Chapter 37 Vulnerability
Dima walked back through the glass door like a man heading to his own execution.
His face was pale beneath its usual composure with a tight jaw while his eyes avoided hers. He crossed to the leather couch where she still sat, her dress rumpled, her body still humming from his touch but he didn't sit beside her. He sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing her, his hands clasped between his knees.
For a long, terrible moment, he said nothing.
Anya waited, her heart a slow, heavy drum in her chest. Whatever he'd learned on that call was bad. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the tension in his jaw and the way his hands gripped each other like he was holding himself together.
"Dima," her voice was soft, careful. "What happened?"
He looked at her.
"Lena is coming to the estate." He said
The name meant nothing to her but the way he said it like a wound being reopened made her stomach clench.
"Who's Lena?"
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was flat, clinical, like he was reading a briefing.
"Lena Volkov was my former fiancee." He paused, letting the words land. "We were engaged for three years but it ended eighteen months ago."
Anya's world tilted.
Fiancee.
She'd known, logically, that Dima had a life before her. That he'd loved before, wanted before, been with others before but knowing and feeling were different things. The jealousy that stabbed through her was sharp and unexpected.
"Why are you telling me this?" Her voice was steadier than she felt.
"Because she's coming to the estate for a week because my father invited her." His jaw tightened. "I don't know why, I don't know what he's planning but I needed you to know before you met her."
Anya processed this slowly. An ex-fiancee, arriving at the house, just as they were getting closer and as everything was shifting between them.
"What happened?" she asked quietly. "Between you and Lena?"
He was silent for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was rougher, less controlled.
"My father arranged the engagement because Lena's family had connections he wanted and money he needed. She was…." He stopped, swallowing hard. "She was kind, good but she didn't know what my father was and what I was planning."
"You used her." The words came out before Anya could stop them.
He flinched. "Yes, for three years, I played the devoted fiance while I built my case against my father. I let her love me, thinking we had a future." His voice cracked, "and when my plan was ready, I ended it by telling her, I didn't love her anymore, I let her hate me, because it was safer than letting her be part of this."
Anya's heart ached for him, for Lena and for the cruel choices this life forced on everyone.
"She doesn't know," she whispered. "About your father or your plan."
"No." His eyes met hers, raw and desperate. "She can't because if she knew, if anyone knew she would have been in danger and my father would use her or kill her. I couldn't…" He stopped, his breath catching. "I couldn't let that happen."
"So you let her hate you instead."
"Yes."
The word hung between them, heavy with years of pain.
Anya reached out, taking his hands. They were cold, trembling slightly.
"That must have been unbearable," she said softly. "Loving someone and pushing them away to protect them."
He looked at her hands wrapped around his. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
"It was worse than anything my father ever did to me."
They sat like that for a long moment, connected by touch and shared pain. Anya thought about Lena, the woman who had loved Dima who had been sacrificed to keep her safe, who was about to walk into the lion's den without knowing the danger.
"What does she think happened?" Anya asked. "Why do you think it ended?"
He shook his head slowly. "She thinks I stopped loving her, that I used her for her family's connections and discarded her when I got what I wanted." His jaw tightened. "She thinks I'm exactly what my father raised me to be."
"But you're not."
"I am." He pulled his hands away, standing abruptly. He walked to the window, his back to her, his reflection ghostly in the glass. "I did use her, I did let her love me while I planned to destroy everything she knew. I am complicit in my father's crimes, in ways she'll never understand."
Anya stood, crossing to him. She stopped behind him, close enough to touch but not touching.
"You did what you had to do to survive," she said quietly. "To protect her and yourself, that doesn't make you a monster."
He turned, and the look on his face broke her heart, a longing for absolution he didn't think he deserved.
"Lena is coming," he said. "And she can't know….can't know what we're doing or anything about you."
The words landed like stones.
Anya understood, logically, why this was necessary. Lena was a variable, an unknown, a potential danger to everything they'd built. But the way he said it—she can't know anything about you felt like a door closing.
"You're asking me to pretend," she said slowly. "To play a role of being nothing to you while she's here."
"I'm asking you to survive." His voice was rough, urgent. "If Lena suspects anything, if she tells my father, even accidentally we're both dead. Everything we've worked for, everything we've built will be gone."
"And us?" The question was barely a whisper.
He reached for her, pulling her close. His arms wrapped around her, fierce and desperate.
"Us is forever," he murmured into her hair. "Us is after when this is over, when we're free and us is everything. But right now, right here, we have to be invisible."
She clung to him, breathing in his scent, memorizing the feel of his arms around her. A week of pretending, distance and a week of watching him with another woman, even knowing the truth.
"I don't know if I can do this," she whispered.
He pulled back, cupping her face in his hands.
"You can, remember you're the strongest person I know." His thumbs traced her cheekbones. "And when it's over, when Lena leaves, we will have the chance to do anything and when my father falls…I'll spend every day making it up to you, I promise."
She looked into his eyes, seeing the truth there, fear, love and hope.
"Promise me something," she said.
"Anything."
"When this is over, when we're free—you'll tell her the truth, you'll let her know that you didn't stop loving her that you pushed her away to save her."
He was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"I promise."
She kissed him softly, a seal on their agreement. When they parted, she pressed her forehead to his.
"One week," she whispered. "We can do this."
"One week." He kissed her forehead. "Together even when we have to pretend we're not."
They stood in the glass office, high above the city, holding each other against the darkness.