Legally speaking, we’re married, right? But I don’t feel married to him so much as I feel possessed by him.
I can be rooms away, not with range of hearing or seeing. But he’s still in my head—always—his dark eyes piercing through the mask I’ve spent so many years perfecting.
There’s something else that’s been swimming around in the back of my consciousness, too. A feeling that’s new and unfamiliar.
Jealousy.
When we’d been on the plane, I had heard the stewardess talking—no, flirting with him—I had felt a sharp pang of jealousy so acute that I couldn’t even deny it to myself.
It infuriated me that she would throw herself at Artem like that. I mean, I had walked onto the jet in a fucking wedding dress!
But that’s insane. I don’t give a shit who Artem flirts with. Who he sleeps with.
Better her than me…
Right?
I push the memory from my head. There’s no point obsessing over something I have no control over.
Frustrated with myself, I stand, dusting the sand off my shorts, and head back to the house and up to my room.
My bikini top is dry already from my few minutes in the sun, so I keep it on, but I shimmy out of my shorts and exchange them for panties and a wrap-around skirt.
It’s getting dark and the house has lit up, casting a warm glow on the floral-patterned walls.
I haven’t really explored the mansion much, mostly because I’ve been so aware of Artem, trying to avoid him and my own complicated feelings for him.
Now, though, I take the time to move through the large open spaces, noticing little details that had evaded me before. Wall sconces like fanned-out palmetto leaves. The delicate linens of the white couches sprawling in all the wide open spaces, inviting me to nap endlessly.
It’s truly a beautiful place, inside and out. I could wander around in here forever.
But when I come across a grand piano in a room overlooking the ocean, I know I’m not going any further.
I move across the room as though I’m in a trance and sit down in front of the sleek black instrument. My fingers are already twitching, desperate for the catharsis that playing has always brought me.
I touch one key. It rings out beautifully into the warm silence of the empty house.
And then I’m off. Another note, another, each flowing into the next like the waves on the beach. I’m creating music, losing myself to the melody.
Forgetting who I am. Where I came from. Why I’m here.
I close my eyes and sink into the music.
And for a moment, it feels good.
But it doesn’t last long.
Because Artem’s face appears suddenly in my mind’s eye. Jolts me back to reality.
I have to face the truth: there’s no “losing myself” from this mess. There’s no easy escape button.
If I want out, I have to get myself out.
If not for my own sake, then for the sake of the child in my womb.
I open my eyes again with a weary sigh. It’s getting dark. I can’t see the boat out on the harbor anymore.
But when I turn my head to the side, I realize why.
Because Artem is here now.
He’s leaning against the open doorway that links this room to the kitchen. Arms crossed over his bare chest, dark eyes locked on me, and the faintest ghost of a smile playing across his lips.
I gasp. The melody dies at once with a harsh clang.
“Jesus!” I exclaim.
He doesn’t move. Just keeps staring at me calmly, a muscle twitching slightly in his jaw.
“How long have you been standing there?” I demand. “You scared the hell out of me!”
His eyes dip down to my breasts. The bikini top I’m wearing suddenly feels like a negligent wisp of fabric that serves no purpose. I might as well be naked.
“When did you learn to play?” he asks, ignoring my question.
“I started when I was four. My father flew in an instructor from Italy.”
“That’s young.”
“I was lonely. The music made me less lonely.”
The moment the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. But it’s too late to recant them.
He moves closer and sits down on an embroidered sofa chair adjacent to the piano. “What else did you do?”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“Apart from playing the piano, what else did you do to fill your time growing up?” he asks.
I’m so taken back by his interest in my childhood that I answer honestly. “School.”
“Joaquin sent you to a school?” Artem asks, surprised.
I shake my head. “I was home-schooled. That teacher was from Switzerland. The tennis coach was from France, in case you were wondering. The sewing teacher was Canadian, the cooking teacher was Spanish, and the man who taught me to shoot guns was just like you.”
“He was Russian?”
“No, he was an asshole.”
To my surprise, he laughs at that. I expected a harsher reaction.
“So you cook, you sew, you play piano. The perfect little housewife.”
I search for mockery laced in his tone, but there’s none. That’s surprising, too.
He’s right, of course. It’s why Papa raised me the way he did. To maximize my value, as he would say.
“I guess that was what I was groomed for,” I concede. I pause, then add, “Maybe my father knew that I would end up as nothing more than a mindless doll trapped in a life I didn’t ask for.”
Artem doesn’t so much as bat an eyelid. “There’s nothing about you that’s mindless, Esme.”
I glare at him, trying again to search for subtext in his words.
But as before, he looks and sounds completely sincere. As open and honest as he’s ever been.
Maybe this is just another mind game he wants to play with me.
“Do you think flattery is going to make me forget that you forced me to marry you?”
“I wasn’t trying to flatter you at all,” he replies. “I was merely making an observation.”
“Oh yeah? And what else have you observed about me?”
“Apart from the fact that you’re stubborn and frustrating as fuck?” he asks
