Page 60 of Wicked Vow

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, tilting her head up to look at me. “I’m sorry this is it, that this is all we get–”

I think I see a sheen of tears in her eyes, and it sends a feeling through me so unfamiliar that I don’t know how to put a name to it, how to even describe it. What we did tonight was different than anything I’ve ever done, and the feelings startle me.

I’ve never been like this with anyone. I’ve neverwantedthis–to hold someone after sex, to feel their warmth against me, to stay the night and wake up with them. I’ve never wanted to keep going with anyone before.

I’ve never wanted anyone else to be a part of my life. But with her, it feels right. I can see it–all the ways it could be different, all the ways I could change for her. The things I would do to make her happy.

It tears me apart, knowing that I’m going to lose her. The seconds are ticking by, and I only have a few more before I have to leave.

I can prove it to her, this way. I can prove that I can change, if I walk away. If I don’t fight her on this. If I let her do it her way.

I’ll do this for her.

Slowly, I sit up, disentangling us as I reach for my clothes on the floor. Natalia sits up, too, pulling the sheets up to her chest as she watches me.

“I’ll leave you alone, the way you asked,” I say finally, when I’m dressed, as I stand there at the edge of the bed. She moves closer to me, watching me with tired eyes. “I won’t follow you. I won’t leave you anything. I’ll stay away. But–”

“Mikhail–”

“I want to see the baby.Ourbaby, just once. Please.”

I’ve so rarely asked her for anything, so rarely saidplease, that it startles her into considering it. She pauses, as if thinking it over in her head, and then finally, after a long moment, she nods.

“Once,” she says softly. “When I decide. Not immediately after. I’ll need time.”

I nod, even as everything in me rebels at the thought of not being there, of her having our child alone, at being separated from her and them. “I’ll give you the number you can call.”

She reaches for her phone, handing it to me, and I type the number in. When I’m done, I set it back down on her nightstand, and I look down at her.

She looks so fucking beautiful, her honey blonde hair a tangled mess around her face and shoulders, her skin flushed in the moonlight, her eyes that soft blue that I want to drown in. I want to stay, to take her with me when I go, but I know that none of it is possible.

“I won’t see you again until then,” I tell her quietly. “I promise.”

“Okay,” Natalia whispers. She swallows hard and reaches out, her fingers brushing against mine. “I know you’ll keep that promise.”

Even as she says it, I can see in her eyes that she doesn’t believe me. That she doesn’t think I’ll be able to do it. It only strengthens my resolve to prove to her that I can be different. That I can keep my word to her this time–and maybe one day, she’ll trust me enough to let me in again.

It takes everything in me to leave. I take one last look at her there, the only woman I ever have and ever will love–and then I turn to go, slipping out of the window the same way I came.

I have no idea, as I land in the grass and start to sneak my way across the lawn, if I’ll ever see her again.

Natalia

When I wake up in the morning, it almost feels like a dream, like I imagined Mikhail being there. The soreness between my thighs and the lingering stickiness there is the only way I know for sure that it wasn’t–and my clothes strewn across the floor.

The window is still open where he left last night. I get up slowly, walking across the room to close it, and my chest aches at the memory.

He’d said he loved me. He’d asked me to come with him. He’d said that he could change. And I’d let him go.

It was the right thing to do. I know it was.

I swallow hard, reaching to gather up my clothes before anyone else can come up and see them. I can’t get the memory of his bruised body out of my head, the way he’d looked naked, so much of him reddened and black and blue and swollen. I want to be with him right now, taking care of him, making it better somehow–but we’ve never been further apart.

I don’t know where he is, but tomorrow I’ll be leaving for Boston. It’s distance that I’d set up intentionally, but now it feels like I’m ripping my heart out of my chest, leaving him behind.

You can’t do this together. You can’t trust him enough for that. You know that.

I hate washing him off of me in the shower. I want to cling to the scent of him on my skin, the lingering feeling of his hands on me, of him between my legs. I don’t want to let any of it go, because I have no idea if it will ever happen again–if I’ll ever even see him again.

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