I smile at myself in the mirror and realize what a rare feeling it is for me to smile this way. It’s normally only something I do when I’m performing, and I’m in that perfect moment of flow.
Smoothing the camisole, I take a deep breath and walk to the door, opening it. I pad across my bedroom, out into the hallway and to the next door, Bohdan’s room. I hesitate outside it. Do I knock?
What if Jasper has put cameras in the rooms? I doubt he’d go so far, but who knows. Do I care anymore?
I’m standing in my hallway, and I might as well be holding a grenade and deciding whether to take the pin out or not.
With a step forward and my hand on the door handle, I detonate the explosion and step into Bohdan’s room.
He’s asleep, with a book over his chest and the bedside light on. He’s wearing reading glasses, and something about that hits me in the gut. The glasses lend him a slightly vulnerable air, and with his mussed hair, and his softly parted lips I feel something beyond lust. This is the boy I knew. This man here is the one who offered me safety and comfort during some very hard times.
He’s also the one who betrayed me, but right now I can’t bring myself to care. It was a long time ago, we were young, he was drunk and plied with drugs. I feel a sense of lightness as I let it go for now.
Walking toward him, I sit on the bed and tap on top of the book. “Bohdan?”
He awakens immediately and reaches under his pillow. I swallow when he takes out the gun, but as soon as he focuses on me, he relaxes.
“Shit, Dasha, don’t creep up on me like that; it could be dangerous.”
“Sorry.” I bite my lip, suddenly unsure of what I’m doing here, and of how to proceed.
He takes in my appearance and licks his lips as he places the gun inside the bedside drawer, not under the pillow. “Did you come in here because you needed something?”
The question is loaded. I nod, unable to put it into words.
“What do you need, beautiful?”
I shrug.
God, what happened to my voice.
“Do you need to forget?” he asks.
I nod.
“To feel good?”
I nod again.
He comes close and lifts his hand to tangle it in my hair. Unlike Jasper’s cruel hold, Bohdan’s is firm but tender too.
“I’ve got you,” he says, and then he kisses me.
It’s deep, and it seems full of emotion. I tell myself I’m being a stupid woman and imagining things, but it feels as if Bohdan kisses me as if his life depends on it. His hands sweep down my arms, and then up my side, slipping over the silk of the camisole.
“I like this,” he says.
Is it sexy? It’s classy, but that’s not the same thing necessarily. Maybe Jasper is right, and Bohdan likes women with big boobs spilling out of sexy, lacy bras. He’s taking a trip down memory lane with me, re-experiencing that rush of first love, but it doesn’t mean I’m someone he’d be attracted to if we didn’t have our history. I stop his movements for a moment and pull my mouth free of his.
“What’s your type?” I ask.
He frowns. “Sorry?”
“Women, what type do you go for?”
“You. You’re my type.”
I make a lame joke. “Oh, you’re a smooth talker. Seriously, though, what’s your type. “
“Seriously, though, you are. You’re stunning.” He skims a hand down my arms again, his fingers leaving goose bumps in their wake.
“I’m skinny,” I say.
“Delicate,” he replies.
“Ginger hair, and most people don’t like that.”
“Red hair, and lots of people love it.”
“Pasty skin.”
“It’s like fucking porcelain, Dasha. Where is this shit coming from? You’re beautiful. You’re talented. World famous in your field. Why the downer on yourself?”
I shrug. “I know I’m not most men’s type. I’m classically beautiful, facially; I know that. But I’m not sexy. That’s okay. It’s never bothered me before, but now, tonight, I want to feel sexy.”
“Dasha, I’m not saying empty words here. You’re the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. You were the moment I saw you again when you were sixteen, and you had that gorgeous red hair falling around your shoulders.”
Him mentioning that moment brings up another woman over him, sucking him, and I wasn’t sexy enough to stop him looking elsewhere, was I?
He must read some of my thoughts in my face. “Dasha, I’m so sorry about what I did. I have no excuse except to say I was fucking wasted. Beyond anything I’d been before. I got drunk and someone gave me something, and I didn’t realize it was ecstasy. I was not in control of my faculties. It’s not an excuse, but the truth. I wish you hadn’t seen it.”
He knows I was at the party due to a very acrimonious phone call we had afterward. Acrimonious on my part; he was fucking off his head still.
I nod and try not to cry because damn it I don’t cry when my husband beats me and covers me in trash, so why am I wanting to now?
“But what I did,” he continues, “it was all on me because I was fucked up, and it felt good for a brief moment in time. It meant nothing, and the woman, I can’t even remember what she looks like.”
I can.
He sighs. “There’s been a lot of women, Dasha. I’ve got to be honest with you before we go any further. I’m clean. I use condoms, and I get tested, but I’ve not been exactly celibate since we last saw one another. But the only woman who ever meant anything was you. That’s not me spouting flowery bullshit. It’s the truth. I thought of you nearly every day. You’re one of the few people in this world to really know me. I also thought you’d betrayed me in the worst way. So, you see, I’ve spent years loving and hating you in equal measure. Some days my hatred for you was white hot, on others my love for you was as deep as the ocean, but through it all you were never nothing.”
Holy crap. What do I say to that? I’ve thought of him too, obviously, but not every day.
He looks at me. “I’ve been thinking about what we’d do if you were pregnant, and I don’t want you stuck in this loveless marriage.”
His words hit me hard. He thinks I can get pregnant?
“I’m not pregnant. I’m on the pill,” I lie.
“Birth control isn’t always one hundred percent. All I’m saying is I thought about it, and if you were—”
“Bohdan,” I interrupt testily. “I’m not fucking pregnant.”
He laughs. “Okay, Dasha. I’m not trying to get you pregnant. I’m trying to tell you something else. It made me realize that I don’t want you to have to spend your life living with a man you hate and who hates you.”
“So you’re offering what? A new life with you?”
“Maybe.”
“What?” I shake my head. This is insane. This is also everything I could ever want offered on a plate, but I can’t go and just be with Bohdan. If he helps me leave Jasper, I need to be alone. I don’t know who I am anymore. Plus, it’s hardly sane what he’s proposing. We don’t know anything about one another now. We only know each other as the past versions of ourselves.