Chapter 61 Nikolai
I didn't sit near the cockpit for long.
The plane leveled out somewhere over the Alps and I stood up and walked to where Marlena sat by the window. She didn't look at me when I stopped beside her seat. Just kept staring out at the darkness beyond the glass.
"Can I sit?" I asked.
She didn't answer but she didn't say no either. I took that as permission and sat down across the small aisle from her.
The space between us felt enormous. We were maybe three feet apart but it could have been miles. I could feel it like something physical, all the damage and hurt and things that couldn't be taken back pressing down heavy in the small cabin.
I wanted to say sorry. The words were right there, easy to access, ready to be spoken. But I had said sorry before and it hadn't meant anything because words were just sounds unless they came with something real behind them. And what did I have that was real? What could I possibly offer her that would matter?
I looked at her face instead.
She looked tired. Not the regular kind of tired from a long day or a bad night. The kind that settled deep in your bones and changed how you carried yourself. Her eyes had dark circles under them and her skin was pale and there was something in the set of her mouth that hadn't been there before. Something hard and sad at the same time.
I had done that to her. Me and my plans and my need for revenge that had swallowed everything good and spit out only pain.
The flight to Prague was four hours. We sat in silence for most of it.
She slept for maybe an hour in the middle, her head against the window, her breathing slow and even. I watched her sleep and tried not to think about all the times I had watched her sleep in the penthouse, back when she was still mine in some complicated way, back before I had destroyed even the broken thing we had managed to build.
When she woke up she looked at me once and then looked away fast, like it hurt to see me.
We landed just after midnight.
Katya had arranged a car and a hotel, something small and quiet on the edge of the city where nobody would think to look for us. The drive from the airport was silent except for the sound of rain on the windows and the driver's radio playing soft music in a language I didn't understand.
The hotel room was basic. One bed, a small bathroom, a window that looked out at wet streets and old buildings. Marlena dropped her bag on the floor and went to stand by the window without saying anything.
I closed the door behind us and stood there feeling useless.
"Marlena," I said.
She didn't turn around.
"I need to tell you something." My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. "I fell in love with you before Monaco."
She went completely still.
"The revenge," I continued. "It stopped mattering as much after that. I kept going because I didn't know how to stop. But somewhere in the middle of it all, you became more important than any of it."
She turned around slowly. Her eyes were full of hurt and something else I couldn't name.
"When?" she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"I don't know exactly. Somewhere between the contract and the wedding. Somewhere in all those quiet moments when you looked at me like you were trying to figure out if I was real." I took a step toward her and stopped. "I didn't plan for it. I didn't want it. But it happened anyway."
She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to hold something in.
"I still love you," she said, and the words landed between us like broken glass. "I hate that I do but I can't make it stop. Even after everything. Even knowing what you did and what it cost." Her voice cracked. "But I don't know if love is enough. Not after the baby. Not after Luka. Not after my mother getting taken again because people are still using us to hurt each other."
I crossed the space between us without thinking. My hands found her face and she didn't pull away. She just stood there with tears running down her cheeks and looked at me like she was trying to memorize something she knew she was losing.
"I know it's not enough," I said. "I know I can't fix what I broke. But I'm trying to become something different. Something that deserves you."
"You can't just become different," she whispered. "People don't work that way."
"Then I'll spend the rest of my life trying anyway."
She kissed me first.
It was desperate and sad and full of everything we had lost and everything we were still losing. I kissed her back with the same desperation, my hands in her hair, her body pressed against mine like we could somehow hold on to this moment and make it last.
We barely made it to the bed.
Clothes came off fast and clumsy. Her hands shook when she touched me and mine shook when I touched her. We came together like people who were drowning, holding on too tight, breathing too hard, trying to find something solid in all the chaos.
It felt like goodbye and hello at the same time. Like an ending and a beginning happening in the same breath. Like the last time and the first time and every time in between all collapsed into one desperate moment.
After, we lay tangled together in the dark. Her head was on my chest and my arms were around her and neither of us spoke for a long time.
The rain kept falling outside. The city hummed quiet beyond the window.
I held her close and felt her breathing slow and even out. She wasn't asleep yet but she was close. I could tell from the way her body relaxed against mine, the way her fingers stopped moving on my skin.
"I'll protect you," I whispered into her hair. "Forever. No matter what happens. No matter what it costs. I'll keep you safe."
She didn't answer but her hand found mine in the dark and held on tight.