And she had wanted him. Oh, how that knowledge scorched her pride. How could she still want him? How could she?
From the window Kiryl watched as the taxi bore Alena away. Thank heavens she had gone. Another handful of seconds and he would not have been able to stop himself from begging her to let him love her. Love her? Possess her was what he meant. That was all. She'd got him so that he couldn't think straight now. Why … ? Why did she affect him the way she did? How was it possible, after all he had taught himself, for her to get under his skin and into his senses into his heart and-
His heart? Kiryl could hear the sound of his own blood drumming in his ears.
Alena.
Why was it that just thinking her name filled him with such intense longing that it felt like a form of torture?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IN HER bedroom in the luxurious St Petersburg apartment Vasilii was renting, Alena felt the morning sunshine warming her skin through the windows from which the maid had pulled back the curtains when she had come in earlier. Warming her skin … but not as Kiryl's touch had warmed it. Nothing and no one would ever touch her in that way again. Just as nothing could or would ever take away the ache inside her for him.
Why had this had to happen to her? Why was she condemned to love him even though she knew he was not worthy of that love? Because she did still love him. Nothing she could say to herself seemed to stop her from doing that. A small gasp of despair escaped her. How on earth was she going to get through the mockery of their marriage without betraying her feelings? How was she going to be able to endure living under the same roof as Kiryl, knowing that he was so close to her, knowing how much she wanted him, and yet at the same time knowing that she must never allow him to see how she felt about him?
For her, Kiryl was as dangerous as any drug craved by an addict. Those moments in his arms at the house he was renting for them in London had ripped the comforting protection of her self-delusion from her eyes and revealed the truth to her, and now there was no going back from that truth. Despite everything she knew about Kiryl that should have killed her love for him; that love was still alive inside her. How that knowledge shamed and humiliated her, scorching and scalding her pride and withering her self-respect. She had thought she had touched the nadir of self-contempt in knowing that she had been so easily deceived by him, but that had been nothing compared with the way she felt about herself now for still loving him.
Her wedding dress had been delivered to the London apartment the day before they had left for St Petersburg. Alena had refused to unpack it, never mind look at it or try it on, but the maid who had come with the apartment Vasilii was renting had taken it upon herself to unpack the gown, along with the rest of Alena's things, and had been in the process of hanging it up when Alena had walked into her dressing room.
The shock of recognising that the dress the saleswoman had chosen for her was the one she herself would have loved to wear as a real bride-a bride who was loved and who loved in return-had held Alena rigidly still as she'd stared at it. Then she had started to tremble, and she suspected that had the maid not been there she would have grabbed the dress and bundled it up into as small a ball as she could before putting it somewhere she no longer needed to see it. But the maid had been there, and the dress had been carefully hung up in the wardrobe, the vision it represented of all that her own wedding day would not be ready to torment Alena every time she opened the wardrobe doors.
She couldn't bear to think of wearing such a perfect wedding dress for Kiryl, but she would have to. It was too late to regret now that she had not stayed at the designer's showroom and deliberately chosen the worst dress she could find. An ugly dress for a wedding that represented everything that was ugly about a marriage entered into for the reasons she and Kiryl were entering into theirs.
Staying here in bed wouldn't do her any good, Alena told herself now. Her dreams last night had been tormented by memories of how it had felt to lie in Kiryl's arms and believe that she was loved. Better to get up and face reality. And that reality was that this was surely the worst time there could be for her to be here in St Petersburg, feeling the way she did.
Summer in St Petersburg, was the season for celebrations-a time when it never truly went dark, traditionally known as "White Nights'-the Belye Nochi, as the Russians called them. A time when all-night parties were given all over the city and especially on the islands of its delta. A time of joy in celebrating the return to warmth from the icy grip of winter. The time of St Petersburg's marriage season.
Everywhere she looked, or so it seemed to Alena, happy, loved-up brides and their grooms were posing for photographs against the backdrop of the city's elegant buildings or on its many bridges over its network of canals. In the past Alena had loved visiting St Petersburg in the summer almost as much as visiting it in the winter, but not this summer. Every time she saw a bride posing in her white dress, laughing lovingly up at her groom, her own heart ached even more for all that she would never have. After only two days in the city that ache had become unbearable.
Since their arrival in the city they had all been caught up in a whirl of social activities ahead of the wedding, which was to take place in three days' time. Last night the three of them had attended the exclusive and prestigious Stars of the White Nights Festival at the Mariinsky Theatre
-an event which was the highlight of the city's cultural calendar, for which tickets were highly sought-after.
Formal dress was the order of the day for the event, and Vasilii had commented, as she had stood with him and Kiryl, upon how much he regretted having forgotten to arrange for her mother's jewel ery to be removed from the London bank vault where it was kept so that she could wear it whilst they were in the city.
"My mother never wanted to be judged or valued as a person by the quality of her diamonds, Vasilii,' Alena had reminded him. "And neither do I.' No amount of jewel ery, however splendid, could compensate her for the emotional pain she was having to endure.
Tonight they were all attending yet another party-this one just outside St Petersburg, at a luxurious new vill a built there by one of Russia's wealthiest men to celebrate his marriage earlier in the year-his third-to a well-known American actress. The festivities were to include the live appearance of a world famous pop singer, and would conclude with a firework display. The entire event was reputed to be costing millions.
Alena had no appetite either for celebrating or seeing so much money spent so lavishly. Just a tithe of that money given to charity, as her mother had always insisted that her father did, would have done so much for so many people. She hadn't even bought a new dress for the event. Instead she had brought with her from London one she already had, although she suspected that its understated elegance would probably seem dull compared with the fashions favoured by some of Russia's wealthiest socialite wives. Not that she cared. Even though Kiryl would see her wearing it.
Her heart gave an unwanted lurch inside her chest. Why did she feel like this about him when she knew that loving him could only hurt her?
A few minutes later, after she had composed herself, she walked into the main salon of the apartment and was surprised to see Vasilii sitting there, reading the London papers which he had sent to him every morning. He'd had so many business appointments that she had hardly seen him since they had arrived.
"Ah, Alena,' he greeted her, putting down his paper to stand up and come over to kiss her briefly on the cheek.
They had had such a good relationship before Kiryl, but now she felt so betrayed by the stance he had taken that Alena felt she had lost the brother she'd thought she knew.
As he wasn't a man given to open displays of affection, it surprised her when instead of releasing her he kept his arm around her, his voice unexpectedly gruff as he told her, "I know you don't think so right now, but I promise you, Lena, that I am acting in your best interests. And if you will just trust me you will discover that for yourself.'
His use of his old pet name for her brought a lump to Alena's throat. Maybe Vasilii did think he was acting in her best interests, but he didn't know what she knew. He didn't know that she still loved Kiryl, and that loving someone for whom she knew she should only feel contempt was tearing her apart.