The Darkest Temptation: Part 1 – Chapter 1

fernweh

(n.) an ache for a distant place

Breath ragged from the run, I dropped my heels on the grass and padded barefoot across our manicured lawn, not stopping until I’d climbed onto the rocky embankment and felt the cool waves lapping at my toes and the hem of my evening dress. I panted as sweat glistened on my skin beneath the heavy moon. A gentle breeze tousled my long hair, rustling the palm trees and my lacy cap sleeves, but the paradise constrained me as tightly as the Dior belt around my waist.

The five-mile run wasn’t enough to shake the combustible feeling that expanded inside—though, as always, the sea held me back.

I itched to rip the pearls from my neck, to tear my dress to shreds like Cinderella’s stepsisters had, but doing so would demolish a facade I’d maintained for so long I wasn’t sure what lay beneath. So, instead, I dug my French-tipped nails into my palms.

There had to be more than this, more than a world behind The Moorings’ gates, but the desire for more than a life of opulence inflated a kernel of guilt in my stomach. Staring out at Biscayne Bay, the wide, glittering path that led to the endless ocean, I felt as adrift and stagnant as the buoy that bobbed in the water. The only difference was, I was floating on a mundane sea of expectations.

I closed my eyes and mentally recited, Je vais bien. Tu vas bien. Nous allons bien. I am okay. You are okay. We are okay.

I was allowed only a few seconds alone before Ivan’s familiar presence caressed my back. He moved to stand beside me, his suit jacket touching my bare arm.

“You cannot run off like that, Mila.” A Russian accent and exertion roughened the edge of his voice.

The smallest amount of humor arose at the visual of Ivan chasing me through Miami’s streets in a suit and a grumpy disposition, but the amusement faded with the next wave that washed up on the rocks.

“If you keep following me like a stalker, I’m gonna end up catching feelings,” I said drily.

He gave me a look. “You know it is my job.”

Ivan had come home with my papa after one of his business trips to Moscow years ago. Having been only thirteen at the time, and him eight years my senior, I’d thought he was the most handsome boy I’d ever seen. I’d fallen in love with his accent and endearingly limited knowledge of English, and I couldn’t have embarrassed myself more by following him around our spacious Spanish Colonial home.

Now, he followed me.

One hand rested in his pants pocket, and the other held out a small red velvet box. “From your papa.”

I stared at the box for a long second before taking it from him and opening it. Blue heart-shaped earrings. Papa always said I wore my heart on my sleeve. The stones were fake. He knew I never wore the real thing, not after watching Blood Diamond when I was a preteen.

This wasn’t the first time he had a gift delivered after missing something important to me. The difference was, this time, I couldn’t push this feeling, this budding suspicion, away any longer.

“I hope you didn’t sprain anything,” I said.

Ivan cast me a questioning look.

“It’s a strenuous job digging through Papa’s backup gift drawer.”

With a sigh, he ran a hand through his blond hair. “He cares, Mila.”

“He sure has an interesting way of showing it lately.”

“He is very busy,” Ivan remarked. “You know this.”

I made a noncommittal noise. My papa must be busier than the president to explain why he hadn’t shown his face for the past three months. He’d missed the last two holidays, and now, my twentieth birthday.

We celebrated my birthday at the same table in the same five-star restaurant without fail every year. Papa would order a steak. I’d smile at Enrique, the owner and chef who’d taken our orders personally since I was a child, and change it to something heart-healthy. Papa was supposed to be watching his cholesterol. I’d fret; he’d argue. But he’d eventually give in.

Tonight, I sat there for two hours with Ivan and my unblemished reflection in the porcelain plate. That is, until an anniversary party at the next table exploded everywhere, shattering my resolve into gold confetti. Ivan was chatting up a waitress at the bar when I escaped the restaurant and ran the five miles home.

“He’s never been gone this long, Ivan . . .” My voice trailed off before I said, “Something’s not right.”

As usual, the same ambiguous words began to leave his lips—so very busy, important business deal, blah blah blah. I tuned him out to watch a single seagull soar above the water. I envied its wings; its courage to leap from a nest without knowing yet that it could fly. Here I was, grounded behind golden gates by Dior and the desire for my papa’s approval.

I didn’t realize I’d turned to walk away until Ivan grabbed my arm.

“Where are you going?”

“Home” was on my lips, but something entirely different, something that shocked even me, came out. “Moscow.”

Had cool and collected Ivan Volkov actually paled at that single word, or was it my overactive imagination? He released my arm, his quiet intensity freezing me to the wet stone.

“Moscow,” he repeated slowly, like he’d heard me wrong.

I raised a brow. “The capital of Russia? The place I was born? The—”

“Zamolchi.” Be quiet. “Why do you want to go to Moscow?”

“Papa practically lives there these days. You know he’s not watching his cholesterol. What if he’s sick and doesn’t want me to know?”

“I promise you, he is not sick.”

At the sincerity in his eyes, I believed him. The knowledge released a small weight from my shoulders, but it also added another.

“What if he’s in some kind of trouble?” I’d met a number of papa’s business partners, and there wasn’t a single one I would be comfortable being alone with.

“And once you are over there, what will you be able to do if he is?”

“Contact the police.”

Ivan didn’t look convinced. Actually, after a few seconds of staring at me, he cast a disinterested look out at the bay and released a breath. It held a tense note, as if the idea of me going to the Russian police had equally amused and disturbed him.

His eyes came back to mine, seemingly oblivious to the incoming tide that soaked his Italian loafers. “You do not know how things work over there.”

My fingers tightened around the jewelry box. That was only true because I wasn’t allowed more than an inch of freedom, but I kept the retort inside.

