class posturing. “I thought I’d come and divide the tips up in person.”

Oh, I just bet you did, motherfucker .

The way Pete’s eyes run over Abby’s body pisses me off even from here. I want to burst in and break his bloated face.

I also know Abby well enough to be pretty sure that if I cause her to lose her job, the chances of her ever talking to me again are minimal.

Fuck.

My fists clench, every muscle tense.

If he goes anywhere near her, that mudak is fucking dead.

“That boyfriend of yours not here tonight?” Pete glances around, smirking, as he empties the till.

“Got sick of you already, did he?” He turns around remarkably quickly for such a big man, standing right behind Abby, on a small step stool as she wipes the glass shelves of the bar.

The way she goes still, and the frozen expression on her face in the mirror, are enough to have me out of the car, on high alert.

And when Pete idly puts his fat hand right on her ass, I crash through the café door faster than you can say workplace harassment .

I don’t bother announcing my arrival. I just reach across the counter, grab a fistful of Pete’s trousers, and haul the asshole right over it. He lands in an inelegant sprawl of limbs at my feet.

“What—” he begins, but I don’t let him finish. I pull him to standing by the front of his shirt, then plant my fist squarely in the center of his face.

“Fuck!” He staggers back against the counter, touching his nose, then staring at the blood on his hands in disbelief. When he meets my eyes again, his are dumb with shock. “You can’t do this! I’ll have you for grievous bodily harm!”

“The bodily harm would be so fucking grievous,” I snarl, slamming him in the face again for good measure, “that it would be worth it.” I pull him off the counter and pluck the roll of cash from the breast pocket of his stained white shirt.

“ Abby’s quitting.” I wave the roll in his face.

“Consider this her severance pay.” Turning him toward the door, I kick him in the ass to push him through it.

“Now fuck off,” I growl, “and don’t even think about coming back until we’re gone, you piece of shit. ”

Fortunately, the idiot doesn’t pause to argue. He just takes the hint and runs.

I turn back to find Abby staring at me, pale faced and trembling.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry, Skip.” I come around the bar slowly, holding my hands out. Too late, I realize they still have blood on them. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She shakes her head, her cornflower-blue eyes wide. “You didn’t frighten me.” She smiles shakily. “If I’m honest, that was the best thing I’ve seen in a long time.” She drops her eyes, then peeks up at me from beneath her lashes. “Not to mention by far the hottest.”

Relief floods through me.