Chapter 3: Letting go

BRENDA

Riley screamed.

"Riley—"

"YOUR SISTER?" She was on her feet now, pacing, her hands doing that thing they did when she was too angry for her body to contain it. "YOUR SISTER, BRENDA? IN YOUR BED? ON YOUR ANNIVERSARY?"

"Yes."

"I will kill her." She grabbed her keys from the counter. "I will go there right now and I will—"

"Riley." I stepped in front of her. Both hands on her shoulders. "Stop."

"Move."

"Stop."

She tried to go around me. I held firm. We did this for fifteen seconds before she ran out of momentum and stood there shaking with her keys in her fist and her eyes bright with fury.

I steered her back to the couch.

She sat down hard.

"Six months," she hissed.

"Yes."

"Six months and you had no idea."

"No."

She looked at the ceiling. Then back at me. "Brenda, I have been telling you about that mudafucker for three years. Three years of me saying something is wrong and you defending him."

"I know."

"I told you he was lying about the late nights. I told you Sophia looked at him like he was food at a buffet. I told you—"

"Riley. I know."

She exhaled. The shaking settled. She pressed her fingers against her eyes and sat there for a moment.

Then she looked at me.

"You're not crying," she said.

"No."

"You caught your husband sleeping with your sister on your anniversary and you are sitting on my couch at eight in the morning looking like you don't give a fuck."

"That's accurate."

She leaned back and stared. "Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?"

I almost smiled. "I need a divorce lawyer. Someone fast and aggressive who knows how to handle concealed assets."

Riley opened her mouth and closed it. She narrowed her eyes. "Patricia O'Neil."

"Already called her," I said. "Meeting her at eleven."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Riley stared at me. "I never mentioned her name to you."

"You mentioned her recently," I said.

"Brenda I tried to tell you last Tuesday and you changed the subject to Alexandre's mother's birthday dinner." She leaned forward. "How did you know her name?"

My nose started itching.

I rubbed it casually and looked toward the window. "You told me. Recently."

"I literally did not."

The itching got worse. I stood up. "The point is Patricia is handling it. Now I need tonight."

"Tonight."

"I need to go out. I need a drink. I need to not sit here replaying their faces." I looked at her. "Can we do that?"

Riley watched me for a long moment. Her anger was still there but it wasn't directed at me.

She stood up and grabbed her keys.

"Get dressed. We are going to that club I have been trying to drag you to for two years and you are not allowed to say you need to get home to cook for Alexandre."

"I would never say that again."

"Good." She pointed at my outfit. "And wear something that says you are dangerous."

I smiled at myself in the mirror. I had been wearing the same style of clothes for three years because Alexandre said he didn't want me dressing like a whore.

Jokes on me because Sophia dresses worse than any whore I have ever seen.

The club had no name above the door.

Just a black iron entrance on a quiet side street and a man built like a small building who unhooked the rope when he saw Riley.

Inside the music was deep and loud. The lighting was low amber and dark red.

Riley ordered two shots of tequila without asking me. I drank mine before she picked hers up.

She stared.

"Don't," I warned.

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"Your eyebrow was."

She drank her shot.

By the third shot, the edges of everything had softened and my chest felt less like a clenched fist.

Riley pulled me onto the dance floor and I moved because my body needed to do something with itself.

I danced and let the music be louder than the memory of a forest road and headlights and a baby going quiet in my belly.

That was when I saw him.

He was slightly apart from the crowd. Tall. Dark hair. Broad through the shoulders in a way that had nothing to do with his jacket.

He held his glass loosely, barely drinking, dark blue eyes moving across the room with the slow patience of a man who noted everything and reacted to nothing.

Dimitri Volkov.

In my first life I had seen exactly two photographs. Both coarse. Both taken from a distance by people who understood that getting close was not advisable.

The photographs had not prepared me for the reality of him.

I told Riley I needed water. She nodded and turned back to the dance floor. I slipped through the crowd.

I had to play this well. In my first life he had found me — a terrified woman who looked at him like a frightened kitten. He had looked back with complete disinterest.

