No future would be happening between us when he couldn’t open up to even thinking about changing his lifestyle for me.
As I dried off then got dressed, my mind made up, I sighed and wished this didn’t have to end this way. With me openingmyheart to care about him and start this painful process of realizing I loved him while he wouldn’t do the same. With me worrying if I would live or die if I chose to be near him or his family and soldiers.
I was in too deep. I was stuck in a cycle of heartache.
And I prided myself and cared about myself too much to settle for that.
A twinge of pain struck my head, and I cringed at the start of something like a hangover. I never drank. I never drank like that, fast and desperately, and I regretted it now. But I left the room and knew I couldn’t allow myself to regret leaving.
Before I could, I had to at least check on Anya. That teenager was tugging at my heartstrings too, a fellow “prisoner” here in the building. We weren’t close, not intentionally when I wanted to avoid getting involved with this family and her rebellious nature to be snarky and aloof with everyone. Yet, we had gotten nearer to each other. She leaned on me when she was scared and wounded. I came to her with concern and worry about the trauma she’d endured.
Anya was only a girl. A child. At heart, she acted like a mature pain in the ass at times, but I doubted there was a teenager on this planet who didn’t succumb to attitudes like that. She was tested more than any other, I bet, with her mother dead, her relatives bitter, and a complicated and murderous crime boss as a father. Even Andre was distant from her, a brother she’d never known.
Shaking my head at all the thoughts about the teen, I continued toward her room. She would be sleeping, but I had to at least see her one last time and tell her goodbye.
At the crux of it, shewasmy patient, and I never, ever wanted to ditch a person who’d been under my care. Anya was also not my patient, though, just someone else who was stuck in this cycle of being captive yet not. Of being protected and smothered.
I opened the door as quietly as I could and entered. A maid was still seated there in a chair, watching over her. Smirking at the maid dozing, her head hanging to the side as she, too, couldn’t manage to be awake in the middle of the night, I approached Anya.
Her bruises would fade. The cuts on her skin would heal without much scarring. But the damage was inside. She was traumatized by her capture. She was heartbroken and lost without a family to support her.
But it’s not my fight.
I was taxed enough with fighting to survive in the aftermath of ever crossing paths with her father.
Prioritizing her care couldn’t be my mission. I cared. I wanted to be here to see her smile and reconcile with Mikhail and Andre and everyone in this building. I just couldn’t do so without sacrificing my life and my happiness.
It’s not my place.
Reaching over to tuck her loose hair back off her face, I sighed and tried to wall off the emotions that watching her gave me. Already, I was compromised. Playing doctor to her wasn’t the hardest part of it. That came naturally to me. The other parts challenged me.
How was I supposed to befriend her with small talk and learn how to play the piano from her when we passed time without getting too close and caring that she was happy?
How could I be expected to hold her when she cried and lamented that she had no one and no family to love her without wondering ifIcould fill those roles?
I didn’t know how to keep close and let myself get more attached to this troubled teenager while keeping my distance. It was becoming impossible, just like it was now absolutely impractical for me to stay here under Mikhail’s wishes, to sacrifice my moral compass because he wouldn’t budge on his.
“Behave, Anya,” I whispered, so quietly that I wouldn’t wake her or the maid who was mildly failing at being her nurse. “Behave and be happy.”
Leaning over to press a soft kiss on her forehead, I moved as slowly and gingerly as I could. If I were to wake her, I would need to stay and give her that illusion that I wasn’t leaving her, wasn’t abandoning her. She neededsomeone, but it couldn’t be me. Not when I was giving myself up for a man who wouldn’t and didn’t love me back.
I snuck out of her room as quietly as I’d come. Going back down the hallway, I reassured myself that I’d jotted down all the notes and information that someone else could pick up where I’d left off with her care. She had no broken bones, no infections, no internal injuries. I seriously doubted she’d suffered a head injury. I was sure she didn’t have concerns of a concussion either. Regardless, earlier when she was napping in her room, I’d written down my notes and suggestions for follow-up labs. Just in case.
When I got back to my room, I walked to the desk for paper and pen again.
Noting anything else about Anya would be overkill. She truly would heal—physically, at least—with rest, hydration, and easing into movement with the expected aches and pains of strained joints and tender muscle from bruising hits.
This time, as I sat to put the pen to the paper, I hoped to leave a different kind of message.
A warning.
A rebuke.
But not an apology. I couldn’t apologize for wanting to leave and have a better future for myself than anything else that could come to me here.
Sex was not all that mattered in life.
Satisfying my curiosity about dark, dangerous men wasn’t all that I should desire.
