Aleksandr kissed the back of my head, whispering something in Russian against my hair. I could have misconstrued the translation in my sleepy haze, but I thought he said, “You are my destiny, my sun. There is no happiness without you.”

As I drifted to sleep, sheltered underneath the warmth and strength of Aleksandr’s body, I realized tonight was the first time I ever let myself lose control.

If that’s what it took to love and trust someone completely, I was all in.

Chapter 24

A knock on the door woke me for the third time that morning. This time I was in my own bed. Aleksandr had called a cab at the crack of dawn to drop me off at my apartment and take him to get his car. He had to be on the road early to make it to the airport in time for his game. I hadn’t planned on jumping into bed when I got home, but I was exhausted from the little sleep I’d gotten in Aleksandr’s hotel room.

Inspecting my ensemble as I shuffled to the door, I decided the T-shirt and boxer shorts I had on covered more than enough to be decent.

While stifling a yawn, I grabbed the handle and opened the door to find Greg standing outside. I rubbed my fingers across my eyes and took a quick look behind him.

“Hey, Greg?” I asked in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to apologize for last night.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“Oh, well, thanks.” Was a personal visit necessary?

“I’m sorry I tried to kiss you. I was confused. I mean, I read this poem again and I just thought,” Greg began, holding up a piece of paper. His shoulders dropped as he lowered it. “Shit. I thought it was about me.”

I didn’t need to look at the paper to know which poem he had. I’d given him a dozen to use for lyrics, but only one could’ve caused any confusion, because I’d written only one about a guy. The poem I’d written after I first met Aleksandr. My creative way of purging the original feelings I’d had for him. A stupid reminder to not let myself get in too deep.

“Why would you ever think that was about you?” I asked. Before Greg could answer, I saw a figure rushing toward him.

Crap. Not a good time for Aleksandr, who was supposed to be on his way out of town, to show up.

“What’s going on?” Aleksandr demanded. His face was stoic, but I could tell there was a storm rolling in his eyes. The next Cold War could be brewing on the doorstep of my apartment.

Greg turned to look over his shoulder. Instead of a view of Aleksandr’s face, he got an eyeful of his fist.

Literally. Aleksandr punched him. The paper Greg had been holding fell to the ground.

“That’s for hitting on my girlfriend,” Aleksandr said as he bent over Greg, arm cocked and loaded.

Lunging at Aleksandr, I grabbed his arm so he couldn’t swing again. “Stop, Sasha! Stop!”

“What the fuck?” Greg was doubled over, one hand on his knee, the other holding his eye. He cleared his throat and spat. I was thankful there was no blood.

“Don’t ‘What the fuck?’ when you’re the one at my girlfriend’s door at eight in the morning.” Aleksandr’s breath was erratic, his body tense and ready to pounce. Again.

“Calm down.” I held him against my chest, and locked my arms around him.

“Why?” He wiggled out of my hold and spun around to face me. “What’s going on here, Audushka?”

“Greg came over to apologize for being a jerk last night.”

“Apologizing for being a jerk? Or for trying to kiss you?” Aleksandr asked. He stooped down to pick up the paper on the ground. At first, he scanned the words quickly, his eyes darting across the page.

But when his eyelids drooped and his brows inched closer, I realized which poem Greg had brought. Though I’d written it in frustration months ago after I’d met Aleksandr, I still remembered every wicked word by heart.

Come inside

You can sit or lay

Just don’t wait

for me to say

I love you

because I won’t lie

and I know you

won’t say goodbye

I’m the one thing

you’ll never have

a chance with

so as you take my hand

remember

I could never stand the thought of you

on your knees

begging

for a way to please me

that you wouldn’t find

not because

I wasn’t kind

but because

I couldn’t handle

your eyes burning into me

like a candle

a flame rising from the hell

you’re walking on the edge of

and if you fell

I’d catch you

but I’ll never say

I love you

“Is this about him?” Aleksandr asked, thrusting the page toward Greg. His eyes swirled, an ocean before a storm.

“No. I wrote it awhile ago.”

“About who?”

Shit.

“You.” I dropped my eyes. “But I wrote it right after I met you. When I didn’t know you.”

Aleksandr stared at the page, nodding as he reread the words. The swirl of anger drained from his eyes. And that’s what scared me the most. Give me anger. Give me sorrow. But don’t give me indifference.

“Yeah, well, thanks for last night, Auden. It’s good to know where I really stand.” He whirled around and bolted down the hallway.

“Sasha! Sasha, it’s not like that. It was—” I stopped explaining because he didn’t stop walking.

I slumped against the door frame, listening to his heavy footsteps morph to a shuffle the farther down the hall he got.

Abandoned again, only this time it was all my fault.

Chapter 25

“Call him from my phone,” Kristen offered. She grabbed her phone off the end table next to the couch and held it out to me.

“I can’t do that. It’s sneaky,” I said as if I had any shame left. I’d been calling Aleksandr tirelessly from the landline in our apartment for the last week.

“You need to talk to him so you can scrape your pathetic self off the couch and get on with your life. Have you even showered?”

“Yes.” I threw a pillow at her. “I have.” Once.

After a week of calling Aleksandr and leaving messages on his phone with no response, I was only slightly against using Kristen’s phone to call him. I wanted to apologize for the poem and explain that I had written it after we’d first met. Back when I thought he was a douche bag, which was one hundred eighty degrees from who he was as a person.

I gave him time to cool off. He needed to pick up the phone and talk to me.

“Fine.” I grabbed Kristen’s phone from her outstretched hand, pressing the digits on the screen.

“Allo?” An unfamiliar male voice answered Aleksandr’s phone. He had a Russian accent, but it wasn’t the Russian accent I knew and loved.

“Who is this?” I asked, pulling the phone away from my ear and checking the screen to make sure I dialed the right number.

“Pasha.”

“Oh, hey, Pavel.” I wanted to puke. I didn’t know Pavel Gribov enough to call him Pasha, nor did I want to know him. I missed Landon. Why couldn’t Landon have gotten called up to Charlotte with Aleksandr rather than slimy Gribov?

“I need to speak with Aleksandr. Can you put him on?”

“He’s unclothed.” Pavel laughed. “Or indisposed, I get these English words confused. But you understand this, yes?”

“Auden?” Aleksandr called out in the background.

“It’s Angie, but whatever,” a woman’s voice responded.

“So sorry you had to hear that,” Pavel said. I wanted to crawl through the phone and kick his patronizing ass. “Actually, I’m not. You know, he thinks you are a selfish, cheating whore, yes?”

“What?” My voice shook on the verge of a meltdown.

“The only girl he’s ever loved writes a horrible poem about him. You use him to cry about your mother, yet you don’t even think about what losing his parents did to him? You are selfish. And you wonder why he hasn’t called you back.”