June 22nd
Jules
Eva.
Where is Elsie?
ONE YEAR LATER
I felther presence as soon as I stepped into our mansion. After a long day at the shipyards trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with one of our missing shipments—and a long night spent killing the people responsible—I craved her light, the feeling of sunshine that followed her no matter where she went.
“Solnyshka, where are you?” I called out, but I was met with silence. I frowned as I shrugged off my suit jacket and handed it to one of the staff who was always home whenever I was not.
“Solnyshka?”
Nothing.
My worry might have worsened had the maid not turned to me and said, “She’s in the studio, sir.”
I let out a long breath of relief. It had taken me almost two years to learn how to leave her in our home alone without having a panic attack. Every time I stepped out of the door, I was crushed by the weight of my anxiety. Oddly enough, it took Julian coming over and sitting with her for me to get some damn work done.
He still came over from time to time. So did Mia and Nikolai, unfortunately. My parents had even taken to visiting her, their smiles wide as they accepted her as if she were their own daughter. It had taken many hard conversations to uncover the truth about Liza’s death, but my family never once held it against Eva. How could they? She was a four-year-old girl, and my sister’s death was truly a tragic accident. But it had taken many visits to convince Eva that they didn’t hate her.
Quite the opposite, actually. My mother kept asking when she could visit again, filling my girl and my fridge with far too much food.
But Eva kept reassuring me that she didn’t need anyone to babysit her, and I’d finally learned to give her that space to grow. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my Eva to handle herself, but after Charlotte’s situation last year, it was hard to trust the world with someone so beautiful.
Soft music floated down the hall from the ballet studio I'd built for her in one of my spare rooms. It was the first renovation I’d done. I wanted Eva to have a space that felt like her own, a room to symbolize my house becoming ours.
And I also wanted a place where we could fuck in front of the mirrors again. Which we did.
Manytimes.
I leaned against the doorway and watched her move through her familiar rhythms. I’d learned them long ago. The way she warmed up slowly, methodically. The way she favored her leftside when she was tired. The way her breathing changed when she forgot anyone else was watching.
The studio was quiet except for the soft brush of her bare feet against the floor. Sunlight spilled through the tall windows, catching dust motes in the air and turning them gold.
Eva moved through the room with an ease that knocked the air from my lungs. It was the off-season for the theater, and this dancing felt different. There was no orchestra, no costumes, no stage lights, and no audience except for me. There was only Eva wrapped in pale pink fabric, her hair pulled back by a matching ribbon, while her body moved like it was always meant to.
Freely.
My gaze drifted, unbidden, to her left hand, where a large diamond sent sunlight scattering across the room. The thing that officially marked her asmine.
I’d given it to her months ago on the closing night of last year’s performance ofThe Nutcracker,where my Eva danced as the Sugar Plum Fairy for the whole city to see. I was so damn proud of the way she’d moved up to principal. The prima ballerina of the show. And my heart.
Now, we planned our wedding, a beautiful affair set for next spring. I couldn’t wait to see her in a white dress, her soft smile tucked behind a veil, before she became mine in the only way she was not.
Evangeline Drakov, my wife.
I smiled at the thought of that.
Sometimes, my thoughts drifted to the future, to a time when we’d have children with her soft eyes and my stubbornness. Mornings filled with soft chaos and nights with my family surrounding me while I succumbed to sleep, exhausted and happy. I wanted her barefoot and laughing in the kitchen as much as I wanted her commanding a stage.
Eva and I had many conversations about this, but we both agreed that she should enjoy her career for now. I would support Eva in any way I could, including taking on parental duties so she could dance, but Eva wanted to linger in this phase of our lives a little longer, and I was a patient man.
And selfishly, I wanted her to myself a little longer.
Eva finished a turn and finally noticed me, her lips curving when our eyes met. “How long have you been standing there?”
