You Don't Own Me 2 (The Russian Don 2)

She picks up her glass of champagne, drains it dry and carefully puts the empty glass back down. ‘Whoa, Dahlia. You’re not surely going to hold me to my promise. This is so mind-blowing. How can you sit there and tell me something like this so calmly? What is wrong with you? I’m fucking freaking out here.’

‘I reacted the same way when I first found out, but I’ve had time to assimilate.’

‘Time to assimilate? Fuck! When did you find out?’

‘Last night.’

‘Jesus, Dahlia am I going crazy, or are you still with him?’

I pick up the bottle of champagne and fill Stella’s glass. ‘You’re not going crazy and I’m still with him.’

‘Oh my God. Oh my God! I don’t believe this. While I was not watching you’ve gone and morphed into one of these weird women who thinks it’s OK to write romantic letters to serial killers on death row, haven’t you?’

‘Stop being so dramatic.’

‘Dramatic? If I can’t be dramatic now, when the hell am I ever going to be dramatic?’ she demands intensely.

I sigh. ‘Olga explained it all to me.’

Stella’s eyes become dinner plates. ‘Olga? She’s the fucking cook! How on earth did she explain it all away?’

‘I don’t know. She made sense.’

‘He kidnapped your sister, Dahlia!’

‘Do you want to calm down and listen, or do you just want to rant for the next hour?’

‘I’m torn. I want to rant, but I’d really like to hear how his cook explained away a kidnapping too,’ she says sarcastically

‘Basically, she believes that Zane has suffered some horrendous trauma and that is why he is the way he is. He’s like a tortured soul,’ I pause, ‘and she thinks I’m the person to save him.’

She folds her arms. ‘It’ll be interesting to hear how you plan to do that?’

‘Well, I don’t know yet, but I’m working on it.’

She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘So you’ve forgiven him and all is hunky dory in your world.’

I look at Stella’s understandably horrified face and I realize don’t know how to explain what Zane and I have. How can I tell her that I am so connected to Zane it feels as if I don’t derive my real nourishment from food and drink but him? Sometimes it is impossible for someone outside a relationship between a man and woman to appreciate or even comprehend the nature of the bonds that hold the couple. The bonds that hold me to Zane are like tempered steel. I want him. I need him and I cannot even imagine my life without him in it anymore. He holds my wellbeing in the palm of his hand.

‘It’s not that I’ve forgiven him,’ I explain, ‘it’s just that I’m trying hard to understand him. I come from a loving, close knit family so I have no right to judge someone who might not have had the things I take for granted.’

I shrug.

‘I don’t know anything about Zane’s past. He won’t talk about it, but I can tell that he is the product of something unhappy. He exists in a violent world with brutal rules and has to abide by them just to survive, but underneath the cold exterior that he projects to everyone, I’ve seen glimpses of a beautiful but wounded and suffering man.’

For a few seconds she simply stares at me blankly then she grabs the neck of the champagne bottle and pours herself another glass. I know she is trying her best to grasp what I am telling her, but it is hard for her. She takes a big gulp.

‘Did he know?’ she asks, jerking her head in Noah’s direction.

‘Apparently they had all guessed.’

‘Bloody cheek. Pretending to be all nice and helpful to me. I’ve a good mind to go there now and tell him off.’

I reach out and grab her hand. ‘Don’t you dare do any such thing, Stel. It’s not his fault. This is between Zane and me. They didn’t know for sure. They just guessed.’

‘I’m surprised that you are not more angry.’

I look down at my hands. ‘I guess it’s because I understand what it feel like to want someone so bad you’re willing to do almost anything to get that person.’

She looks at me curiously. ‘Do you feel that way about him?’

I bite my lower lip and nod slowly.

‘Oh no,’ she gasps in horror. ‘What a mistake it was to let you go in my place that night.’

I shake my head. ‘Don’t say that. I wasn’t even truly alive until I met him, Stel. Even if it all falls apart tomorrow I’ll never regret what I’ve had with him.’

‘Oh Dahlia. I hope and pray things work out for you,’ she cries softly, but her voice is full of doubt and worry.

I smile. ‘Look no matter what happens I’ll survive, but here’s the thing, we didn’t come out tonight to be depressed. Remember we’re getting irretrievably wasted. Let’s just do that. Come what may.’