She hadn’t said anything of the sort. Before he and I had started this relationship, she’d gotten one look at him while I’d been kicking her out of my apartment. Her eyes had gone wide, and then she’d told me to marry him. That I’d have the most beautiful babies, and everyone would be jealous. He’d heard every word of it. Though, it must have been a normal thing for him to overhear because his dry expression didn’t falter.
“Do you know what the best thing for a broken heart is?”
“What?”
“Fresh air. It cured mis hermanas cancer, too.”
It was then I realized I hadn’t moped like this since Antonio. And that was a dark part of my life I never wanted to return to. I was not going to let Christian turn me into another one of his heartsick castaways. I crawled out of bed, showered, and then got dressed in something more suited for a club than a walk around the city.
On my way out of the lobby doors, my gaze caught with another’s. My stomach dipped to my toes. Just the sight of him—every straight line, polished silver watch and cufflinks, blue—it felt like a hit of a drug I’d been withdrawing from.
He wasn’t so professional beneath his clothes. Not so cold in the bedroom, with his hand around my throat and the heat of his body against mine. And not so heartless, with his malyshkas and rough Russian words in my ear.
Something deep and immeasurable flickered through his eyes before he looked away. We passed each other, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. I could even smell a trace of his custom-made cologne.
He didn’t stop me.
And neither did I him.
Maybe this was really over.
My stomach twisted into a knot at the thought. My lungs tightened with every breath.
When I’d first met this man, his presence annoyed me. How did I get here, tearing up at the smell of his cologne?
I walked around the city, absently dodging potholes and cyclists, in thigh-high boots. I ate a hot dog from a food truck. Sat on a bench, watched the sunset, and pretended I was in control of my life
. When that was so far from the truth.
I’d never felt so lost.
The low lights scattered and reflected the red of my underwear into the clear water as I waded in the pool.
It was late, past midnight. The pool was technically closed, but it hadn’t taken much to coax Trevor the pool boy to slip me an extra key.
I went under, holding my breath until my lungs burned, until it was all I could feel. When I came back up, a prickling sense that I wasn’t alone touched my back. My head swung to see someone sitting on the edge of a chaise, elbows on his knees.
Eyes of melted ice and polished steel looked back at me.
My heart stilled and then filled with a desperate hum.
“I was fifteen,” he said.
Confusion flickered through me, but then I realized what he was telling me. How he’d lost his virginity.
“I’d been in Butyrka for a few months by then. I was in on murder, but trust me, malyshka, they fucking deserved it.”
I’d seen him kill a man for annoying him, but, by the vehemence in his tone, I believed him.
“They could only convict me on one, and I was a minor, so I got off lightly with five years. Ronan was a year younger and only got four. But he dealt with prison better than I ever could.” His eyes grew grim. “I fucking hated that place.”
I waded to the side of the pool and held onto the ledge, water dripping off my eyelashes.
“The most sun I’d get some days was a few shafts of light through a ventilation window. We’d only get a shower three days a week. And even then, you had to fight for any soap provided.”
I suddenly didn’t mind how much he washed my hair.
“One of the correctional nurses noticed I’d read all the books on the shelf. She started to bring me new ones every week. Getting attention from a woman there . . . it started shit with the other men. A lot of them were wary of me. They called me kholodnyye glaza. Said there was something missing in my eyes.”