I found myself in my mother’s arms as father shoved us to the ground, covering us with his body. The floor shook. I screamed as a deafening blast tore through the room. My ears rangviolently. Screams and cries echoed all around us.“Sasha!” a voice called as I coughed, dust burning my throat. “Sasha!”
Someone shook me. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt unbearably heavy, “uncle Sasha!” I didn’t startle, simply opened my eyes to find Dimitri, my nephew, bouncing on my bed, wearing nothing but his swim trunks. “Come on, uncle Sasha, wake up! We’re going to play in the pool!” he shouted. I groaned and sat up, trying to grab him, but he had already jumped down and was running down the hallway, laughing, his bare feet slapping against the floor. That little menace…
I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. A dull ache formed at the back of my skull, a headache beginning to surface. I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. 10:15 a.m. I had come home late the night before because of a meeting about a future merger.
I sighed and sank back into the bed, grimacing as I realized the sheets were soaked with sweat. It had been almost a year since I’d had that nightmare. A nightmare that had haunted me for years. A nightmare that reminded me of my mistake, a mistake that had destroyed us. A mistake no one knew about. No one except one person.
She had understood that I was hiding something the moment her eyes had met mine. I lowered my forearm from my eyes and let it fall onto the bed, to the space on my right. Empty. As it had been for the past three months.
That was why the nightmare had returned. It had vanished over the past year because of her. She had allowed me to forget what I had done, to forget what I was doing, what I was. When she had been beside me, there had been only her. Only us.
‘‘Sasha! Come have lunch before we clear the table,’’ Elif called from the dining room on the ground floor. I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time and got up, heading to the bathroom to wash my face, once, then again, then a third time. By the time Imanaged to find the strength to turn off the water, I was already at twelve. I clenched my jaw and grabbed the towel from the counter with an angry motion. Another nightmare resurfacing.
My OCD had appeared after my parents’ death. The psychologist had said my brain was trying to regain control after the trauma it had endured. But that need for control had spread to everything, from the way I washed my hands to the way I ate, that constant urge for everything to be in order, perfect. The irony was that this obsessive need for control was uncontrollable itself, and it was driving me insane. From the age of eight to ten, it had been pure hell. I was losing my mind and driving everyone in the house crazy along with me. My uncle had even tried to convince Grigori to send me to a psychiatric facility. Thank God my brother had chosen instead to get married. The best decision he’d made since our parents’ death. My eyes drifted back to the mirror, to the empty space in my bed reflected behind me. I tightened my grip on the towel as a thousand questions spun endlessly in my head. I finally growled and threw the towel into the laundry basket before getting ready.
—
The boys’ shouts rang out again from the pool as they laughed at Roman’s antics, jumping into the water, which the sun made sparkle in a thousand flashes. Summer was approaching fast, warming the air; soon California would be hard to bear. Normally, we would have been preparing to leave for Sochi to spend the summer there but Selina’s pregnancy would prevent that this year. She was almost full term. Just a few more weeks and we would welcome a new Ivanov, a girl. A new life to protect, to watch over. I couldn’t help smiling as I remembered Nikolai’s joy when he learned the baby’s sex. I had truly thoughthe was going to cry and I was certain he had when our backs were turned. “What’s making you smile like that?” Elif suddenly asked, sitting down beside me on the swing. She was wearing a long navy-blue dress patterned with white flowers. Her dark hair danced in the breeze as she looked at me with her large brown eyes framed by long lashes, her face bare, without a trace of makeup. And every time I saw her like that, in her simplest state, my heart tightened. So vulnerable. So precious. Someone to protect. Someone to watch over. I set the documents I had been rereading down on the coffee table beside my empty mug and pulled her next to me, my arm wrapping around her shoulders. She rested her head against my chest, folding her legs up on the swing. “Nikolai. I’m happy for him,” I answered sincerely. With Elif, it was always sincere, always open. And if it wasn’t, she knew. She knew everything about me, from the way I breathed to the way I thought. She was the one who had raised me, who had shaped me into the man I was today.
“I am too. I’m so happy for him and Selina,” she sighed, closing her eyes before opening them again to look up at me, her chin resting against my chest. “Can you believe it? A girl. How long has it been since the last Ivanov woman by blood was born?” she asked, her eyes shining with excitement. But I wasn’t naive. I could see clearly beyond that excitement, the pain beneath it. A pain that would never leave her. The loss of a child was not something a mother ever forgot. Elena would remain a wound forever for all of us, but for Elif, it went far deeper. “The last one was Aunt Natasha,” I said, tightening my arm around her shoulders as memories of the fiery woman resurfaced, the one I had only known for about ten years before illness finally claimed her. “Ah, Natasha… that old owl,” Elif laughed, shaking her head before resting her cheek against my chest again. “She gave me hell when I first arrived. I think I would have left more than once if she hadn’t held me back,” she added, her gaze drifting towardthe horizon. “We would have deserved it,” I replied quietly, remembering the chaos she had stepped into after marrying my brother. Grigori, tense as a drawn bow and about as emotionally perceptive as a tree emotionally. Nikolai, lost after our father’s death, barely beginning his initiation into the organization. Me, eaten alive by rage. And Roman, rendered mute by shock.
