Page 64 of Control: XXX Vadim 1
“I need to be alone.”
His tone is a slap. Confused, I turn to the stairs and hurry up them without letting myself reconcile the fact that I should leave. Staying at all is foolish. We aren’t in a relationship. He owes me nothing.
And I’m not responsible for soothing his boo-boos or fighting his battles. I tell myself this even as I enter the closet and exchange my dress for an ivory nightgown. When I approach the bed, Vadim isn’t there waiting for me.
He doesn’t come up the stairs when I lie down, either.
And I remain awake, listening for him until I finally hear his steps resonate…
But they depart the house entirely.
And a door slams in his wake.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He doesn’t return by the time dawn creeps across the horizon, and I drag myself from the bed and venture downstairs. It’s eerily silent, and the excessive neatness of the house stands out in stark contrast to the chaos of storm clouds building beyond the windows. On second appraisal, the place looks barely lived in.
There are no pictures. No personal knickknacks. Despite my sex toy, I don’t think I can name anything in the house that stands out as remotely unique.
The man is living in a dollhouse.
And yet I sense that he picked it—specifically this location—for a reason. To further torment his brother? Out of some unhealthy interest in the children Maxim lives with? Or is it more than that?
Something to deal withher. The person he mentioned abandoning. Someone from his past?
Jealousy, that vicious thing, nibbles away at my resolve. From his tone alone, I senseshemattered to him more than I could ever dream to. I’ve never heard his voice so…broken before. So vulnerable and raw.
So imperfectly human.
I’m tempted to venture up to the room he warned me against. Maybe the answer lurks in there? I shrug off the thought, though.
My past is an animal I feel comfortable dredging up only on my terms. I sense he might feel the same way.
So, I’ll wait, and stew in self-pity instead. Ena was right. I’m an idiot toy, and I couldn’t even do something as simple as make sure the darn man ate. I picture him wandering mindlessly, his blood sugar dangerously low—or high. And it’s all my fault.
Cooking was never my forte, but I enter the kitchen and find myself fishing ingredients from his surprisingly well-stocked kitchen. This must be Ena’s realm. I try to tread carefully as I dump a handful of ingredients into a bowl, too distracted to measure properly. I merely work on autopilot until I pour some semblance of a batter into a cake pan just as the front door opens, carrying a familiar scent.
I shove my cake attempt into the oven and race from behind the counter. Vadim is already entering the kitchen, still wearing his suit from last night, his face haggard. His eyes take me in, and gradually his wall lowers.
I pull out a stool and silently urge him onto it. Sighing, he complies, shifting to face me as I circle the counter.
I’m painfully aware of his eyes on the back of my neck, tracking my progress as I wash each dish and return them to their rightful spot. By the time I’m done, a promising smell issues from the oven.
I check on my cake and warily pull it out. When I turn holding my offering, Vadim raises an eyebrow.
“Breakfast,” I say awkwardly as I set the cake before him. “It won’t taste as good as Ena’s, but you need to eat something.” I hunt for a fork, stab it into the center of my cake and warily offer it to him.
He meets my gaze for so long my legs have gone numb by the time he finally accepts the fork and takes a bite.
“It’s good,” he lies, struggling to choke down my creation. To my shock, he drags the cake closer to him and goes in for another bite.
A relieved sigh nearly robs me of balance. I have to brace my hands against the counter just to stay upright. “I’m sorry,” I blurt. “I shouldn’t have run my mouth. I shouldn’t have said—”
“Don’t.” He sounds so tired. “Don’t ever apologize to me. You’ve earned that right. No one—but perhaps Milton—has ever defended me like that against him,” he adds thickly. “No one.”
He makes it sound so momentous—arguing with an, albeit very scary, dickhead who seems determined to rip him down for whatever reason. He’s having another one of those revelations, I suspect—but this one is dangerous, because I think I’m sharing the same moment of awe.
Such a beautiful, broken man who doesn’t realize he’s worth defending. Protecting.
