When I’m finished with the call, I stay in the study for a long while, looking around. I try to imagine myself here for longer than just the amount of time it will take to eliminate the danger–of making a home here. I try to imagine a future where this was mine, not just in theory, but in reality.
I imagine stripping away the lingering echoes of my father in this room and making it my own. I imagine taking this house and turning it into a place I wouldwantto live, the way Caterina did with Viktor’s home–and it’s incredibly hard. I leave the study, walking down the long hall to the huge room used for galas and parties, and I see the portraits of my family hanging on the walls, looking down at me.
This place didn’t feel like a home when I lived here. For all that the priesthood wasn’t my choice, I’d been glad that it gave me an excuse to leave that didn’t involve making a choice to divulge from what my family wanted. It was, to me, better than the life that would have awaited me here–marrying into another family and performing the role of the spare. I would have had children in case the line had to pass to me and taken a lower position in the family business, and I would have been bored out of my mind.
The priesthood, by and large, hadn’t been all that much more stimulating day to day–but I’d felt I was helping. Every person who’s life I’d touched, I’d felt I’d made a difference. I’d done something real, tangible, that wasn’t lining my family or some other family’s pockets with more money than they could spend in four generations, that wasn’t giving the Families more power than they already had. I’d felt as if I had a purpose.
The need to serve my family once again–to avenge my brother–had taken that from me. And that’s what Levin and Viktor can’t seem to understand–that the vows I’ve taken, and broken, and taken again, are all that I have left of the life that made me feel as if I had a reason for existing in it, beyond the selfish gratification of others.
I wasn’t made for the world that the dons andpakhansand Kings of these families live in. I can’t ever fully escape.
But Sasha can–and I want that for her.
I’ll do everything I can to make sure she has that.
5
SASHA
It’s a week before I feel well enough to get out of bed, but it feels much longer than that. With the worst of the danger past, Max puts distance between us–and as much as I want to pretend I don’t know the reason for that, of course I do. He brings me food at regular intervals, makes sure I have water and that I take my medicine, and leaves me stacks of books to read, none of which I can concentrate on.
The days that I’m stuck convalescing drag on, endless and interminable. It makes me prickly and irritable, and I try not to take it out on Max, even though I’m often upset that he won’t stay and talk with me. I know he’s avoiding the intimacy that long afternoons talking in bed would create between us, something that might turn into a different kind of intimacy. Still, I also know that he has as little to do here as I do. We’re both trapped in a strange sort of purgatory, floating along until we can go back home.
I’d hoped this would be the place where our relationship would flourish. I’d hoped the solitudewouldfoster an unbreakable intimacy between us, turning our friendship with one night of benefits into much, much more.
The opposite has happened instead.
The day that I finally feel well enough to get out of bed, the morning after a visit from Dr. Guerera, during which he assured me I was showing all the signs of good health again, feels like being set free. I wake up to the sun shining through the window and the sound of birdsong outside. I stretch like Cinderella waking up in the old cartoon, feeling as if the morning is a new beginning. The aches and pains of my illness have mostly faded, leaving only an echo where they throbbed through me before, and Max promised me a tour of the estate once I was feeling better. I’ll get to spend time with him, and that means a perfect day.
Over the last week, the housekeeper Giana has helped me to the shower any number of times–meaning we’re on far more personal terms than I would have liked this early on–but I hadn’t really gotten to appreciate it until today, when I’m able to get there on my own. It’s one of those things I’d always taken for granted until now. I stand there for a moment, curling my toes against the sandy-colored heated tiles until I finally walk to the glassed-in shower and turn on the hot water.
The entire room is luxurious beyond belief, even for someone who already lives in a mansion. The countertops are marble, the walls more of the sandy-colored tile edged in gold, and there’s a jacuzzi tub that looks as if it could fit six people. The towels are thick and fluffy, the soaps and toiletries in sleek containers, and it all looks like the most elegant hotel I could ever imagine staying in.
The shower itself is heavenly, with triple showerheads and a steady fall of hot water that I could stay under forever–and I do for a long time. It’s not that much different from the one at home, but after so many quick, dizzy showers before I stumbled back to bed to keep convalescing, this one feels like a religious experience.
That thought drags mine back to Max, and I bite my lip. I don’t want to push him. He’s made it clear that he wants to keep our friendship just that, and I don’t want to ruin it–to lose him altogether. He means too much to me, even if keeping me at arm’s length feels like torture after what happened between us.
I’ll be good. I won’t flirt. I won’t push. I won’t try to take things further, even if there’s tension.
I know the first domino that started all of this was that afternoon in Max’s house, when I’d kissed him. The second domino had been me going down on my knees to suck his cock. And then they’d all tumbled from there.
Max had been just as willing, just as complicit. But I’d started it–and he’d been the one to end it.
So I have to leave it there, or risk losing one of my best friends.
I linger in the shower until the water starts to cool, taking my time drying off. I find a flowy sundress in my suitcase, cream colored and made of light material with a teal paisley pattern, with a halter neck and a long skirt. I pile my wet hair atop my head and peer in the mirror, deciding I look a little pale still but not as sickly as before, and then make my way towards the stairs.
I’m unsure of where anyone will be or what anyone is doing, the house already seeming far too large for four people and the security staff that always seems to be invisible–on purpose, I’m sure. But halfway down the stairs, I smell the scent of breakfast cooking, and my stomach rumbles.
I expect to find Giana in the kitchen cooking, but I stop in the doorway, startled, when I see that it’s Max at the stove instead.
He doesn’t see me at first. The stove is a flat-top range built into a long black granite countertop with gleaming dark wood cabinets above it. There are very few appliances on the expansive counter, but there are a number of ingredients scattered to Max’s right, between him and the huge stainless steel refrigerator. Even more are on the huge island, around which there are several mahogany wood stools with velvet cushions. I step forward tentatively, clearing my throat as I walk toward the island.
Max turns sharply, and a giggle escapes me before I can stop myself. He’s wearing an apron over his standard black pants and shirt, nothing particularly funny, but something about the sight startles me so thoroughly that I can’t help laughing anyway.
“What’s so funny?” he demands, but his mouth is twitching too, and I dissolve into further giggles as I lean against the island.
“I’ve never seen a man cook before.” It’s true. I haven’t. Food was served cafeteria buffet-style in the orphanage, such as it was, and none of the fathers in my foster families would have deigned to cook a meal themselves. The idea of Viktor cooking is laughable. I’ve never seen a man cook for himself, and while I’m as startled by my reaction to it as Max is, it also warms me toward him that much more.