Page 34 of Craving Dahlia

“I’ll stay and wait,” I tell Evelyn finally. If I go home to my apartment, I’m just going to sit and catastrophize about all the ways this could go wrong, and sink into a pool of depression over the impending loss of my apartment and the fear of what’s coming next. At least here, I have the distraction of being with my best friend, and I can get the satisfaction of catching Alek off-guard when he gets back.

Evelyn does everything she can to distract me in the meantime. She orders lunch from a nearby Italian bistro that we both like, and we sit in front of the fireplace in the living room, nibbling at pasta and salad and talking about the belated honeymoon that Dimitri wants to take her on to the Amalfi Coast.

“A ‘babymoon’, I guess is what everyone calls it these days,” she laughs. “Since I’m already pregnant. A last hurrah before we’re parents, although we’ve never actually been on vacation together. But now that the shop is coming along, and my shoulder is healed—” she rotates her shoulder a bit as she says it, wincing slightly. I feel a pang at the memory of how close I came to losing my best friend—when she was captured by a rival gang and nearly killed. Dimitri saved her, and his persistence and dedication to making sure she was safe made me like him better, more than anything else. “Maybe in June, we’re thinking it might be a good time to go.”

My stomach tightens, the idea of Evelyn and Dimitri going on vacation suddenly cast in a new light. June isn’t all that far away, only a couple of months, and now I envision myself alone here in the mansion, into my second trimester of my own pregnancy and alone with Alek. A shiver of fear runs down myspine, my stomach flipping at the uncertainty of everything, and I momentarily wonder if I’m going to be able to keep my lunch down.

Evelyn must have seen the blood drain out of my face, because she covers my hand with hers, looking at me reassuringly. “Of course, if things aren’t okay here, then we won’t go,” she promises. “Things are a little different now. And I’m going to make sure you’re okay through all of this, Dolly. I promise.”

She hasn’t used her old nickname for me in a long time—Dolly, like I call her Evie—and it sends a warm feeling through me, making me momentarily feel like maybe things will be okay. Like at least I have my best friend, even if everything else is crumbling around me.

And then I hear the door open, the heavy tread of boots out in the entryway, and every muscle in my body locks up again.

“Shit.” Evelyn tenses too, and I take a deep breath, pushing myself up off of the couch.

“I’ll go talk to him,” I say quietly, and head towards the doorway of the living room.

When I step out, I see Alek in the entryway, heading for the stairs. I clear my throat, softly at first and then a little louder, calling out after him.

“Alek.”

He freezes in place, and I get that brief moment of satisfaction as his hand goes still on the railing, his shoulders immediately tensing as he turns around a moment later.

“You just keep popping up, don’t you?” he says, his jaw tight, and I narrow my eyes, a flood of anger and hurt making it momentarily feel hard to breathe.

“If you’d used a condom the way I told you to, you would never have had to see me again,” I bite out. “But here we are.”

His face is utterly expressionless, except for that clenched jaw, tight enough that I’m surprised I don’t hear his teeth crack. “Here we are,” he echoes. “What do you want, Dahlia?”

Despite everything, hearing him say my name in that roughened voice, his Russian accent coloring the edges of the word, makes a shiver of desire run down my spine. He’s hateful, and angry, and I should regret every moment of that night we spent together—but looking at him, I know what happened was all but unavoidable. I’ve never seen a man so perfectly crafted to make me weak for him.

“I came to tell you that I want to take you up on your offer,” I choke out. “The marriage.”

One of Alek’s dark blond brows rises, almost up into his hairline. “Yesterday you were telling me to get out of your apartment. What changed?”

My stomach twists at the thought of admitting to him that I found an eviction notice on my door this morning. “Does it matter? Do youcare?”

He looks at me flatly. “No. So, you agree to my terms for a marriage? No?—”

“No expectation of affection or physical contact. Sure.” I narrow my eyes at him. “After the way you’ve acted, I don’t want you to touch me again anyway. So that should be easy.”

Something dark and dangerous flickers in Alek’s eyes, but he says nothing for a moment. “And if the child isn’t mine, we’ll divorce immediately,” he adds finally, and I clench my teeth, but I nod.

“Since you seem so insistent on not believing me, yes,” I snap. “But it is yours.”

He shrugs. “We’ll see.”

It takes everything in me not to stamp my foot and scream in frustration, but I can only imagine what Alek’s reaction to thatwould be. Probably to call me a child or taunt me in some way, and I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.

Better get used to it, if you’re going to be married to him for a while.

“Is that all?” he asks, and I blow out a sharp breath between my pursed lips.

“I guess it is.” I swallow hard, trying to wrap my head around how all of this is happening. I’ve never spent a lot of time imagining what a proposal or wedding might look like for me, but I know it wasn’t this. An angry man staring me down from a distance, looking as if he feels as trapped as I do right now.

“I’m sure you and Evelyn can hammer out the details.” He pivots, turning away from me and heading up the stairs, and for a brief second, I have the strangest urge to call after him. To ask him what Evelyn meant earlier, when she said he’d been through a lot.

But I doubt he’d tell me, if he hasn’t even told them.

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