I hadn’t hidden the way I’d about turned very well, Yannick creating a space between us, his hand inching away. “I think,” I whispered, not truly believing I was about to say what I was and feeling mighty unappreciative. “As grateful as I am for your intervention, nothing’s changed.”
“No dinner?”
I shook my head slowly. “No dinner.” Briefly closing his eyes, he pulsed with heavy disappointment, and it made me want to explain more than ever so he understood my reservations. “I’m afraid if I start something with you, I’ll lose myself. You have the potential to do that and I’m already a mess. I can guess what you do, you all but spelled it out for me and I can’t live that kind of life. I’m simple, Yannick, uncomplicated. You and this,” I pointed between us, “Are not. I like you, but I like myself more and together we would just be a disaster waiting to happen.”
Yannick rolled onto his back and threw an arm across his face. “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry.” Truly, I was. Pushing him away from me firmly was the right thing to do, we had no future.
“It’s not you that should be sorry, Jolie. Everything you say is right, we both know it, but it doesn’t stop the yearning I have to get to know you, to treat you like the princess you are. That’s on me, not you. I’m a goddamn liability for anyone, which is pretty difficult to overlook. You’re being careful and protecting yourself, I can’t fault you for being smarter than I am.”
I wanted to apologise again, but he wasn’t a man who would have welcomed platitudes, so I kept my mouth shut. He sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, back to me. Taking a moment, he heaved in a long breath, then got up to dress.
“CeeCee won’t come near you again,” he said without turning around. “Andrey sorted it out last night.”
“Oh.” Suddenly I worried for CeeCee, which was bloody stupid, considering.
“He didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I sent Andrey because I couldn’t trust myself. He’s far more diplomatic than I am.”
My brain had gone there, and I wasn’t proud to admit it. Yannick and the men surrounding him were lethal, more than capable, and I doubted they batted their eyelids doling out violence to those they saw fit.
“If you need anything, call me. If you feel any worse, call the doctor. Your friend, Carol, asked you to text her if you need anything.”
“Thank you.”
Finally, he turned as he swung his suit jacket on, buttoning it at the front. “Let me sort my shit out. Please, Jolie? Never say never. Given half the chance, I could give you the world.”
Enticing as his plea was, it was entirely the wrong thing to say. “I don’t need the world, Yannick.”
He smiled sadly, his eyes downcast. “No, you don’t, but I’d give it to you all the same.”
I cried for a long time after Yannick left. How could I miss something I’d never had? How could I turn away a man who’d been nothing but kind to me? I knew the answers, which was why the tears took a long time to stop falling. Life simply wasn’t fair.
Irina
Seeing my grandfather always left me perched on the edge of an extremely sharp knife blade. He was unpredictable, old school, brutal and had not been a fan of either my father or my mother. In fact, he had very few kind words to say about his only son. If anyone scared me, it was Lev, and he’d absolutely earned that fear tenfold.
He hadn’t taken long to reply to my curt text with one of his own, he’d known it was coming from the scant conversation I’d had with Lev the week before. His demand that I visit the sanctuary he’d built amongst four acres of woodland in the middle of nowhere, not a surprise. Lonely Lev I’d nicknamed him in my head, which was far from the truth. He’d never been lonely in his life, not with Sergey at his constant beck and call, and not with the way he’d bought loyalty with good old-fashioned money and brute force. He was a revered man in our circles, one whose name made people shrink in their boots at the mere mention of him.
The organised family Yannick and I had fronted for years had definitely not been ours. Lev orchestrated from behind the scenes. I knew what Yannick wanted, found it impossible to see Lev granting him it without strings attached. I’d briefly entertained the notion too, then brushed it away as an idle dream because I enjoyed the power that had been handed to me and didn’t know any other way. I wasn’t ready to let go, not yet, and I was in no way eager to see how this would shake out and who would come out on top. There were no illusions Lev would let me sit at the head, even if I was to get down on my knees and beg for the accolade.
My hands shook a little as I parked up outside the sprawling farm cottage, laughing sourly. If anyone could have seen me, they’d realise I wasn’t as put together as I made out, my facade always slipped coming to meet this man, the young girl I’d tried so hard to leave behind, resurfaced every single time.
He stood at the door, a stooped figure looking all of his years. The glasses were new, and maybe the wrinkles etched across his leathered skin too. But
