Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 52062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
The words hit like a gut punch.
But I won’t let her see it.
"Feel better?" I ask.
"Actually, yes."
“Good.”
She scoffs. “You’re a lost cause, Nikolai Morozov.”
Again, her words rip through my armor and strike me in my weak spot.
What I feel for her.
"Better a lost cause than a fool who thinks this ends any other way than me getting what I want," I say, my voice cold.
She shakes her head. “I’m done with this tonight. I’m going to bed.”
She walks past me but stops at the base of the staircase and looks back. "You know, every time you force my hand, every time you threaten or manipulate or cage me in, you prove exactly why you're alone. That you'd rather have control than connection. And deep down I think you know it."
She runs up the stairs to her bedroom, and the door slams a moment later.
I drain my vodka and pour another.
And lie to myself that she is wrong.
17
HOLLY
I wake to music drifting through the darkness.
Soft at first. Almost dreamlike. Piano notes floating up through the floorboards, weaving through the silence of the sleeping lodge.
I lie there for a moment, feeling disoriented, my heart still aching from our argument earlier. From whatever I said that made something flicker behind those unreadable blue eyes. Something that looked almost like pain.
The music continues. Haunting and beautiful and so achingly sad it makes my chest tighten.
The lodge is dark as I make my way along the landing that overlooks the great room where Nikolai plays the piano and pause to listen in the soft glow of the Christmas tree lights we strung together.
Nikolai sits at the grand piano in the corner, his back to me, shirtless, in nothing but his dress pants. The fireplace casts flickering shadows across the broad expanse of his shoulders, highlighting every ridge of muscle, every line of his powerful back.
A bottle of vodka sits on top of the piano, half empty.
His fingers move over the keys with a fluidity that shouldn't surprise me but does. Each note is precise yet filled with emotion. Raw and vulnerable in a way I've never seen from him.
I should give him his privacy and go back to my room.
But I’m too mesmerized by this unseen side of Nikolai. Raw and unguarded. Stripped of his armor as he wrestles something invisible with every note he plays.
I see him clearly. A man who feels everything but keeps it hidden behind a carefully curated mask.
But right now, that mask is gone, and the man beneath it is bleeding through every note he plays. For a moment, he isn’t the monster who took me. He’s simply a man wrestling with his own demons.
The song shifts, and I recognize it from the first note, and my grief crashes into me with the force of a freight train. Before I can stop it, tears prick at my eyes.
He’s playing Bach. Prelude in C major.
Mom’s song.
The one she loved to play on our old upright piano before we had to sell it to pay for a new roof. We didn't have much growing up. But we had that piano. And Mom used to play the hell out of it.
The recognition pulls me forward like an invisible thread tugging at my chest, and I make my way slowly down the staircase, lost in the beautiful music that wraps around me like a spell, drawing me closer to the man I should fear but can't seem to resist.
The Christmas lights twinkle behind me as I approach the piano, and I can see Nikolai’s profile in the soft light. The sharp line of his jaw. The way his hair falls across his forehead. The concentration in his eyes as his fingers dance across the keys.
His eyes meet mine, and I see something sad in their depths. His jaw tightens. But he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t stop playing. He’s lost in the music and whatever meaning it has for him.
Without a word, I walk closer until I'm standing at the piano bench and sit down beside him. Our shoulders brush, and the contact mixed with the power of the music sends electricity racing through me.
His fingers find another chord, holding it as the notes shimmer in the air between us.
Without thinking, I place my hand over his on the keys. His skin is warm beneath my palm, and I feel his pain. Feel the way his whole body goes still. The music stops.
He’s angry.
No. He’s hurt.
You’re a lost cause, Nikolai Morozov.
"Nikolai..." My voice is barely a whisper.
He turns his head to look at me, and suddenly we're inches apart. Close enough that I can see the glassy sheen in his eyes that comes from downing half a bottle of vodka. Close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips.
The air between us crackles with tension. But it's different from before. This isn't the predator and prey dynamic we've been dancing around since I got here. This is something deeper. Something that terrifies me, because I know it’s something I should run from. But I don’t want to.