Chapter 33: Alexander
“Maybe… We are atypical.” Those hazel eyes, clear and bright, pierced my heart with uncanny precision as she spoke.
I had to agree with Katerina's words. What were we but the unlikeliest match, bound together in the oddest of ways? And yet, we were tied together all the same. Not only by the arrangement, not simply by our fathers' machinations, but by something more, something I couldn't quite pinpoint. By simple words strung together and made into lasting promises, like seeing a child's plastic beads placed onto a necklace and then witnessing some magic transforming them into crystal.
"I certainly won't deny that," I replied, stepping closer to her.
She was tall, my fiancée, but still four inches shorter than my height of six feet, and I noticed that difference acutely now. I thought of the last time I had wanted to kiss her, how it had been such a far cry from this time. Chandelier—not fluorescent—lighting casting a golden gleam on her hair, wearing a fitted green dress instead of a paper-thin hospital gown, and now there was colour in her cheeks, a pink tint rather than ashen. Yet she somehow looked just as beautiful, just as enchanting.
"Kati." Her name was a sigh, a breath in my mouth, and when my hands fell to her waist and my mouth neared hers, she felt like a natural extension of myself.
"Alex," she murmured in response, tilting her head back to look up at me, hands rising to cup the nape of my neck like we were dancing.
Although this was nothing like our last and first dance; this was a thousand miles away from that ballroom, from our engagement party hours before she'd gotten shot. Nothing felt false or awkward at this moment, for one thing. There was nothing easier, yet nothing more thrilling, than being in this embrace with her. In the next breath, the next blink, the next beat of my heart, she reached up or I bent down, and our lips touched.
Our first kiss had been a mess of fearful pain and sharp anger, of trembling hope and fragile awe. Our second one felt like it was cementing something already set in place, like newly forged metal being thrust under cold water. My fingers twined in her silky hair, undoing her braids, and I pulled her flush against me. Her hands were gentle, uncertain, as they smoothed across my shoulders and down my back, leaving trails of heat in their wake. The scent of her skin intoxicated me, left me dizzily aching for more.
I had thought that the first kiss would cure me of this yearning that burned in my veins, that once I had sated that twinge of desire in my gut it would leave me, and I would no longer want to kiss her. I had been so incredibly wrong. Satisfaction bred desire, it seemed, and the more I touched her the stronger the urge I had to do it again.
A sudden, vibrating ring knocked us both out of our stupors, throwing us apart. Katerina re-plaited her hair in the mirror, not looking at me, her eyes fixed upon her reflection. I ignored my phone and walked towards her, placing my hands on her hips, fitting them to the dip of her waist.
"Katerina." My voice was gravelly, hoarse with longing, and she studiously avoided my gaze still, wrapping a hair elastic neatly around the end of her braid.
"What?" She finished the braid and folded her arms across her chest, making herself smaller—folding in on herself. Caution flashed in those lovely hazel eyes—because of how I had reacted the last time we'd kissed. The way she feared my response this time drove a stake through my heart, though I knew it was my fault that she would have such distress. "What do you have to say to me now?"
"You can stay here if you'd like, but I have to take this call. I…I'll see you at dinner." My eyes met hers in the mirror, daring her to look away, and praying that she wouldn't.
I wanted her to recognize that I was finished with lashing out, done letting her down. But I knew that nothing could be so easy—it would be a slow, patient process.
So, I simply let my body do what my words might not, could not, and I bent down, dropped a kiss on her forehead, before walking out the door.
+
"Why have you summoned me here, Father?" Situated in his study, I refused to sit down on the chair across from his.
Aaron Steele didn't harshly command me to sit down, or scowl at me until I did as he expected. My father merely steepled his fingers under his chin, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. "I've been thinking a lot these past few weeks, as you may have noticed."
"I may have witnessed something of that sort, yes." I unbent slightly and leaned against the leather armchair, trying to warm the tone of my voice.
"Well, I've been pondering your upcoming nuptials in particular. And…you know how I hate to be wrong." He gave me a half-bitter smile. "But I don't think you and Katerina should get married."
The words hit me like a blow, like an explosion, blinding me, throwing me into some unknown world where everything I had believed to be true and right was now false and wrong. I couldn't think, could scarcely breathe, as I deeply regretted not taking a seat when I could have. My legs were incapable of keeping me upright, and I gripped the mahogany desk to keep from falling over.
"What—what do you mean—" I choked on my words, surprise like a vice around my throat. "What do you mean, you don't think I should get married?"
He held up his hands as though in defence. "All I am saying is…I have been trying to play God with you and your life, with Katerina's life. The two of you shouldn't get married because I tell you to. Who am I to think that I have the right to control and dictate your life according to my will—according to my whims and desires, and not those of God?
"Alexander, for your entire life I know I have not been the best father to you or Abigail. Please believe me when I say that I am trying to change because I love you. And I don't want to confine you anymore. I don't want you to wake up ten years from now as I did, look at your life and realize that it's been destroyed. To look at your wife and realize you have never loved her or cared for her at all. If you still want to marry her, then I won't stop you. But the decision is on you, Alex." He stood up, clapped me on the shoulder. "Think about it, son. Pray about it."
His words still ricocheting through my mind like bullets, I watched him stand up and leave me in his office, leaving me reeling and off-balance. I sank to my knees at last, and for reasons I could not understand, felt tears spring to my eyes.
"God," I said out loud. "What do you want me to do?"