the time.
Believing there must be another explanation, she’d started attempting to contact him just a day after his disappearance,
The number he’d assigned her had been disconnected. His other numbers had rung without going to voice mail. Her emails had gone unanswered. None of his associates had known anything about him. Apart from his acquisitions and takeovers, there’d been no other evidence of his continued existence. It had all pointed to the simple, irrefutable truth: he’d gone to serious lengths to hide his high profile, to make it impossible for her to contact him.
Yet for months she hadn’t been able to sanction that verdict. She’d grown frantic with every failure, even when logic had said nothing serious could happen to him without the whole world knowing. But, self-deluding fool that she was, she’d been convinced something terrible had happened to him, that he wouldn’t have abandoned then ignored her like that.
When she’d finally been forced to admit he’d done just that, it had sent her mad wondering...why?
She’d previously rationalized that his episodic withdrawal was due to the fact that her progressing pregnancy was making it too real for him, probably interfering with his pleasure, or even turning him off her.
Her suspicions had faltered when those instances had been interrupted by even-wilder-than-before encounters. But his evasion of her attempts to reach him had forced her to sanction those suspicions as the only explanation. Then, to make things worse, the deepening misery of her pregnancy’s last stages had forced another admission on her.
It hadn’t been anguish, or addiction, or needing closure.
She’d fallen in love with Maksim.
When she’d faced that fact, she’d finally known why he’d left. He must have sensed the change in her before she’d become conscious of it, had considered it the breaking point. Because he’d never change.
But if she’d thought the last months of her pregnancy had been hellish, they’d been nothing compared to what had followed Leo’s birth. To everyone else, she’d functioned perfectly. Inside, no matter what she’d told herself—that she had a perfect baby, a great career, good health, a loving family and financial stability—she’d known true desolation.
It hadn’t been the overwhelming responsibility for a helpless being who depended on her every single second of the day. It had been that soul-gnawing longing to have Maksim there with her, to turn to him for counsel, for moral support. She’d needed to share Leo with him, the little things more than the big stuff. She’d needed to exclaim to him over Leo’s every little wonder, to ramble on about his latest words or actions or a hundred other expected or unique developments. Sharing that with anyone who wasn’t Maksim had intensified her yearning for him.
Her condition had worsened until she’d started feeling as if he was near, as if she’d turn to find him looking at her with that uncontainable passion in his eyes. Many times she’d even thought she’d caught glimpses of him, her imagination playing havoc with her mind. And each time this mirage had dissolved, it had been as if he’d walked out on her all over again. Those phantom sensations, that need that wouldn’t subside, had only made her more bereft.
Now all that only poured fuel on her newfound fury. But anger felt far better than despondence. It made her feel alive. She hadn’t felt anywhere near that since he’d left.
She was done feeling numb inside. She’d no longer pretend to be alive. She’d live again for real, and to hell with everything she...
The bell rang.
Her heart blipped as her eyes flew to the wall clock. 10 p.m. She couldn’t imagine who it could be at this hour. Besides, anyone who came to see her would have buzzed her on the intercom, or, at the very least, her concierge would have called ahead to check with her first. So how could someone just arrive unannounced at her door?
The only answer was Kassandra. Maybe she’d left something behind. Probably her phone, since she hadn’t called ahead.
She rushed to the door, opened it without checking the peephole...and everything screeched to a halt.
Her breath. Her heart. The whole world.
In the subdued lights of the spacious corridor he loomed, dark and huge, his face eclipsed by the door’s shadow, his eyes glowing gold in the gloom.
Maksim.
Inside the cessation, a maelstrom churned, scrambling her senses. Heartbeats boomed in her chest. Air clogged in her lungs. Had she been thinking of him so obsessively she’d conjured him up? As she’d done so many times before?
Her vision distorted over the face that was omnipresent in her memory. It was the same, yet almost unrecognizable. She couldn’t begin to tell why. Her consciousness was wavering and only one thing kept her erect. The intensity of his gaze.
Then something hit her even harder. The way he sagged against the door frame, as if he, too, was unable to stand straight, as enervated at her sight as she was at his. His eyes roamed feverishly over her face, down her body, making her feel he’d scraped all her nerve endings raw.
Then his painstakingly sculpted lips twitched, as if in...pain. Next second it was her who almost fell to the ground in a heap.
The dark, evocative melody that emanated from his lips swamped her. But it was his ragged words that hit her hardest, deepened her paralysis, her muteness.
“Ya ocheen skoocha po tebyeh, moya dorogoya.”
She’d been learning Russian avidly since the day she’d met him. She hadn’t even stopped after he’d left, had only taken a break when Leo was born. She’d resumed her lessons in the past three months. Why exactly she’d been so committed, she hadn’t been able to rationalize. It was just one more thing that was beyond her.
But...maybe she’d been learning for this moment. So she’d understand what he’d just said.
I missed you so terribly, my darling.
Two
That was it. Her mind had snapped.
She was not only seeing Maksim, she was hearing him say the words that had echoed in her head so many times, waking up from a dream where he’d said just that. Then, to complete the hallucination, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms as he’d always done in those tormenting visions.
But he didn’t surround her in that sure flow of her dreams, or the steady purpose of the past. He staggered as he groped for her. His uncharacteristic incoordination, the desperation in his vibe, in every inch that impacted her quivering flesh, sent her ever-simmering desire roaring.
Then she was mingled with him, sharing his breath, sinking in his taste, as he reclaimed her from the void he’d plunged her in, wrenching her back into his possession.
Maksim. He was back like she’d dreamed every night for one bleak, interminable year. He was back...for real.
But he couldn’t be. He’d never been with her for real. It had never become real to him. She’d accepted that in the past.
She wouldn’t accept that anymore. Couldn’t bear it.
No
