“I’m not. I couldn’t write a book if my life depended on it. I can’t make a roomful of senior citizens light up when I walk into a coffee shop. I certainly am not going to take on a couple of little boys or a baby girl. Quite possibly, they’d eat me alive. I have certain skills, but not one of them will lend itself to any of those things.”
She continued to look at him. He meant what he said. He just didn’t get it. “Andrii, I’m falling in love with you. When you open your eyes and realize I’m boring and scared and I’ll never be your match, you’re going to get restless. You may stay with me because you’re loyal. I see that in you. I don’t believe you’re a cheater, but you aren’t going to be happy, and I couldn’t bear that.”
For a moment he looked very upset, and then he crouched down beside the tub, where he could look directly into her eyes. “Azelie, look at me.” He waited until she managed to raise her gaze to his. “You need to hear me. Really hear me. I’ve had countless women in my life. That was part of my training. Even missions I went on involved seduction of a target. I’m not telling you any of my past because I’m proud of it—just the opposite. You need to understand I’m not normal. I’m never going to be normal. I don’t have natural erections as a rule. As in never since I was a teen. Everything in my life has been about control. I didn’t ever feel alive. I went through the motions because I believe in what we do. I’ve experienced trafficking, and more than anything I wanted to be part of an organization to stop it. But I wasn’t living. I didn’t enjoy great food or drink. I didn’t enjoy the women I fucked. It was a release for me, nothing more. Some days, it was damn tough to find a reason to keep going.”
He had to stop. Her eyes burned with tears. Not for herself, but for him. He was giving her the absolute truth of his life and it wasn’t pretty.
“It doesn’t matter how experienced I am at sex if I’m not enjoying it. Killing people isn’t a gift, it’s a curse. My life was a total fucking mess until I laid eyes on you. You don’thave to understand that you brought me back to life, but you do need to understand there will never be another woman for me. Not ever. You’re the one or it’s no one.”
He never once shifted his gaze from hers. How could she not believe him? He was right, she didn’t understand the how or why of it, only that Andrii believed what he was saying with his entire being. She tried a smile to reassure him. She didn’t know why she was reassuring him because to her he was as perfect as a man got.
“I don’t know how you see yourself like that, Andrii, but I’m going to take what you say as an absolute.”
“I won’t lie to you, Azelie. I haven’t lied to you. Not about my past and not about what I want for our future. If there comes a time when I have to ask you to wait for explanations, have faith in me. Trust me to look out for us.”
“I have faith in you, Andrii. It’s me I feel always falls short.”
“Stop feeling that way. It’s you I want. It’s you I’m always going to want. They say no one can promise forever, and that’s fucking true because we’re all facing death. I can promise you that when I take my last breath, I’ll be thinking of you. It’s always going to be you.”
There it was. Complete conviction. Her heart nearly exploded at the look in his eyes. Stark love. That was what she saw looking back at her. She wasn’t used to love, but there was no other way to describe what she saw etched into the lines on his face and in the depths of his eyes.
He was amazing. The fact that he had genuinely developed such intense emotions for her in so little time shocked her. Elated her. There was no way she could have poor self-esteem and sabotage what they had if he looked at her that way. She would never be worthy of him if she wasn’t willing to fight for them the way he was.
“It’s always going to be you, Andrii,” she admitted. “There’s no one like you in the world. I know I don’t want anyone else. I’ve never looked at anyone else.”
He swept his hand down the back of her head. “You have to stop running from me. I’m doing everything I can to showyou what you mean to me. Maybe it isn’t enough. I’m new to relationships, but I swear, baby, whatever you need so you’re absolutely certain of us, I’ll find a way to give it to you.”
“I think you just did, Andrii.” She sounded breathless, choked up, mainly because she was. There was a lump in her throat she couldn’t quite get around.
“Your parents programmed you to believe you aren’t worthy of love. I may not go to counselors, but I’ve heard Blythe telling her children that they were programmed by the people who took them. When you meet her, you’ll see that Blythe makes sense. Once we broke out of that school and were out from under Sorbacov, I never wanted to view myself as a victim, so I tried not to hear her. But she makes sense. We’re going to run into these glitches sometimes, not through our own fault, but because past experiences shape us. I know I’m going to need reassurance at times. I know I’m going to be a moron and test you, but I’m aware that I do that shit and it isn’t fair to you, so I’ll fight those tendencies.”
Her heart melted at his admission. She loved that he would let her know he expected to fail at times. It made her feel as if her continual battle with self-esteem could be acknowledged and hopefully overcome.
“You could let me know when you’re having a difficult time, Andrii.”
“I think that’s a very good idea. A wise man once told me good communication is the key in a relationship. When you need extra reassurance that I find you the most beautiful woman on this planet, inside and out, you let me know. We can do this, Zelie. I know we can. You just need to believe in us the way I do.”
Azelie found it interesting and a little sad that he was all in, seemingly without reservations, and she was such a coward she kept throwing roadblocks in their way. There were reasons. She was intelligent enough to know Andrii was holding back something huge, but at the same time, she found that she did trust him. Something in her responded to him.
She knew she had good instincts when it came to judgingpeople and their motives. She could determine whether they were liars and what kind of character they had. The bottom line was she believed Andrii and she wanted to be like him—taking a deep breath and jumping in with both feet.
She nodded her head slowly, determined she was going to let go of her fears.
***
“He wrote a song for me,” Azelie announced as she flung herself into the chair beside China. “Andrii plays in a band, and he wrote a song and played it for me. Right there in the club. He told everyone the song was for his lady.”
She couldn’t help sounding breathless. Andrii made her breathless. He’d been so loving and sweet, holding her all night, whispering the most outrageous things to make her laugh. There were no nightmares when Andrii slept in her bed with her. There was no room for them because Andrii made sure of it.
Penny’s breath exploded from her throat. She patted the tabletop beside Azelie’s hand. “A band? He plays in a band? And wrote a song for you? Musicians are thebestlovers. It’s their artist’s soul.”
Doug groaned and slapped his palm against his forehead. “Don’t tell her such nonsense, Penny.”
“What are you doing encouraging her to be a groupie?” Carlton demanded. “And musicians aren’t necessarily the best lovers. Any man who pays attention to his partner’s needs is a good lover.”
Penny rolled her eyes. “You don’t understand the significance of a man with a poet’s soul. His very artistry gives him a superior skill right off the bat.”
Doug made a noise in his throat that sounded like a cat dying of strangulation. Then he began a coughing fit. Azelie politely pushed the glass of water she hadn’t yet touched to him in the hopes of saving his life. He had turned an alarming shade of lobster red.
