“You miss them,” he stated in a gentle tone.
All I could do was nod. The words were stuck in my throat, but the tears fell regardless.
“Come with me, child.” He put our plates in the sink and grabbed his keys, then took me to the mall.
“How about we get something you can remember them by?”
The thought cheered me up, so I agreed.
“What do you think about a necklace? We could get one for each of them.”
I shook my head. Jewelry was something that, as a dancer, I never wore. We walked farther, and then I saw it. Build-A-Bear. He cocked his head to the side and smiled.
“I like your thought process. Shall we see what we can create?” He laughed at the smile plastered on my face. An hour and a half later, I had three unique bears representing each of my sisters.
I once more hugged the Vincent van Gogh-inspired Pawlette bunny and thought about Autumn.
Autumn was the artist. She painted her feelings and emotions. She had created pieces for our rooms based on what we did. During her season, she would paint to music or high-dollar fan requests. I held a special place in my heart for her. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes, so haunted, as she’d painted me.
We had to attend each other’s performances. It was just another form of psychological torture we were subjected to. We weren’t allowed to speak to one another. I set the bunny down and picked up the next one—a soft yellow bear with fur resembling a bouquet of roses. My sweet Summer.
Summer was a beautiful blond girl with hazel eyes. She played piano, and whenever she played, I cried. Depending on the piece, the emotion she could evoke was gut-wrenching.
Her graceful fingers flew across the keys. She and Winter, who played the cello, played in the background while I danced on special occasions. After kissing it softly, I put her back next to Autumn and grabbed the last one. A bright, orange-colored fox with a heart on its chest.
Winter had the brightest, curliest red hair I’d ever seen. I distinctly remember that she had a vacant look in her sad eyes, even from the beginning. When her season came, she would sit elegantly in her chair and embrace her instrument.
You could see the physical connection she had with her cello. The resonating chamber rested upon her heart. It was moving, and it was the only time her eyes would come alive.
I loved the nights when I could simply watch her play. I’d pretend she was on stage playing in front of a large audience, and her family would sit in the front row, beaming with pride at their beautiful daughter. It was always easier to make up lives for them and pretend.
I put the fox back and made my way to the bathroom to shower. I needed to clear my thoughts. Dwelling on the past had no bearing on my current situation.
And speaking of which, what was I going to do about Aleksandr King? I needed to find out more about him to know what I was dealing with. It was my day off, so I pulled out my laptop and did some research. I spent about an hour and a half finding out who he and his brothers were, using the skills Owen had taught me.
I found property records showing the brothers owned a house together in Seattle and came across several articles about them with their parents. It seemed my manager was right; their father was a diplomat. Using public records, I found the businesses they owned. They were busy men—a nightclub, a gym, and it seemed Nikolai King owned a private detective agency.
Finally, everything made sense.
Pasha must have hired him to look into me, and Aleksandr was helping him by showing up at the café and dance class. Another piece fit into the puzzle. A grin stretched the corners of my lips. This made my resolve easier, and the tension I was holding, thinking their interest in me was deeper, lessened to some degree. Hopefully, when Pasha left, the brothers would leave me alone.
Turning my attention to their social media, I took a dive down their scandalous profiles. There was no shame in Nik’s game. I refused to pay for access to a private account. I didn’t need that much information.
Through quite a bit of digging, I found an artist profile that I was almost sure was Alek’s. Ivan was the only one with any semblance of normalcy, and it was through his that I was able to track two very close friends of theirs.
The two new additions—Sebastian Caruso and Andrew Marcel—were in the majority of their pictures dating far back. A level of comfortability could be seen in their comments on each other’s posts, going so far as to refer to them as brothers.
Two hours later, I had a plan. I had picked them apart and decided which of the two I’d approach. Andrew Marcel was a psychiatrist, and he would be the perfect person to plead my case with. If anyone could help me get Alek to go away, surely it was him.
I calculated the difference in our time zones and set the alarm to let me know when it would be 9 a.m. on Monday in London. The rest of the weekend drug on. I baked entirely too much for a household of one, but it soothed me. Between my batches of cookies and cupcakes, I bounced between streaming platforms to keep myself busy.
When my alarm sounded, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, cleared my throat, and dialed the number before I could change my mind. A sophisticated-sounding woman answered the phone.
“Dr. Marcel’s office. This is Samantha. How may I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to Dr. Marcel, please.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Marcel isn’t taking calls at the moment. Would you like to make an appointment?”
