Page 31 of Charmingly Obsessed
I don’t say anything as we make our way up to the apartment. Right now, thank God, Serafima Pylypivna and her magnificent eccentricity are bound to steal the spotlight.
But she doesn’t answer the doorbell. I frown, then remember the keys she pressed into my hand this morning. I unlock the heavy oak door.
It feels… awkward. I’ve been a resident for all of half a day, and I’m already bringing a man home. A bloodied, bruised, devastatingly handsome billionaire, no less.
At least it’s some small comfort that Serafima knows Frez. Knows of him, anyway. Their book club rivalry is the stuff of office legend.
While Mykola disappears into the bathroom – presumably to assess the damage to his nose and attempt some cleanup – I wander through the sprawling apartment. Kitchen, living room, dining room… no sign of Serafima.
Even Aza, her curmudgeonly dachshund, is conspicuously absent. Did they go out for an emergency Ugg boot shopping trip? A protest march?
Just as I’m turning back towards the bathroom, ready to offer my amateur first-aid services again, Serafima Pylypivna appears directly behind me. Materializing out of thin air like some kind of glamorous, opinionated ghost.
I gasp, clutching a hand to my chest, my heart leaping into my throat. She definitely wasn’t there a second ago.
“Serafima Pylypivna!”
“Hmmph.” She peers past me towards the closed bathroom door, then back at me, her gaze sharp, assessing, missingnothing. “Either a knight errant in rather rumpled paper armor,” she mutters, adjusting her vibrant shawl, “or a jester with a particularly sharp sword hidden up his sleeve. One way or another… the trajectory is clear enough for me.” She leans in conspiratorially, her voice dropping to a stage whisper that could probably still be heard in the next borough. “And I assure you, my dear girl,” she adds, her eyes twinkling with terrifyingly inappropriate mischief, “from the sheer force of his… presence… he’s very, very well-endowed.”
Oh God. I’m surrounded. Outflanked. She’s evenworsethan Frez.
13
Chapter 13 Mykola
Adrop from the towel in her hand traces a path down my cheek.
She watches it go, then resumes her work, pressing the edge of the damp, warm towel to my face again.
Her expression is so damn focused, so intent, it’s like she’s diffusing a bomb, not just dabbing at a billionaire’s busted nose. Like she’s trying to save me.
That’s Diana. Patient. Composed. Methodical. They’d probably fast-track her into the astronaut program based solely on the meticulous order of her spice rack or the neatly aligned rows of serums in her bathroom. I’ve seen her planner. It’s a work of art. A goddamn military campaign of organization.
Her lashes, ridiculously long and dark, tremble unexpectedly. A delicate, almost imperceptible shift as her gazemoves from my battered nose to meet my eyes. And fuck, there it is again. That look.
Like staring into a storm-bruised sky just before the heavens unleash holy hell.
I always thought that her blue-gray eyes hold something ancient and vast, along with an impossibly brilliant flare like the sun flaring through the viewport of a shuttle burning up and disintegrating on re-entry.
There’s alwaysan answerhidden in the depths of her eyes. An answer to a question I haven’t even figured out how to ask yet.
She leans in, just a fraction, her touch feather-light as she glides the cloth over the bridge of my nose. The scent of her, some subtle, clean fragrance mixed with the lingering sweetness of those damn pastries, wraps around me, tightening the invisible chains she threw around me years ago.
“Does it hurt?” she murmurs, her voice a soft whisper, like the first rustle of new leaves in spring.So fragile. So goddamn beautiful it makes my chest ache.
“What? This?” I try for nonchalant, but my voice cracks, raspy and raw. I don’t even bother to clear it. “It’s nothing. Keep going.”
Liar.
It hurts. Everything hurts. Not just the throbbing in my face. It’s this… this constant, grinding ache deep inside, a wound that’s been festering for three goddamn years. I’ve been living in a box since that day. A dark, narrow, suffocating box, the date of my entombment seared onto the inside of my eyelids like a brand.
Three years ago I lifted my head. My office. Sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. And Diana Bilova had just stepped through the doorway. She hesitated, aflicker of uncertainty in her stance, caught between advancing and retreating. And then, she looked at me. Directly at me.
And in that instant, I was lost. Sealed inside that moment forever. Trapped in a long, narrow, silent tunnel, no bigger than the distance between her slender, uncertain figure and me, sitting behind my fortress of a desk.
I still live there. In that fucking tunnel. Every so often, something shorts out in the darkness, the crackle of phantom electricity a stark reminder that I’m still, somehow, alive. And the phantom of hers appears. The way she looked at me. The way I imagined the sound of her voice, the precise inflection when she’d finally say my name. She was the new hire, after all. She had to say it.
I got stuck. Right there. In that moment. When her gaze met mine for the first time.
