Page 204 of Sinful Desires
He opened the door, and in they came like a crime scene cleanup crew, still dressed in their pristine white outfits, glowing like angels.
Alexsei took one look at me, sprawled on the bed in tear-stained misery, and let out a laugh.
Arms crossed. Smirk fully loaded.
“Look at you,” he said. “One more meltdown, and we could bottle your tears and sell them as holy water.”
“Zaychik, stop!” Caia rushed over to the bed, and dropped to her knees beside me. “I’m so sorry, Scarlett. Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?”
I snorted. “Murder me. That should do the trick.”
Alexsei made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.
“She’ll have to get in line. Your father’s looking for you too.”
My head snapped up. “Is he here?”
He shrugged. “Nyet. Told him you ran away to Saint Petersburg with a plane ticket under the name Anastasia Romanova. Figured it’d buy you a few hours.”
Caia slapped his arm. “Alexsei!”
“What? It’s not like it’snotsomething she’d do.”
I shoved my face back into the pillow. “You’re all demons.”
Caia patted my hair as Victoria and Nic laughed.
Alexsei leaned back in the chair, looking far too pleased with himself, like watching me unravel was his favorite form of entertainment.
“So, you’re with the French officer now? Damn. Thought you hated him.”
Caia scoffed. “I hated you too. Still married you, didn’t I?”
He glanced over at her, that grin slipping into something softer.
“And thank God you did,moya dorogaya.”
Nicholas sighed and reached for the chocolate snack in Caia’s hand.
“At the end of the day, love always wins. Right?”
Je t’aime, Scarlett.
There’s no blade I wouldn’t kneel for, no hell I wouldn’t crawl through, no ocean I wouldn’t drown in if the price was you in my arms, Scarlett.
Mon étoile filante.
My eyes drifted across the room. Everyone was here. Trying. Reaching for me in their own messy, awkward ways. And for the first time in hours, I let myself feel it. The weight. The love. The ache that hadn’t gone anywhere.
That’s when I knew what I had to do.
But before anything else, I grabbed my phone and typed the message with shaking fingers and throat tight.
I stared at it, every letter carved from something fragile.
Then I hit send.
My hand was still shaking, but my voice wasn’t.