Elif was about to answer when a shadow suddenly fell over us. I smiled again when I saw Grigori standing there, arms crossed, his dark expression unmistakable. “Moy brat…” I began, but he had already grabbed the collar of my T-shirt and hauled me up from my seat. “Stop stealing my wife,” he growled, dropping into my place and pulling her against him. She shot me a wink with a crooked smile.Traitor.
I shook my head and turned away from the lovebirds, gathering my documents before heading back inside. I narrowly avoided the splash Roman sent flying from the pool, shooting him a dark look that only made him laugh.Idiot. This time, it was Selina’s and Nikolai’s laughter that reached me as I entered the living room. They were settled on the sofas in the cool air-conditioning, drinking lemonade Velma had prepared, served with strawberries, Selina and strawberries, it was a great love story. Nikolai’s gift from two months earlier had been perfect: entire strawberry fields. We had recently finished building the cottage, a small, perfect place for intimate moments. A place those two would desperately need with all those kids. The Ivanovs had an alarming talent for reproduction, like damn rabbits.
I decided to pass through the kitchen to avoid disturbing them and head upstairs to finish one of my files on the merger of two of our companies. But I froze in the doorway when I heard another laugh from the kitchen.
A low, sensual, deep laugh. Enchanting.
I stepped inside and stopped behind the central island. Sena, who had been doing the dishes, froze when she saw me. She glanced toward the woman standing with her back to me at the counter, softly humming. Sena slipped out of the room in silence, offering me a gentle smile I tried to return despite my body already being tense, like every time I found myself in this woman’s presence, like every time I heard her voice, caught her scent. Today she was wearing a denim skirt and a fitted white tank top that hugged her figure perfectly. Her chestnut blond hair tied in a high ponytail, exposed the delicate line of her neck, Yes, I knewexactlywhat color her hair was. My hand twitched, the desire to touch her almost made me tremble. I approached slowly, my hands buried in my pockets, and a faint smile tugged at my lips when I saw her shoulders tense slightly, just like every time she sensed me behind her. She knew I was there. She always did.
“What are you doing?” I asked, leaning my hip against the counter beside her. She was whisking cream with precise movements, not sparing me a glance. I frowned and leaned a little closer, she had been distant for almost three months now. “Raspberry panna cotta. Selina likes it,” she said simply, her green eyes never leaving the bowl.
Those eyes had been the first thing that struck me, aside from her fist during our first meeting at the airport, a moment I would never forget. A defining moment. She had appeared out of nowhere, like a fury unleashed, and from that instant everything had been thrown into chaos.
She had unsettled me.
Sienna Floros was a tornado. She had dragged me into her center. I had fought to resist, to escape but once I had given in, it had become an addiction.
She turned her back to me again, opening one of the upper cupboards and stretching to reach the small bowls. She grumbled when she failed as I watched her rise onto the tips of her toes, her skirt riding dangerously high along her thighs, and I closed my eyes, biting back a curse in Russian. I set my documents on the counter and placed my hand beside her hip before leaning over her shoulder to grab the bowls and setting them down in front her. I didn’t step back.
Instead, I pressed my chest against her back, my nose sliding along her neck as I inhaled her scent. The scent that had haunted me ever since I had pinned her against that wall in that filthy motel where Nikolai and I had found her and her sister. She shivered, her fingers tightening on the counter. “Sasha,” she breathed but she didn’t push me away. She didn’t move. She remained still, calm beneath my touch.
My arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her body against mine as my nose traced the line from her neck to her throat. My lips brushed her pulse. Her scent intoxicated me as my hand slid beneath her top, against her stomach, her warm skin. She whispered my name again as my other hand slid along her thigh, drawing a soft sigh from her. “Sienna,” I murmured against her ear.
She lifted her face toward mine, green eyes locking onto mine, her breath escaping her lips, those full fucking pink lips that tempted me every time. As my mouth brushed hers, she suddenly turned her head away, shaking it, then pushed my hands from her body and stepped back, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “No. I don’t want to,” she whispered, lifting her gaze to mine. “I don’t want you to touch me anymore. Ever.”her jaw tightened.
I froze. She was pushing me away. I stared at her, lost, utterly confused. She didn’t want me anymore? “Sienna?” I asked, taking a step toward her.
She stepped back, avoiding my eyes, fleeing. Sienna… fleeing? That wasn’t like her, she never ran from her problems. She faced them head-on, diving straight into the fire. I hated that about her and yet it was also what made her who she was. I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world.
I didn’t yet know what was making her retreat like this, but I would soon find out. It had been three months now. Three months of her avoiding me. Three months of hiding. Three month of suffering.
I had tried to give her space and time after everything that had happened with Antonio Rasili’s cousin. I had told myself that bad memories must be haunting her, that I shouldn’t push her. So I had kept my distance, watching her from afar, asking Velma to cook her favorite meals, keeping the fridge stocked with her favorite drinks, making sure her medication was always available. They had been the hardest three months of my damn life, keeping my distance when all I wanted was to touch her, taste her, breathe her in.
But the last thing I wanted was to scare her or awaken old traumas. To have her run away for good. I still hadn’t gotten over her attempt to flee in Sochi, even if I had punished her afterward, out of sight, in my bedroom. The memory made heat coil low in my body.Damn it. Not now.
Sienna had pushed me away. She didn’t want me to touch her anymore. She had ignored me for three months, and judging by her reaction, that wasn’t about to change. But my patience had limits.
