Page 51 of Savage Boss
I shrug into my robe and escape my room, seeking refuge from the fear that gnaws at me like nothing else ever has. Falling for Clara feels like a cosmic joke, a betrayal of the vow I made that there would never be another woman put in harm’s way simply for being loved by me. It feels reckless, inviting the universe to punish me for daring to smile, to find happiness.
I don’t think about where I’m going, my feet simply take me there. To a room on the other side of the penthouse, a room that is never opened, except for the staff to clean and nothing more.
The sun streams in, the light catching the dust motes, so the air seems to sparkle, like I’ve entered an enchanted realm frozen in time.
But it is not sorcery. Nor is it a fairy tale, where a kiss can return loved ones from the dead.
It is just the way Lauren left it. The computer, now out of date, sits on the desk, as though she’ll come in at any moment to turn it on. The books on the shelves. The handful of knickknacks; the glass bauble she brought back from a trip to St. Petersburg with theWinter Palacefrozen inglassfor all time.
Lauren’s office.
I cross to the bookcase beside the desk, where she kept her favorite photo of the two of us. I hate photographs, but she demanded one on a sunny summer day inCentralPark. She has on the sundress that drove me wild every time she wore it, her auburn hair shimmering in the bright light, her smile that captured my heart the moment I saw it.
I stare at the photo, at the younger version of myself, without the lines around my eyes and mouth, no silver at the temples. At the woman who had my whole heart and took it with her when she died. The woman whom I miss every moment of every day of every year that passes without her. I never thought someone who had been raised in the frozen cold to lead a group of nightmare men doing nightmare things, a man raised not to feel, but to think and plan and kill, could love someone with such ferocity, much less love anyone at all.
And now there is someone else in my life who has become too much a part of it, in a way that makes me panic. A woman who has managed to take some of my pain away, to fill that dark, empty space with the hope of beginning something new.
“What do I do?” I ask into the empty air, but the woman in the picture doesn’t answer. I lean my forehead against the bookshelf. “I miss you,moya krasivaya. You were air to me. Water. Sun. Life. And now there is another who brings the light back into my life, and I am terrified of losing her like I lost you, my love.”
I have to protect Clara. I cannot let anything happen to her. Iwill notlet anything happen to her. It’s a noble aspiration, but it’s that and only that in my brutal, dark existence.
I need Clara to live, for the light to remain in her eyes, because without that light, the shadow of my loss and my world will claim me entirely. If anything happens to Clara, I won’t just grieve, I will shatter, and New York will burn.
I should push her away. I should let her go, as she was trying to run last night. I should show the world she means nothing to me, less than nothing.
My hand closes, squeezing into a fist with a restless, desperate energy that has no recourse.
“I don’t deserve her, Lauren. I didn’t deserve you. I don’t deserve happiness or light. I’m not a good man; I’ve done too many terrible things. There is too much blood on my hands.”
The woman in the picture does not respond to this either. But I know what Lauren would say. How many times did we have that conversation?
You are just as deserving of love as anyone else.
“I’m not. My past is littered with bodies and broken lives. Lives I’ve destroyed with my own hands or on my orders.”
Everyone deserves love, my love—even you.
“You know what I am.”
I do, and I still love you for everything else you are, too. I chose you, Dmitri. You and no one else.
The conversation would always end with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, as she reminded me just how many others she could have had, which would inevitably devolve into wrestling and laughter.
I know what she would tell me now:You deserve love and light, my love. Don’t run from it. Don’t turn away from it. Take the blessing that is given to you. Find someone else; I don’t want you to be alone. I never wanted you to be alone.
“But I am alone. I’ve always been alone, except when you were with me.”
“Dmitri?”
I turn to find Clara in the doorway. Her hair is mussed, her cheeks still slightly flushed from the warmth under the quilt, her eyes catching the light as she gazes around the room with uncertainty. Her fingers play with the hem of the shirt she has on—my shirt—discarded on the floor the night before.
The emotions, the feelings, the attraction I’ve tried so hard to push away break through the last of my barriers in Clara’s presence. It’s impossible not to feel, to want, to desire, to crave her when she is near. More than that, I simply wish to have her in my life.
“Is everything okay?” Uncertainty dances around her question.
“Yes. I woke early and didn’t want to disturb you.”
Her eyes sweep around the room, taking it all in. She doesn’t press for details, though I imagine she is curious. Her gaze settles on the picture behind my shoulder.
