Page 73 of Craving Dahlia

I dare a glance across the room, and my heart nearly stops in my chest.Maybe I really am still dreaming.That’s the only explanation for the fact that I see Alek across the room, slumped in the chair next to the window, his eyes closed as if he’s sleeping.

I’ve never seen him like that—sleeping, at peace. He’s always tense, on edge, like a predator in a cage pacing. Always wound tight. I’ve never seen him calm.

He’s always devastatingly handsome, gorgeous in a sharp-edged, dangerous way that has left my heart racing from the moment I met him. But like this, he looks softer. Beautiful in an almost approachable way. I stare at him, wanting to just look at him like this. I’m still not convinced that it isn’t a dream. And Iamconvinced that once I wake up, I’ll never see it again. Not him, not like this. Not after what he said to me and how everything since then has played out.

His eyes open, as if he feels me staring at him, and they widen suddenly. He sits bolt upright, shoving himself up out of the chair, and crosses the room in a few quick strides until he’s at my bedside. He looks down at me, his face full of worry, and for the first time since I woke in that room where I was kept, I start to wonder if maybe I haven’t been dreaming after all.

“Alek?” I whisper his name, and his face nearly crumples. He sinks down to the edge of the bed, clasping my face in his hands, and he presses his forehead to mine.

“Dahlia.” He whispers my name back, in a way that I’ve never heard before. “God, I’m so sorry,zhena. This was all my fault. I’m so fucking sorry?—”

“Wait.” I blink, pulling away from him, and for the first time he simply lets me go, sitting back with that same pained expression on his face. I push myself up in bed, feeling stronger than I remember having felt in days, and I look at him for a long moment. “I’m not dreaming?”

Alek frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I thought—” I blink again, reaching up to rub my eyes. “I thought I dreamed it all. The rescue, the blood, the bodies, you?—”

Another memory flits back into my head, a part of what I thought was that long dream. Alek carrying me up the stairs in the mansion, Evelyn just behind him, and him snarling at her to not touch hiswife. Dimitri snapping back, telling him not to speak to Evelyn that way, and Alek continuing up the stairs as if he hadn’t heard, clutching me to his chest as if he couldn’t bear to let me go.

“You killed them?” I whisper. “All of them?”

“Every single fucking one,” Alek growls, his expression hardening, dark and intense. “They’ll never lay a finger on you again, Dahlia, not a single one of them—” His gaze sweeps over my face, and he gets that pained look in his eyes again. I remember how many times I was hit, and I wince.

“How bad is it?” I whisper, and then fear jolts through me as I remember the punches to my ribs, my stomach. “Oh god, Alek, the baby?—”

“The baby is fine.” He reaches out, grabbing my hand. “You’re fine, Dahlia. You’re beautiful. The bruises make me want to go back and kill every man who laid a hand on you all over again, but they don’t make you any less beautiful. And they’ll fade. Not like—” He stops, his lips pressing together. “Not like what was left on me. You’ll heal and it will be like nothing happened.”

I frown at him, not entirely understanding. “What?—”

“I should have told you the truth. As soon as you came and told me about the man at the bar, I should have told you.” His thumb sweeps over the back of my knuckles. “I’m sorry for all of it,zhena?—”

“You’re sure the baby is okay?” I sit up a little more, and I can tell that my ribs and my body as a whole are sore, but not as much as I would have expected. “How long was I out for, after you came and got me? How long was I gone?” I rub my hand over my face. “It’s all a blur now.”

Alek swallows hard. “It’s been the better part of a week since you left. You slept for two days after we brought you back. It took some time for Dimitri and I to track down where they took you. But they’re all dead,” he repeats, as if saying it again will make me feel safer. “All of them. And the doctor came to look at you while you were sleeping. You and the baby both have a clean bill of health.”

Relief washes over me at that. “So they’re all gone? Everyone who wanted you?—”

Alek tenses. “Everyone that we found at the warehouse where they were keeping you is dead. As far as the man who wants me, and his associates—I’m still working on tracking him down. But we killed every man who we found in that warehouse, when we found you.”

I bite my lip. Ivan might still be alive, then. And the threat to Alek is still out there, which means?—

“What’s going on, Alek?” I look up at him, hoping that he meant it when he said he should have told me the truth—that he’ll tell me now. “Please, tell me.”

Alek draws in a slow breath, letting it out as he looks away for a moment. “It’s not an easy story to tell,” he says quietly. “I told Dimitri some of it. And I’m ashamed,zhena,” he admits quietly. “I should have told both of you much sooner. I should have asked Dimitri for a bodyguard for you. I should have—” His jaw tightens. “There’s so many things I should have done differently.”

“So tell me now,” I urge gently. “Tell me what happened.”

Alek’s thumb sweeps over my knuckles again. “Seven years ago, I met a woman.” He swallows hard. “Her name was Elia Volnova. She said she’d come to New York for college—she was enrolled in Columbia. History. I met her at a bar—I thought at the time she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyeson.” He looks at me almost apologetically as he says it. “I don’t think that any longer.” he adds, and I manage a small smile.

“I’m not sure if that’s true right now,” I murmur, and Alek’s forehead creases.

“It is,zhena,” he says emphatically, reaching up to touch my cheek gently. “I swear, Dahlia, all the things I’ve done since we’ve met, everything I’ve said to you that’s hurt you?—”

“Just tell me the story,” I say quietly. My chest aches, every part of me wanting to cling to this side of Alek that I’ve never seen before, this gentler, softer man. This part of him that I wanted to believe existed, and that he convinced me never could or would. Now I’m afraid to believe that it’s real, and not just another lie.

Alek nods, pressing his lips together. “We were together for two years. A little over a year into the relationship, her father—Gregoriy Volnov—came from Moscow to meet my father. Neither Dimitri nor I ever bought into the idea of arranged marriages between families, but I thought Elia and I were in love, and I was fine with the idea. But my father refused.”

I frown. “So you split up?”

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