But not this time.

I stopped beside him at the bar. Close enough that he would notice me but far enough that he wouldn't notice my desperation. I signaled the bartender and waited.

He didn't look at me.

I counted to seven.

Then I turned toward him with the expression of a flirty woman who had just noticed something interesting.

"You've been watching the room for the last twenty minutes," I said. "That's not what people usually do at clubs."

He looked at me then. Dark blue eyes dragged over my face slowly.

"And what do people usually do at clubs?" he asked. His voice was low with the hint of an accent. Russian smoothed by years of Western Europe but still there underneath.

"Dance badly," I said. "Make decisions they'll regret in the morning."

"And which are you doing?"

"Neither so far." I picked up the water the bartender set down. "The night is young though."

The corner of his mouth curved. Not exactly a smile.

"You came over here on purpose," he said.

"You're observant."

"It's a habit." His eyes stayed on me. "What do you want?"

"I haven't decided yet." I looked at him. "You looked like someone worth talking to. I don't meet many of those."

"Most people find me difficult to talk to."

"Most people are probably nervous around you." Up close he was even more than the photographs suggested. Strong jaw. Dark blue eyes that gave nothing away and somehow gave everything away. "I'm not nervous."

His drink paused at his lips. "You should be."

"People keep telling me that tonight." I picked up my water. "And it keeps not being true."

Something moved in his expression. "Who else told you that tonight?"

"My best friend." I nodded toward the dance floor where Riley was pretending not to stare at us. "She has opinions about the men I talk to."

"Wise woman."

"Very." I paused. "She'd probably tell me to go back to the dance floor and forget I saw you."

"And yet here you are."

"And yet here I am." I looked at him. "I told you. I'm here to make the worst decision of my life. Wise decisions are for normal nights."

He studied me. "What happened?"

"My husband," I said. "And my sister. Together. In my bed. On our anniversary."

Three seconds of silence.

"Today?" His eyebrow lifted.

"A few hours ago."

Something that looked like anger crossed his expression briefly.

"And you came here."

"I came here because sitting in my best friend's apartment replaying their faces was not an option." I held his gaze. "I need to forget them for one night before tomorrow when the real work begins."

"What work?"

"That's a conversation for another lifetime." I paused. "Tonight I just need to forget."

He was quiet, turning his glass slowly on the bar.

"And you thought I could help with that."

"I think you can help with most things you decide to help with." I met his eyes. "That's my read of you anyway."

The corner of his mouth moved again. A small dimple formed in his cheek.

"What are you looking for exactly?"

I looked at him. I wanted him to be the father of my baby in this life.

According to my calculations I had gotten pregnant in my last life around this time. If I could be with him tonight I could have my babies again. My chest squeezed at the thought of my children.

"Five thousand dollars." I kept my voice steady even though I felt far from it. "For one night. If you can make me forget my husband and my sister exist until morning the money is yours before we leave this bar."

He looked at me with an expression I couldn't fully read. Then he lifted his glass and took a slow sip and set it back down.

"Five thousand?" he repeated, smirking slightly.

"Is that too low?" I asked. "I can go higher. I just need to know what forgetting costs these days."

"It's not about the amount."

"Then what is it about?"

His eyes stayed on mine. "It's about why a woman who just caught her husband cheating walks into a club and propositions a stranger instead of going home and crying."

"I told you why."

"You told me part of it." He set his glass down. "There's more."

"There is more," I said softly. "But that part is for tomorrow."

"You keep mentioning tomorrow."

"Because tomorrow matters." I held his gaze. "Tonight is just tonight. One night. That's all I'm asking."

He studied my face for a long moment. Looking for the lie.

He didn't find one.

"The money," he said finally. "I don't need it."

My jaw tightened, thinking I was getting rejected. "Then—"

"But I'll take the night." He pushed off the bar and straightened to his full height. "Same terms. Different currency."

"What currency?"

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair back from my face. His fingertips grazed my jaw and the touch was so light my breath caught before I could stop it.

"You'll owe me something more interesting than money," he said quietly. "And when I decide what it is I will collect."