My heart beats wildly when I lift the bedding to my face to drink in Mikhail’s scent. He smells like home, and his familiar scent has me replaying conversations we had before I learned the truth.
He said that he couldn’t stand the thought of losing me, how it would kill him to live without me for another ten years. That proves he doesn’t want to erase our past. He wants it reimagined, and I know the exact person who can help me achieve that.
I race for my phone, my fingers flying over the screen.
A huge smile stretches across my face when my call is answered after only one ring.
“I need your help,” I say, too captivated by my quick thinking to issue a greeting.
“Of course,” answers a familiar voice without pause for thought. “Anything you need.”
Chapter 31
Mikhail
Dim lights cast shadows on the bottles lined up like soldiers ready for battle when I enter the office of my first solo establishment. The clinking of glasses and the murmur of conversations add additional thumps to the mariachi beat of my hungover head.
I woke up with a pounding headache and the remnants of last night’s splurge still lingering in my system. The thuds of my temples are nothing compared to the thumping of my heart when I recognized the fiery red hair splayed across my chest this morning when I woke.
I thought I had imagined Emerson’s presence last night, and as much as this kills me to admit, I’m glad I didn’t.
As I stroked Emerson’s tear-stained cheek, needing to ensure it wasn’t still wet, parts of our fight rolled through my head. The accusations and the pain came through clearly, but some details were hazy, blurred by the excessive consumption of alcohol.
Even though I couldn’t recall all our conversation, I knew I was responsible for the tears she had shed last night. I felt it in my chest. But since I also recalled how her voice trembled when she confessed to leaving me at the altar, I slipped out of bed andheaded to work like hours behind a desk is a cure for the unease clutching my throat.
It isn’t, but tell me one man who is smart while living without a heart?
After sitting behind my desk, I take another mouthful of the burning liquid I keep hidden in my desk drawer, not bothering with a glass.
Guilt-erasing chugs don’t require formalities.
I’ve not once intentionally set out to hurt Emerson, not even after she left me, but I don’t feel confident declaring that anymore. I feel like I broke her heart, like I betrayed the memories that have kept me alive for the past ten years.
The whiskey scald hitting the back of my throat distracts me from the confusion swirling in my gut, but it does little to replace the security footage I watched earlier of Emerson leaving Zelenolsk Manor an hour after waking from replaying in my head.
Her eyes were somewhat wet, but there was a fire in them I’ve not seen in a decade. A fire that was once only able to be extinguished with hours beneath the sheets.
My teeth grit when my cock hardens at the thought of being her extinguisher of choice. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Love is like a drug. Rational thoughts are nonexistent under its influence, and bad choices seem plausible.
When I lower the almost empty whiskey bottle, the edge clanks against my mouse, firing up my computer monitor. I never use passwords, so access to the emails I was scrolling earlier is immediate.
My dislike of delayed gratification meant Emerson always took off her panties as the last call for drinks was yelled across the bustling pub her family owned.
While trying to make out she didn’t enter my thoughts for the umpteenth time this evening, my bleary eyes scan a recently received email.
The more I read, the more my blood boils. The email announces the cancellation of the order I placed while waiting for Emerson at her family’s church for the second time in my life. The cause states the purchase is no longer needed.
How fucking dare they!
I push back on my chair harder than intended. The bang of its crash into the wall is half the wallop my office door does when I throw it open.
Waitstaff glance up when I enter the main hub of the bar, but I ignore them, uncaring if they think I’m a grumpy cunt. They don’t understand what I’m going through. They will never understand, because I’ve only ever given them a fraction of the man I am when I’m with Emerson. The bare minimum.
Disgust gnaws at me as I walk past numerous patrons eyeing me with zeal, but I shove it down, refusing to acknowledge them or my once go-to coping mechanism.
Losing myself in a bevy of heavy-breasted women isn’t the solution to my predicament. I have no clue what the solution is, but I know that isn’t it.
I find Lynx, my operations manager, toward the end of the bar, serving patrons.
