Page 85 of Poisoned Vows

“You can leave in the morning if you want,” he says quietly, his voice low and flat as death. And then he walks past me in quick, long strides, disappearing into the bedroom with the door slammed shut behind him.

I don’t know whether to follow him or not, at first. I’m still shaking, too, stunned by the sight of seeing my father’s throat laid open in front of me. There had been so much blood. He’d looked right in my eyes as he died. But what feels worse is that I don’t wish he were still alive. I don’t regret not trying to stop Nikolai.

If anything, a small part of me regrets that I didn’t do it myself, the way Nikolai offered. But—I couldn’t.

I’ve never killed anyone. Neverhurtanyone. I didn’t think I could start with my own father.

What do I want from Nikolai?

I don’t know the answer to that. I believe him when he says I’m free to go. That I could walk out of that door tomorrow morning, and he would give me the divorce he promised and probably a generous settlement as well, and I can have whatever life I please.

But standing on the cusp of that, I no longer know if I want to go.

Nikolai has done things that were wrong. Things that hurt me. But I believe that he wants to make it right. And I—

I think of the man who threw snowballs at me in the forest, who cooked me dinner, who went to the trouble of arranging a dinner and romantic drinks for us, even though he had no need to. Who asked me about myself—the first person who ever really had. Who tracked me down in the snow, who cared for me, who kept me alive.

Who, I think, might be falling in love with me—if he isn’t already.

And I—

What do I feel for him?

He makes me angry sometimes. He frustrates me, others. But he also matches me, wit for wit, and never makes me feel as if I have to be less than myself. If anything, I think he wants to help mefindthe parts of myself that I don’t yet know about. The things that I’ve never been able to discover, because of the life I’ve led up until now.

I hear a shattering sound from the bedroom, and that’s what spurs me into action and gets me to move quickly from where I’m frozen in place by the door into the room that I share with Nikolai—ourbedroom, which is still a thought that I can’t quite wrap my head around. Nothing in this penthouse feels likeours—but maybe I could change that, if we made this real.

If I decided to stay.

He’s not in the bedroom. I walk carefully, quickly to the bathroom, pushing open the door—and that’s when I see him.

He’s standing over the sink, surrounded by glittering glass. The mirror above it is shattered, and I can see from his bleeding knuckles and the bloody glass on the counter that he punched it.

“Nikolai?” I walk towards him with the same quiet, carefulness that he approached me on the balcony. “Nikolai, are you alright?” I feel like the rabbit approaching the wolf, but I’m no longer quite so afraid that he’ll bite me.

Sometimes, now, I think I want him to.

He’s cradling his newly injured hand in the splinted one, and when he looks up at me sharply, an expression of surprise on his face, I see tears shining in his eyes.

It’s not the pain of his hand. It can’t be. Nikolai has endured pain far worse than this and has not made so much as a sound. I’ve seen it myself.

“Lilliana.” He says my name in a whisper, like he wants to beg me for something, when once he was the one who said I would beg him. His eyes are damp, the lashes trembling with tears, and I can’t imagine seeing this man cry—but he’s on the verge of it. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You could start with why you’ve shattered the mirror.” My voice is calmer than I expect it to be. “If you’re angry with me, I can leave tonight—”

“I’m not angry with you.” The words come out flat, almost hopeless. “I’m angry with myself.”

“Why?” I look at him confusedly. “You got what you wanted today. My father is dead. He can’t threaten your family or your position any longer. Your sister is safe. And I—”

“—are no longer mine,” he finishes, and I stare at him.

“Thatis what this is all about? Me leaving?”

Nikolai glares at me, and for a moment, I see the fire that I’m used to, his typical reaction to me. It’s almost a relief. “Ofcourse,that’s what this is about,” he growls. “You’re leaving in the morning. And I—”

For a moment, I can’t speak. I think I’m beginning to understand what it is that he’s going to say. And since I have no idea what to say in return—I simply wait.

“I don’t want you to go,” he finishes. “And I’m angry with myself, because it’s my fault that you are. Because I have pushed you away. Because I had a chance to have a woman as my wife who is stunningly beautiful, intelligent, brave, and tenacious, and I have driven her away every chance that I had, because I was so arrogant and stubborn that I wouldn’t see what it was that she needed from me.”

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