Page 16 of Scarlet Vows
I love being around Alina, and we get on famously. She’s one of the few people in this pathetic world I truly trust. And if it turned out there was a test, we could pass it.
I’d marry her in less than a heartbeat.
I down my second glass. Pour a third, but don’t drink it, taking it to the desk instead. Then I go about setting up for the meeting—an iPad ready to go on the coffee table and the same info on the computer on the desk.
Boris Gelsky’s eager to get in closer with us, and Demyan’s left it up to me to decide. We can use him, and selling a property Demyan isn’t doing anything with could be a good-faith thing.
But I’ll see.
I rub my eyes and wait for the vodka to warm me a little.
Yes, I’d marry Alina for the purposes of convenience, just like I’m happy to pretend to be her fiancé to get this guy off her back. But realistically, it’s not a reasonable or ethical option.
Alina’s been through so much. It’d be an asshole move to ask Alina to put herself in that kind of situation.
Christ, I can almost hear her yelling at me, telling me it’s her decision and that she’s not delicate.
She’d be right.
But there’s a difference between falling in love and a manipulation of intimacy with a fake marriage. I can’t do the latter to her. Not for a year.
She should heal, not go backward, not mess herself up.
Not that she feels anything beyond friendship for me.
But a year could give her false feelings or even change her feelings for the worse.
And…shit. Truth is, there was a time I thought I was in love with her. I know I’ve still got a crush. Me being that close is a terrible idea because I can’t go back to feeling like I’m in love again.
She’s only seen me as a friend.
And I cherish that.
I don’t want to go back to those feelings. I can’t.
I liked Max, and when I saw them together at first, I knew he was her one. It was clear from the both of them.
Her happiness means more to me than anything, and when she lost him, it devastated me, too. For her.
Sometimes, my crush comes back. Bigger, worse, bordering on huge feelings I have no right to.
How the fuck do you try to work through these feelings by making a move on the girl who’d just lost everything? You don’t.
You hide them away and try to stamp out the crush and the big feelings until they’re …whatever the fuck is in me now.
Shit. Maybe it’s love, these feelings. Maybe it’s just on the cusp. But they’re buried. Gone as much as I can make them be gone.
Timing isn’t a friend. It never will be.
Apart from all that, she’s fucking Demyan’s sister.
She’s off-limits.
I laugh. Holy fuck, not only would I never risk that friendship or the one I have with Alina, but if Demyan hadan inkling that my feelings for his precious sister were less than pure?
He’d murder me.
Slowly.