“If you’re not careful, Ivan, you’ll surely burst with all the confidence you have in me.”

His dry expression showed he was not close to bursting in any way. “It is January.”

“So?”

“When we were in Aspen last year, you complained about the cold. It was forty degrees.”

“Only an Eskimo would think forty degrees isn’t cold,” I returned with conviction. “Regardless, I’m not that delicate. I can handle a little cold.” It was the worst time in the world for a strong breeze to pick up and blow a cold front off the Atlantic. I fought a shiver—though, of course, Ivan noticed.

He pulled off his suit jacket, set it on my shoulders, and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind my ear. “As of today, you are twenty. You do not need your papa to hold your hand anymore.”

His comment stung, but I didn’t believe I was asking for much. I just didn’t want to sit in front of a Christmas tree with only him and our cook Borya, who were both paid to be there. I didn’t want to feel like the ballerina in the music box on my dresser, spinning in an exhausting and eternal pirouette just to please someone who had deserted me.

A part of it wasn’t even about all that.

“What about your date tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to go,” I said, pulling my eyes from his to the bay.

“Why not?”

I searched for a reasonable answer but remained silent. Ivan would think I was crazy if I told him the truth.

“Your papa likes Carter.”

“Maybe he should date him then.”

“Mila,” he chastised.

For years, Papa had hinted he would be happy if Carter became his son-in-law. I was sure it was only because his father was a business friend and a famous attorney from old money. Like always, I’d given in to Papa’s insistence, and Carter and I had shared a traditional courtship for six months now.

“He’s going to pop the question tomorrow, isn’t he?” I asked emotionlessly.

It should have been a ridiculous thing to ask considering we weren’t even monogamous. All anyone had to do was turn on TMZ to find out who twenty-five-year-old playboy Carter Kingston had been sleeping with. But he was taking me to The Grande, a restaurant well-known for marriage proposals. I could only imagine his papa had pushed him toward the archaic idea, just as mine had.

Ivan didn’t say anything, but his eyes told me all I needed to know.

I nodded even though, inside, the thought of saying yes, of knowing I would force that word past my lips, trapped me in a glass box slowly depleting of oxygen, and I was banging on the walls, choking, coughing, begging for air.

I forced the feeling down. “Carter will still be here when I get back.”

Ivan remained quiet for a moment before he tossed out his best card. “You know your papa would not approve of this.”

I chewed my lip. In the past, whenever I’d asked to tag along on one of Papa’s business trips, he’d refused. But even as a child, I noticed something in his eyes, a spark that couldn’t say no with more volume than if he’d shouted the word. I was never, ever permitted to set foot in Russia, that much was clear.

“I know, but he’s not here right now, is he?”

“You are not going.”

I stared at him.

Ivan might complain sometimes, but he never told me what I could or couldn’t do. It was always, “Yes, Mila.” “Of course, Mila.” “As you wish, Mila.” Kidding. That one was a besotted, sword-wielding Westley in my dreams. My point was, he never said, “No, Mila.” I bet if I wanted to rob a bank, he would be my second, no questions asked. Naturally, he’d tattle on me to my papa afterward, but he’d still don a ski mask with me.

The suspicion I’d worked so hard to keep down popped like a balloon, grabbed ahold of my heart, and twisted. What was my papa hiding in Russia?

Another family?

The only conceivable reason he might hide something like that from me was he didn’t want me in their lives. And, eventually, in his too.

Je ne pleurerai pas. Tu ne pleureras pas. Nous ne pleurerons pas. I will not cry. You will not cry. We will not cry.

The conjugations failed me, and a single, annoying tear ran down my cheek. Ivan angled my chin up to his and wiped it away, the soft brush of his thumb wrapping me in warmth and contentment. Something else filled the space between us. A pull. An attraction. A little electricity. Some days, when I was feeling particularly suffocated, it sparked hotter than others.

Neither of us ever acted on it.

My excuse was the fortune-teller I went to when I was fourteen. At that very gothic age, I’d asked her what my purpose was in life. She’d frowned, sitting behind her crystal ball, and then said I would find the man meant for me and that he would take my breath away. It was a generic response she probably told everyone, but it stuck to me like glue.

I breathed just fine around Ivan.

And Carter, despite experimenting with him out of sheer boredom. Not to mention, he was incredibly persuasive.

My time was running out like the last few grains of sand spilling through an hourglass. Yet still, I waited. For more. For some silly idea Madame Richie had put into my head.

That was my excuse.

Now, I was curious to know Ivan’s.

I leaned into the thumb running across my cheek and blinked soft eyes up to his. “How come you’ve never kissed me?”

“Because I want to live more,” he deadpanned.

A corner of my lips lifted. I’d never even heard my papa raise his voice before, and certainly not to Ivan, who was practically a son to him.

“But really?”

He gave me a weighty look and dropped his hand. “No more talk about Moscow, all right?”

Releasing a sigh, I nodded.

I watched him walk up the lawn to the house, the sway and expanse of the Atlantic settling in my bones with a sense of longing and seclusion from the rest of the world.

My phone vibrated inside my dress pocket, and I was tempted to ignore it, but I ended up reaching for it anyway.

Papa: Happy birthday, angel. Sorry I missed it. Business as usual. We’ll celebrate when I get home.

Another message came in.

Papa: Have fun tomorrow. Carter is good for you.

I put my phone back in my pocket and replaced my earrings with synthetic blue diamonds. I imagined them glittering like the Heart of the Ocean as the sea dragged me down, forever suspending me in gasping breaths, pearl necklaces, and the lonely sounds of the ocean.

It was what convinced me.

Tomorrow, I’d be in Russia.