He falls silent for a long moment, considering what I have to say. I chew my lip as I look at him, waiting for an answer, though I’m not sure one is coming.
“Do you hate them now?”
“Who?”
“Your parents.”
I pause. “It’s not something I give a lot of thought to,” I reply. “I... I know I hold a lot of resentment towards my father, for the way he treated us, the way he expected the women in his life to just fall in line like that’s where we belonged. And there are times when I’m frustrated with my mother, thinking about all the stuff she must have let slide when she married him.”
“Do you think they’ll feel that way about me, too?” he asks. I can hear genuine concern in his voice, which surprises me. I don’t know why, but I thought he had already considered those possibilities.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “They might. But... but if they do, that’s not the kind of thing you can just patch up, no matter how much you want to. Trust me, I know. When you’ve been controlled in that way, it stays with you. Every bit of guilt you feel for breaking those rules, it sticks with you for the rest of your life. Shit, there’s still times now when I can practically hear my mom’s voice in my head, telling me that I’m not acting like a lady should.”
I smile slightly. Acting like a lady—the last thing he has ever asked from me, given everything we have shared. But still.
“That’s how they’ll feel about me one day if I keep doing this,” he murmurs, shaking his head, and something is clicking for him, I can see it. I know it must not be easy, to be honest about the fact of the matter, but it’s the truth—no matter how much he wants to keep them under wraps and keep them safe, they are human beings, and their curiosity about the world will morph into resentment for him if he is not careful.
“I can’t say that for sure,” I admit. “But... it’s a risk I’m not willing to take. That’s why I’ve been fighting so hard for this, because I know what it does to you to be trapped.”
He lowers his head, and, for the first time, I see something else in his gaze—something soft, something vulnerable.
“You’re right,” he concedes, and I let out a breath.
A weight heaves itself from my shoulders, and it hits me just how heavily this has been weighing on me for so long. It doesn’t matter what I try to do, how I try to manage this, I’m always coming up against that same feeling, that same certainty, that if I just stand by and let this happen, it is all going to be the same, the pain of everything I’ve endured just as potent and powerful as it ever was.
“I know it’s not easy for you to let go,” I murmur to him, as I tangle my fingers with his. “But.. but trust me when I say that it’s the right choice. For you, and for the children.”
He looks up at me. “And for you.”
I smile slightly, and before I can say anything, he kisses me softly.
I kiss him back. And, as he wraps his arms around me and hugs me to his chest, I slip my arms around his back, feeling his strength, his solidness.
And I know, then and there, that I can get through this. Because the man at my side, for all his faults and complications, is willing to listen to me.
And that’s all I can ask for.
26
ALEXEI
I kiss her again,this time with a little more purpose than before, and she meets me with the same passion. It’s like she can feel it, the way things have shifted between us, and I need to remind myself that this is the right choice.
It’s hard for me to confess, even to myself, that I might have gone overboard protecting my family. After what happened with Vinski, I’ve told myself that every choice I’ve made has been justified.
But I can’t stand the thought of my son looking at me a few years down the line, and viewing me through that lens of control and obsession. Even now, the notion of easing up my security scares me, but what choice do I have? I heard the way she talked about her parents. I know I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if, one day, that’s how my son talked about me, too.
When I pull back, I brush my nose against hers, feeling a rush of warmth in my chest as I gaze down at her. She smiles at me, stroking her fingertips across my face.
“Take me to bed?” she asks me sweetly. She seems to know that my weak point is when she asks me for something, and, as I slip my hand into hers, I squeeze it tight.
“Anything you want.”
And I mean it. There’s almost nothing in the world she could ask for from me that I wouldn’t be willing to gift her, when she looked at me like that, the sweet hopefulness in her gaze and that wanting tone to her voice.
I lead her through to the bedroom, and I pull her into another kiss as soon as the door falls shut behind us, my hands in her hair this time, drawing her closer and closer to me. I love the way she feels against me, the way her body yields to me with such ease, as though this is what she has been waiting for all along.
I caress my thumb along the nape of her neck, guiding it down, pressing my hand flat to the small of her back to draw her against me just to feel the slight gasp emerge from her lips as she feels my hardness against her.
