Page 65 of Charmingly Obsessed
His easy stride falters.
He stops short, his hand, which had been reaching out to me, freezing midair.
His expression shifts from surprised welcome to wary confusion.
For a split second, he doesn’t turn to face me fully. He actually looks… hesitant. Of course.
He must have some tiny, residual scrap of a conscience buried deep beneath all that billionaire swagger. Looking me directly in the eye right now, after what he’s done, would be too much. Even for him.
“And what,” he asks finally, his voice quiet, dangerously soft, “did you sign up for, Diana?”
And now he looks at me. Directly at me. His eyes, those turbulent blue depths, are unreadable. And I can’t take it. I simply… can’t.
The heat of a thousand suns, a thousand betrayals, a thousand unspoken, shattered hopes, spreads through me, hissing, burning, consuming.
I’m losing my goddamn mind over Mykola Frez. Again. Still.
And it’s so unfair. So incredibly, monumentally unfair.
I clamp a hand over my mouth, trying to stifle the sob—the scream, the accusation—clawing its way up my throat.
I take a stumbling step back into the vast, opulent living room. The sheer scale of it, the soaring ceilings, the panoramic city views—suddenly it all feels suffocating.
It’s swallowing me whole.
“Oh, you just had to shock everyone, didn’t you? Had to do the exact opposite of what anyone, anywhere, would ever expect? Just to prove you could? ‘Madly obsessed’ – really, Mykola? Really? That’s… that’s too much. It’s too cruel! Just to rub it in their faces. In my face! No one says things like that! Not about a sham! No one declares it to the entire goddamn world like that! But you… no, you just had to do the opposite! You always have to be the exception! The goddamn unicorn!”
He pulls something – a bottle of water, I think – out of the sleek, integrated refrigerator, his movements slow, deliberate.
He leans against the cool stone of the kitchen island, watching me, his expression still unreadable.
“When will you understand…” My voice trembles, breaks, dropping to a desperate, ragged whisper. “When will it finally click for you – what this is? What kind of pain you inflict with your careless words, your casual manipulations…?” My fist clenches at my side, then I slap my own thigh in frustration. “Whenyou finally, finally understand… you’ll be so fucking ashamed of yourself!”
His voice, when he finally speaks, is quiet. Too quiet. Almost… dangerously so.
“Maybe it’s you who should be ashamed, Diana.”
Then, suddenly, his composure shatters.
He yells—a raw, guttural, furious sound that echoes through the opulent penthouse.
“Yes, maybe you’re the one who should be fucking ashamed!”
He slams the open water bottle down hard onto the countertop. Water sloshes violently over the sides.
He takes an aggressive step toward me—then immediately stops, pulling himself back. His whole body thrums with barely suppressed violence, mirroring my own.
I gasp, recoiling as if he’s struck me. “Me? M-me?! For what? I… I didn’t turn a private, necessary arrangement into a global media spectacle, Mykola! I didn’t lie to millions of people! I didn’t—”
“What didn’t you do, Diana?”
He tilts his head sharply. His expression goes cold and hard. Any lingering softness—any hint of vulnerability—is erased. His face is smooth now, unmoving, like a mask carved from monolithic marble.
“Go on.” His voice is a hoarse, demanding rasp. “Tell me.”
“I… I…” The words won’t come. They’re trapped in my throat, choked by a fresh wave of tears, of anger, of utter, helpless despair.
I clutch the hideous pink jacket-parachute around me, hugging myself tightly as a violent tremor runs through my entire body.
