Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
She listens as he moves around the room, undressing and folding his clothes. Her anxiety mounts with each movement and with each sound. After an eternity the soft slap of his footsteps pad on the floor as he approaches her bed. He stands beside her, his breathing shallow, and she feels his eyes on her. Everywhere. She squeezes hers shut, pretending to sleep.
He tuts, and she hears the rustle of sheets and blankets, and to her surprise he drapes a blanket over her. He switches off the light, plunging the room into darkness, and the bed dips as he lies down.
No! He should be in the other bed.
She stiffens, but he’s beneath the covers while she’s on top. He puts his arm around her and shuffles closer. “I will know if you leave the bed,” he says, and he kisses her hair.
She recoils and clutches her little gold cross.
Soon his even breathing tells her that he’s asleep.
Alessia stares into the darkness she fears and wishes it would swallow her up. Her tears refuse to fall. She’s all cried out.
What is Maxim doing?
Is he missing me?
Is he with Caroline?
She sees Caroline in Maxim’s arms as he holds her close, and Alessia wants to scream.
* * *
Alessia is too warm, and someone is murmuring in the background. She cracks one eye open momentarily, bewildered as to where she might be.
No. No. No.
A wash of fear and despair fills her with anguish when she remembers.
Anatoli.
He’s on the phone in the other room. Alessia sits up and listens.
“She’s okay….No. Far from it…She’s reluctant to return home. I don’t understand it.” He’s talking to someone in Albanian, and he sounds confused and upset. “I don’t know….Maybe…There was a man. Her employer. The one who was mentioned in the e-mail.”
He’s talking about Maxim!
“She says she is just his cleaner, but I don’t know, Jak.”
Jak! He’s talking to my father!
“I love her so much. She’s so beautiful.”
What? He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “love”!
“She hasn’t told me yet. But I want to know, too. Why would she leave?” His voice cracks. He’s emotional.
I left because of you!
She left to get as far away from him as she could.
“Yes. I will bring her back to you. I will make sure she’s unharmed.”
Alessia places her hands on her still-tender throat. What the hell? Unharmed?
He’s a liar.
“She’s safe with me.”
Ha! Alessia almost wants to laugh at the supreme irony of that statement.
“Tomorrow night…Yes…Good-bye.” She hears him move about the room, and suddenly he appears at the door wearing only his pants and an undershirt.
“You’re awake?” he says.
“Sadly, it would appear so.”
He gives her an odd look and chooses to ignore her comment. “There is some breakfast for you out here.”
“I’m not hungry.” Alessia feels reckless and bold. She doesn’t care anymore. Now that Maxim is out of harm’s way, she can behave as she wishes.
Anatoli rubs his chin and regards her thoughtfully. “Suit yourself,” he says. “We leave in twenty minutes. We have a long way to go.”
“I’m not going with you.”
He rolls his eyes. “Carissima, you have no choice. Don’t make this painful for both of us. Don’t you want to see your father and mother?”
Mama.
His eyebrows rise a fraction. He’s noticed the chink in her armor and, sensing victory, swoops in for the kill. “She misses you.”
She rises out of bed and sullenly grabs her bag and, skirting him as widely as she can, heads into the bathroom to wash and change.
Under the shower an idea begins to form in her head.
She has her money. Maybe she should return to Albania. She can get a new passport—and a visa—and return to England.
Maybe I should stay alive.
And as she briskly towel-dries her hair, she feels a new sense of purpose.
She will get back to Maxim. And see for herself. See if everything they shared was a lie.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alessia dozes in the front seat. They are on an autobahn traveling way too fast. They’ve been driving for hours, through France, through Belgium, and she thinks they’re now somewhere in Germany. It’s a cold, wet, winter day, and the landscape is flat and bleak, reflecting Alessia’s mood. No. She feels more than bleak—she’s desolate.
Anatoli seems grimly determined to get to Albania as fast as possible. At the moment he’s listening to a German talk show on the radio, which Alessia doesn’t understand. The monotony of the voices, the constant rumble of road noise, and the dreary countryside are all dulling her senses. Sleep is what she wants. When she’s asleep, her anguish is a low hum, like static on the radio. It’s not the searing pain that tears at her heart when she’s conscious.
She turns her mind to Maxim.
And the pain amplifies.
Stop. It’s too much.
She looks through tired eyes at her “betrothed,” studying him. His face is hardened in concentration as the Mercedes eats up the miles. His complexion is fair, betraying his northern Italian roots—his nose straight, his lips full, and his blond hair, uncommon in her town, is long and unkempt. Alessia can look at him dispassionately and judge him to be a handsome man. But those lips have a cruel twist to them, and those eyes are piercing and cold when he’s glaring at her.