“It’s lovely. How—how long have you been here?” I look back at him, feeling my fingers start to tremble. I’m still clutching the shoes, and that hand feels slightly numb as if I’m not entirely sure I could uncurl my fingers any longer.
“Not long,” Alexandre says vaguely. “Anastasia, what happened tonight?”
He only uses my full name when he’s angry, serious, or full of emotion. I’m not sure which of those things he is, exactly, but I give him my full attention anyway, meeting his piercing blue eyes with my own.
“Liam and I were out on a date,” I say softly. “And it was wonderful—the first part of it, at least. But—”
“But?” Alexandre urges, and I realize he’s looking forward to this. He wants to hear how Liam has hurt me, upset me, disappointed me—not just for his own pleasure in seeing Liam fall, but because it could mean I’ll come back to him. It could be the reason he gets me back.
I realize, at that moment, that it’s not just a matter of money, ownership, or pride. Alexandre misses me. In his way, as much as he knows how, he loves me. And he wants me with him, not only because he sees me ashis, but because he’d very much believed that he would never have to live without me.
I’dled him to believe that. I’d promised it to him.
“He took me to the ballet,” I whisper. “And from the very first notes, I couldn’t, I—” I feel a fine shiver go through me, making me tremble all over again. “I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t, the memories, the—”
I feel the tears well up in my eyes, breaking the words, and Alexandre reaches for me, instantly pulling me into his arms. “Shh,” he whispers. “Shh,petit, shh. There’s no need to cry, now.”
“I thought he understood me,” I whisper against Alexandre’s shoulder, conscious of his arms going around me, stroking along my spine, down to my lower back. “I thought he—I don’t know why he did that, why—”
“He did not know,petit,” Alexandre murmurs. “He did not understand. He does not see your soul, as I do, your beautiful, broken soul. My little doll, mypetit,my Anastasia—”
He’s crooning to me now, his voice thickly accented, his breath in my hair, on my cheek as his hand's rove over my back, pulling me closer, into the circle of his arms, against his chest. There was a time when I felt safe here, or at least, the safest I’d felt in a very long time, up until then.
There was a time when I wanted to stay here and believed that I would.
“Don’t cry,petit,” Alexandre whispers, tipping my chin up so that he can run his thumbs over my cheeks, wiping away the tears below my eyes, along my jaw. His hands feel strong, his fingers sweeping over my cheeks with firm strokes, and I lean into his touch without thinking about it, without meaning to.
It feels good to be held right now, to be touched. I sink into it, closing my eyes, and I hear his soft groan as he cups my face in his hands, his thumbs still skimming over my cheekbones.
“Look at me,petit,” Alexandre whispers. “Look at your Alexandre.”
I open my eyes, knowing even as I do that, he’ll take it as an acknowledgment of his words, that he’s still mine, that I’m still his. But I can’t think, my head foggy with grief and pain and confusion, and a man that I once loved is touching me, holding me, soothing me.
It’s so easy to fall into it again. To fall intohim.
“That’s it,petit,” he whispers. “I knew you would remember us once you saw me again. I knew you would remember all that we were to each other.”
And then, before I can stop him, before I can even breathe, his hands are drawing my face up to his, my lips up to his, and his mouth comes down onto mine, warm and gentle and firm, kissing away the pain.
My fingers open, unbidden, and the shoes drop to the floor.
I should push him away. I should tell him no. But instead, my hands press against his chest, against the crisp linen of his black button-down shirt, and Alexandre groans as he pulls me closer against him, his mouth slanting over mine.
“I’ve missed you,petit,” he rasps, and I can feel it in every line of his body, taut with desire, in the hard line of his cock already pressed against my thigh. “I’ve missed all of this—your hands, your lips, your body—”
His own hands are sliding down, over the silk clinging to my waist, down to my hips as he pulls me against him. I feel him walking me backward, moving me towards the bed, and a part of my mind is screaming at me that I need to stop him, thatweneed to stop.
And another part of me only remembers Paris, only remembers our first night in his bed, the nights that came after, whispered promises of love and forgetting that he owned me, remembering only that I believed he loved me.
“You promised you would not leave me,petit,” Alexandre whispers, his lips brushing against mine as he backs me against the bed, the soft duvet brushing against the back of my leg as my skirt sweeps aside. “But I can forgive you for that. You made a mistake, but you are here again, in my arms. Here with me—”
He lifts me onto the bed, following me down so that he’s stretched atop me, and even as my mouth starts to form the wordsno, I can’t, we can’t,my fingers are pulling at the buttons on his shirt, undoing it so that I can touch the smooth muscle beneath, trace the lines of him that I’d nearly forgotten, pulling it out of the waist of his pants so that I can touch lower still.
“Yes,petit, mon Dieu,I forgot how good your touch feels.Merde,ah!” Alexandre moans as my fingers skim along the waist of his pants, toying with the hair there, my lips upturned to his as he kisses me, hard and firm, devouring my mouth.
“It’s only you,petit, only you—”
It could only ever be you.I hear Liam’s voice in my head, clear as day, and I jerk backward, reality crashing back in on me as I realize what we’re doing. “Alexandre—”