On Earth, before her abduction, she’d been bitter, alone, lashing out at people who tried to get close to her. She’d remained estranged from her parents, even though she’d gone back to music, even though she’d started performing again. After Nadine’s death, the only thing that had kept her goingwasmusic. It was the only thing that had given her purpose, as pathetic as it sounded.
And even though she wanted to, she didn’t tell Kirov any of this at that moment. Though her mind screamed at her to confide in him, to soothe his justified worry, her tongue remained tied and tight behind her teeth.
There was still a part of her that wouldn’t give everything to him, she realized. And maybe he’d realized that too. Maybe that was where this was all coming from. He wasn’t a genius for nothing.
And Kirov was a male who deserved everything.
But could she give everything tohim, knowing that he held something important fromher?
“I would miss Luxiria with every part of my being,” he said finally, softly. His eyes raised to meet hers, intensity shining in them. “But I know, without a single doubt in my mind, that I would give itallup for you.”
Lainey swallowed back a gasp at the certainty in his voice.
“But I also know, without a doubt, that you do not feel the same,” he finished slowly.
“There’s a lot…there’s a lot that we still don’t know about each other, Kirov,” she murmured, desperately scrambling for an excuse. Anything to dismiss those words, which felt wrong coming out of his mouth, which made her feel sick.
He saw right through her excuse, as usual.
“This again,” Kirov bit out, his hands tightening on the edges of the table.
“It’s true!” she exclaimed, her temper rising. “We’ve known each other for what…less than three weeks?”
“What do I not know about you,luxiva?” he growled. “I knoweverything. Everything important.”
Lainey sucked in a breath. “No, you don’t.”
“Thentell me,” he growled, his voice booming around the room. “Tell me something I do not know.”
“I had a best friend,” Lainey found herself saying, sliding off the table, her anger growing. She didn’t like this situation, didn’t like the way he was pressing her. He was always pressing her, pushing her. “She was like a sister to me, I knew her better than I knew music, and she knew me like the back of her hand. And then she died. And it ripped me apart and I’ve never the same.”
Some of Kirov’s fight drained from his body, his eyes softening ever so slightly, but when he reached for her, she stepped away from his touch. “Luxiva, come here.”
“No,” she said, her hands trembling at their unexpected confrontation. The night had been going so well and suddenly it wasn’t.Why? Why were they doing this now? “Something else you don’t know about me is that I’ve always picked the wrong men because maybe deep down, I knew they wouldn’t last, that I didn’t want them to. My last boyfriend was emotionally abusive and I let that go on longer than I should’ve. And it only took until it got physical for me to leave him.”
Kirov growled, going still. “Hehurtyou?”
“Yes,” she hissed, tears filling her eyes, emotions assaulting her from all sides. What the hell was happening? “And after him, I never touched another man. Not until you.”
“Luxiva—”
“Something else you don’t know about me,” she continued, still evading his grasp, “is that I haven’t talked to my parents inyears.”
Kirov stilled, watching her closely.
“I picked up music on my own,” she admitted. “I touched a piano once when I was four and it was immediate. It was love and I didn’t even know what love was then. But it was my mother who forced me into it. Who made me practice late into the nights, until my hands cramped and my fingers spasmed. It was my mother who signed me up for showcases and performances and took me out of school, even though my grades were failing. It was my mother who once slapped me across the face so hard I heard my ears ring when I refused to go on stage one night when I was twelve. And when my father cheated on her, when he started sleeping with one of my music instructors, with one of the board members at his company, with the nineteen-year-old college girl who lived across the street, my mother would take her pain and anger out onme. But what was worse than the abuse was that she made mehatemusic. It made me sick to my stomach to touch a piano.”
Lainey realized that she was crying, that her voice was raspy and husky and she was dragging in deep breaths because she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
“The moment I turned eighteen, I moved away. I quit piano, threw away everything I’d worked hard for, just to prove she didn’t control me anymore, didn’t own me anymore,” Lainey said. “And it was Nadine, my best friend, who finally encouraged me to take it back up again, who helped me rediscover that love again. When I listen to music, I remember that. I remember her and her support and that’s a part of why it makes me so happy.”
Lainey dashed a tear away from her cheek before crossing her arms, hugging her waist. She looked up at Kirov who was standing just an arm’s length away, but he felt a lot farther. She didn’t know why she’d told him those things, all at once, but they’d exploded once she’d started and she hadn’t been able to stop.
But she didn’t like to be pushed. He knew that. Perhaps that was why he’ddoneit.
“So my point is,” she continued softly, “that no…you don’t know ‘everything important’ about me.”
“Lani—”
