Taste and touch were only memories, but they were vivid enough to weaken her knees.
And break her heart.
The only cheater in this relationship…is you.
The accusation once more roared in her ears as she saw him in her mind’s eye, behind his desk with that woman in his lap. Had they flirted during business meetings? Had their attraction to each other grown over time, or had it been immediate? How often had they come together in the privacy of Alekzander’s office? And why hadn’t he cared enough to even react when Sacha had walked in on them?
Because it had been fabricated?
The maelstrom of emotions battering her ebbed and eventually faded altogether until she felt as if she were an empty void with skin. No. Not empty. She was soaked with pain.
He was doing it to her again, taking from her when she had so little left to give. He’d stolen her happiness. And her innocence by tainting her view of the world. He’d stolen the optimism her parents had instilled in her; the very thing that had gotten her through her debilitating grief after they’d been killed in a car crash on their way home from her father’s first chemo treatment.
But the most precious thing, the one that made her sick with loss; he’d taken from her the excitement and joy she should have experienced carrying her first child. Sacha had spent those months struggling to live her very life as she battled depression, grief, and loneliness brought on by feelings of betrayal, abandonment, and humiliation. All of which still lived inside her today.
When she felt able to speak, her tone was as hollow as her being. “I cannot express just how revolting you are to me. Or how utterly insane you sounded just now. Please, leave my home, and do not come back here.”
Panic bolted through his eyes as he reached out. She jerked back to escape contact and stumbled from the force of the move. She nearly fell over a rubber giraffe, and would have happily landed on her ass if it meant avoiding his touch. He tried to save her from falling, but she swatted him away.
“Do not touch me!” She righted herself on her own. As she’d always done.
“It was a lie, Sacha.”
Her world tilted as that pierced her like an arrowhead. “I am aware of that. It was something I realized quite soon after seeing you with her.”
His brows slammed down. “Not us. Her. The whole scene you walked in on was bullshit.”
“Ah. Yes. So you said.”
“I don’t blame you for not believing me. But if you’ll keep an open mind while I explain, I’m praying you’ll understand why I did it.”
She wavered, finding herself drawn to the sincerity in his voice and expression.
No. She couldn’t listen to him. With no more than a few gently spoken lines he was getting to her. She wrung the pillowcase in her hands, twisting it back and forth. Dammit. How was she letting him get to her? She couldn’t allow herself to believe the regret and misery in his eyes was real. It wasn’t. It was an illusion. Just like his love for her had been.
What was real was what she’d seen with her own two eyes.
Her glands watered, preparing to ease the way for her breakfast to come up. “You are hurting me again,” she said honestly. “I cannot be near you anymore. I do not want to listen to you. Every word you speak tops up the poison you inject, and I am full. Right to here.” She unraveled the cotton cutting into her palm and brought her flattened hand beneath her chin. “It chokes me, Alekzander. Please, just go.”
“I will ease you, my angel.”
The familiar reverential tone he used didn’t only lure her, it soothed her, taking the edge off her pain.
“If you’ll let me,” he whispered. “I will ease you with the truth.”
Something deep inside her begged her to nod. To give him permission to help her. It lay there, barely breathing, and pleaded with its final breaths.
But before she could accept his aid, a tight rap on the door preceded Angela sweeping into the apartment as was her habit.
Before Sacha knew what was happening, Alekzander spun and planted himself in front of her and Tanner, so they were sheltered behind the barrier his big body presented. The feel of his hand, hot and tight on her hip, stole the strength from her muscles to the extent that she had to latch onto the back of his jacket to save herself from ending up on the floor.
“Well, going by that display, I’d say my girl’s Russian is in the house.”
Scrambling to return to reality, Sacha let go of the expensive suit material and slapped at Alekzander’s hand with the pillowcase she still held. That wide palm and his long fingers were burning right through her jeans to mark her skin, causing a maddening but undeniable desire to curl through her belly. How insane that she wanted to press herself into him and wait for that hand to travel.