Chapter 180 180

Chapter 180 180
He drops his face and sighs. “You’re a good person, Belle.”

“But not good enough, apparently.” I move towards the door. “Why did you let me stay here? If this is how you felt, why did you—I could be with my sister right now. I chose to be here, and you knew why.”

“I didn’t know you were going to do this,” he snaps.

“Maybe not. But you know everything. You knew why I decided to stay. And you let me.”

I lean back against the door and remember the last time I was pressed against it. When Nikolai was holding me, his hands and mouth on my body.

The memory feels tainted now.

“I knew you could be vicious, but I never thought you’d be cruel.” A sob nearly bursts out of me, but I swallow it down. “Especially not to me.”

He’s sitting up in bed now, staring at me. I feel like some kind of freak show on display. My skin is hot enough that I’m surprised I’m not steaming, and I know every emotion must be written plainly on my face.

The love. The pain. The heartbreak.

I can’t be here anymore. I can’t look at him. And I sure as hell can’t have him looking at me.

I spin around and yank the door open. Maybe Nikolai says something, maybe he doesn’t, but either way, I don’t hear it. By the time I step into the hallway, the tears I managed to hold back have sprung free. I’m sobbing and running away from him.

It doesn’t matter what he says now anyway. There’s nothing he can say to fix this.

The only thing I want to hear is an impossibility.

I love you, Belle. Of course I love you.

But he doesn’t. He never did.

I’m just the naive fool who believed he could.

I run to the opposite end of the house before I realize there’s nowhere to go where he won’t find me. I can’t leave in the middle of the night, and I can’t just sit in the kitchen or the sitting room while I’m like this.

I need somewhere private. Somewhere quiet.

That’s when it hits me: the place I’ve always gone to hide. The safe space I created as a little kid when I was alone in the world, unloved and terrified. Just like now.

I double back to the discreet doorway across the hallway I’ve never opened before. During the initial tour of the house, Nikolai said it was storage. It’s exactly what I need now. I need to hunker down in a dark closet, take a few deep breaths, and figure out how to carry on from here.

“Belle!” Nikolai’s voice echoes through the dark house. “Belle, wait!”

Panic creeps up my spine. I can’t see him now. Not yet. I need a few minutes.

I yank open the door and step into the darkness…

But I meet no resistance where the floor should be. No ground under my foot. No rail or wall to catch myself on. I can only throw my arms forward as I tumble headfirst into the pitch black, a scream on my lips.

37

BELLE

It’s dark. It’s so unbelievably, blindingly dark.

“Belle. Belle, are you okay?”

The words are coming from all around me. Somewhere far away and inside my own head at the same time.

“Are you okay?” Nikolai’s voice asks again.

I blink hard and open my eyes. When I do, there’s only more darkness. But I feel Nikolai around me. The real Nikolai. He is damp with sweat. The room around us smells like musk and earth.

“I’m going to pick you up,” he says. “Tell me if something hurts.”

Everything hurts, I think. But I can’t force the words out. My lips won’t move, and the harder I try, the more tired I get.

My eyes drop closed and the world fades away.

Nikolai looks like a god. He’s shirtless and jogging towards me, sweat glistening across his skin.

“Did you have a good run?” I ask, swallowing back the lust clogging my throat. I want to lick him clean.

He slows to a stop in front of the porch and shakes out his limbs. Muscles ripple. It takes physical effort to keep my tongue from lolling out of my mouth.

“I finished, so I guess it was fine. I prefer getting my cardio in other ways,” he says, wagging dark brows at me. “But you said you were busy, so—”

A blush creeps across my chest, but I hold my chin high. “Next time you want to have sex in the middle of the afternoon, I’ll tell the kids to make their own damn snacks.”

“Good. It’s about time they learn.” He grins and swipes a hand across his forehead. “Where are the kids, anyway?”

“Aunt Elise came and picked them up. She’s taking them to the children’s museum and then for ice cream.”

Nikolai’s gray eyes lock on mine. “Are you telling me the house is empty?”

“That is exactly what I’m telling you, Mr. Zhukova.” I lean back on my palms, back arched, shamelessly ogling him. “What are you going to do about it?”

He crosses the distance between us in two strides and scoops me into his arms. I yelp, but there’s no need. He won’t drop me. He never has.

“You’re all sweaty.” I swipe my fingers across his golden chest, trying to be disgusted with him. But I’m only human.

“And about to get sweatier.” He leans down like he’s going to kiss me, but I barely feel the brush of his lips.

“Hey!” I wrap a hand around his neck and pull him down to me. Once again, his lips move across me, but I don’t feel a thing. “Why aren’t you kissing me?”

I open my eyes. Nikolai is still holding me, but his face is suddenly, bizarrely blank. His gaze is flat. Lifeless. He looks down at me, slack-jawed and vacant, and asks, “Why would I kiss you?”

“Because… because you’re my husband?” I laugh, but it’s a weak, nervous sound.

He shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”

“Is this a joke? This is a weird joke.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“Then what is it?” I demand, suddenly angry. “We’re married. You and I, we—we had a wedding. And how do you explain the kids? There are three of them.”

Nikolai shakes his head again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nikolai, stop! We have three kids. Their names are…” I think hard, but no names come to me. My mind goes perfectly blank. I grunt in frustration. “I know we have kids! What are their names?”

“We don’t have kids,” he says, his voice shifting to a lower pitch with every word, into baritone, into something too low to be real. I barely recognize it now. “We don’t have anything. There is nothing between us.”

“What are you even saying? This doesn’t make any—”

I look up and Nikolai’s face is gone. It’s like he was a graphite drawing and someone smudged the image. His features shift and slide and blur until he is a cloud. Until he doesn’t exist.

Until nothing exists.

I scream, but it doesn’t make a sound.