Page 54 of Chained Fate
He squeezes my hand where it rests on the table.“I’m glad you like it.I made it myself.”
I’m not surprised—Alexei has been cooking all our meals lately, as if reluctant to entrust my nutrition to anyone else—but Ruslan and Sonia express their disbelief.
“What about the rest of the meal?”Ruslan asks, gesturing at the artfully arranged dishes all over the table.“Surely Vika was involved?She’s still your chef, right?”
“She’s visiting her family in Chukotka right now,” Alexei says.“But yes, when she returns, I expect she’ll resume cooking for us.”
I’m not so sure that’s true.I think Alexei may be enjoying doing this on his own.More than one morning, I’ve caught him looking up new healthy recipes and tinkering with the ones the dietician provided.I suspect this newfound hobby may be his way of dealing with his worry about my health, especially the fear of my cancer returning—a fear I very much share but am handling by beginning a new, doctor-approved exercise routine and working on my video game.
I also started therapy this week.
I’ve only had one session so far, so I can’t say if it’s helped one way or another, but I’m willing to give it a shot.The therapist, an older woman with the kindest face imaginable, got my entire life story out of me during our two-hour initial meeting, and then she assigned me homework—breathing exercises and a very specific kind of journal, one in which I’m supposed to write out my worst fears and what would happen if they came true.I think the idea is to make me see that I’m capable of surviving whatever curveball life throws my way.
The thing is, I already believe that I am.The cancer has left me weaker physically—something I’m working on with the new exercise routine—but mentally, I’m in a better place than I was before the diagnosis.A healthier place.I still experience worry and fear, grief and pain, but I no longer let the negative emotions weigh me down to the point that I need to seek escape in pills.
Maybe it’s because that which I once feared most—marriage to Alexei—has turned out to be the best thing in my life.
Every morning, I open my eyes to find him watching me.It’s both creepy and exhilarating, this unconcealed obsession of his.I no longer have any doubt that he wants me.He’s almost always touching me, even if it’s just a casual hand on my knee, and we’re rarely apart.Even when I’m deeply absorbed in coding, I’m aware of him casually sitting next to me, busy with his own work.And even though I’m feeling infinitely better these days, he insists on taking care of me, doing everything from cooking for me to helping me unpack and organize all the things I’ve had moved here from my Moscow penthouse.
Our sex life is also off the charts—not that I’m surprised by that.Now that I’m regaining my health, Alexei seems determined to make up for all those years of abstinence on his part.We have sex multiple times a day, to the point that I’m often sore and aching.At times, it’s quick and rough; at other times, it’s a tender, drawn-out lovemaking where he worships every part of my body and leaves me a boneless lump in the aftermath.Frequently, he pushes me to my limits and beyond, yet I’m always left craving more at the end.More of the extreme sensations and more ofhim.
Alexei is my new drug, and there’s no saving me from this addiction.
My brothers seem determined to try, however.They don’t believe me when I tell them, over and over, that I want to stay with him.Each time they visit, they try to get me to give them the green light for whatever plan they’ve hatched for my “rescue”—a green light that I refuse to give, and not just because I’m afraid of the potential bloodshed, as before.
I simply can’t bear the thought of being apart from Alexei… even though he still hasn’t told me he loves me.
I try not to let it get to me.After all, some men just have trouble with that word, that very concept.And not just men.If it weren’t for my illness, it would’ve taken me much longer to come around, to accept my feelings and the vulnerability that inevitably accompanies them.Staring my own mortality in the face helped me let go of the decade of denial, of the fear of repeating my mother’s errors and enduring her fate.
If I hadn’t gotten cancer, Alexei and I might still be at odds with each other.At the very least, it would’ve been much harder for me to see him as anything more than a cruel puppet master—an aspect of his personality that is still very much there but that I no longer view as solely negative.
If anything, I’m grateful for his machinations now.
After all, they brought us together.
By the endof the third week, we’re fully settled in, and I invite Natasha to our house for lunch.It’s just us girls—Alexei left for a business meeting—and I relish the ability to catch up undisturbed with my childhood friend.
“So, you and Alexei Leonov, huh?”she says after we’re done squealing over each other’s hairstyles—hers a sleek blond bob, mine now something approaching a cute pixie cut.“I knew it!”
I was leading her to the kitchen, where the sushi I ordered is waiting, but at her words, I stop in my tracks.“You did?How?”
Though I consider Natasha my best friend, I never told her about my betrothal to Alexei or our complicated, decade-long cat-and-mouse relationship.As far as she or any of our friends in Moscow knew, Alexei and I were less-than-friendly acquaintances, nothing more.
She bites her lip.“Remember that weird ring you got at my house when we were fourteen or something?You never told me what that was about, but I heard Lyudmila talking about it on the phone later.It was from him, wasn’t it?He was ‘AL?’”Before I can confirm or deny, she presses on.“And the way you two were all buddy-buddy at my gala right before you disappeared on us?Yeah, that was a dead giveaway.Not to mention—” She stops.
“Not to mention what?”
She gives me a sheepish smile.“Well, there were rumors about the two of you.Ever since your eighteenth-birthday party.People said they saw him give you what looked like an engagement ring, and then you two had a fight or something.Next thing we know, your parents are telling everyone that you felt sick and had to leave early.”
“I did feel sick.”
“Right.”She flaps her hand dismissively.“Anyway, I’ve suspected things for a while now.A lot of people have.And in my case”—she grimaces—“I more than suspected.I… knew.”
I frown.“What?”
What does that mean, sheknew?
Color creeps up her cheeks.“I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while, but Alexei sort of… forbade it.But since the two of you are married now, I figure it’s all good.”She grips my hands.“It is, right?You’re not mad?”
