Page 32 of Captured Obsession

I sigh. It’s a question I get all the time. And sometimes it's not even a question; everything I eat and everything I do is ridiculed. All of my actions coming back to what my body looks like. That's on me for choosing modeling as a profession, but when I’m in front of a camera, it’s when I feel the most confident and most seen.

But a deeper part of that truth is something that I've never admitted to anyone out loud. “Because it's something I can control.” And that’s the truth. Then I find myself quickly adding, somewhat defensively, “Sure, it's created a skewed version of how I see my body, and unrealistic and unsustainable expectations. But it's the one thing in my life that I've always been able to monitor. It became second nature, denying myself such pleasures. When I found out I couldn't have the one thing I wanted most, which was my own child, I thought about not caring anymore. But if I don’t have my career, then what do I have left? Everyone thinks I'm just this pretty little blonde who gets everything she wants because her daddy pays for it. I thought?—”

I cut myself off, realizing that I've let far too much slip.

“You thought what?”

That I was finally accepted for me when I met my ex-fiancé.But I'll never say it out loud. It's embarrassing to admit. Doesn't everybody want to be seen for who they are on the inside instead of their outward appearance? It makes it very difficult to show somebody that when very few can look past the exterior I’ve polished to perfection.

“Take a bite and ask your next question,” he says in a gravelly voice, and I feel the tension in my body ripple out, grateful that he let it go. I take another bite.

He once called me a lost little girl. But aren't we all lost in some way?

But I've watched each one of my friends find themselves and pair off with somebody who complements them beautifully. It's heart-wrenching to think I once had that and then I was so easily replaced. I guess if we’re being accurate, I never really had that at all. I was fed lies to pacify me. I sometimes wonder, had I not walked in on Michael cheating on me, how much longer would he have left me in a one-sided relationship? He didn’t even fight for me when I broke it off, only adding to the public humiliation.

I clear my throat. “Andrei called youUdav. Why do they call you that?”

I understand most of their words when they speak in their native tongue. Except a word likeUdav.Ihaven't come across it before, and it's remained with me ever since I first heard it.

He studies me carefully before answering. “It means boa constrictor. It’s a type of snake that's known for suffocating and crushing its prey. I'm sure you don't need any elaboration as to how I got that name.”

A shiver racks me, and I can't look away from his green eyes. Until my attention is pulled to the ink on his neck.Is that why he has so many snake tattoos?

“Eat,” he orders. “Why do you want to become a mother so badly?”

My fork clinks on the plate. “That question’s off-limits,” I say, with enough frost in my tone, I hope it will freeze him over in hell.

“Hmm.” He strokes his chin. “I thought we had no secrets between us.”

“We have more secrets than things we share in common,” I quickly bite.

The corners of his lips tilt up slightly. “Perhaps. Okay then. Once you return to London, what will you do?”

I look him directly in the eyes, and my voice comes out quieter than I expect it to when I ask, “Will I actually come out of this alive?”

I hate how small I sound. If anything, I've attempted to be ignorant to the truth of the circumstances I’m in. There's been no progress made, not so much as a whisper of anyone coming to get me. It's suddenly as if I didn't have a life before being taken.

“I told you I would keep you safe,” he says agreeably.

I shake my head, trying not to let the craziness of the situation break me. “But you've also been charged with using me as some kind of bargaining chip, have you not? What's in it for you? Isn't it dangerous for you to play this cat and mouse game? If Luca really is who you say he is, then can't they sweep in at any point and kill you?”

“I hope they try. The sooner they step into action, the better. Don't worry,mishka, I'm exactly where I want to be.”

How could anyone want to intentionally put themselves in such danger? There’s so much I don’t understand about Nikolai. He seems methodical in some instances but reckless in others. Does he not fear death?

Does nothing scare him?

“Have you ever done something you regretted?” I ask, and the question seems to catch him by surprise. I mean, if a man doesn’t fear his own death, then does he care about what he’s done to others? He’s a killer—I understand that—but is there someone he’s regretted hurting?

He stares at me intently, as if he’s weighing something in his mind. “I don’t regret anything,” he says simply, and I’m disappointed, until he adds, “However,I once worked for a man who was cruel, especially to women.” My stomach sinks at the way he says it somatter-of-factly. “He found atoy, so to speak. She was naïve to who he was when they first met, and it was as simple as that to trap her. I wasn’t there a lot of the time, but his cruelty had no leash when it came to her. I left for a job one day, and when I came back, she was gone.”

My stomach sinks as the tension in the room increases.

“So when I tell you I’ll keep you safe, I mean it.” My heart skips a beat. “I’m not a good man. But I’m not like him either.” The way he says it makes it sound personal. But it somewhat mirrors my circumstances, except I believe him when he says he’ll protect me. And I wonder if, in his own twisted way, that’s what he’s been trying to do; to not let history repeat itself. At least that’s what I want to believe.

Nikolai might say that he has no regrets, and I imagine he mostly believes that, but there’s certainly a flicker of remorse in his gaze, and it gives me hope that he might have a heart.

I place my hand on his. “I’m sorry that happened, and that you couldn’t save her.”