Beautiful Revenge (A Good Wife #1) - Sienna Blake Page 0,61

call her name softly.

“Alena.” Her red-rimmed eyes widen as she stands.

I prepare myself for her fury. I steel myself as she storms over to me.

She throws her thin arms around me and sniffs into my shirt. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

I push aside my surprise and grip her back, pressing my face into her rose-scented hair, warmth trickling into my heart. “I should have come sooner.”

“I shouldn’t have let you leave.” She pulls back so I can see her face.

I wipe her soft cheeks and push forward a smile despite how my heart hurts.

“I was so blind about Dimitri,” she says, her voice quiet. “You tried to warn me. Why didn’t you tell me who he was to you? I never would have agreed to marry him if I knew he was your ex.”

“I’m sorry.” I truly am. I can see how much I have treated her as a child until now. She can handle more than I thought. “I should have told you.”

“Best friends don’t keep secrets, Leni.”

My chest squeezes, tears rim my eyes. I nod, suitably chastised. “You’re not mad at me?”

She sniffs, forcing a smile. “I am. But we’re best friends. Sisters. We forgive each other.” I tug her into another hug, relishing the warmth of her. I don’t think I could bear it if I lost her. “Whatever happens,” she says into my hair, “we’ll be together, right?”

I squeeze my eyes shut as my heat grows heavier.

She doesn’t know about the contract Dimitri offered me.

58

____________

Alena

“Have you signed the contract yet?” Dimitri strides into my bedroom the next morning without knocking.

I turn from the window, where I’ve been trying to capture this view in my mind, and face him. Beautiful Dimitri. Standing firm and unmoving, confidence and assuredness rolling off him. He looks as comfortable here as his own home. It is his home now. He is the master here.

I avoided him all last night, choosing to eat dinner alone in my room. I needed time to think. Now, I know my mind. I know my heart and I know my soul. Perhaps for the first time in my life.

I fold my hands in front of me. “I loved you more than anything, Dimitri. I made a mistake five years ago, running away from our argument. But you are the one who gave up on me.”

“I heard you, Alena,” he bursts out. “‘He’s nothing but a thief and a simpleton. He’s never going to be anything more.’” My blood frosts over as my old shameful words fill the room. He heard me spilling my raw, unfettered hurts to Natassia. “And my favourite,” Dimitri continues, “‘It would kill me to marry Dimitri.’ Well, I showed you, didn’t I?”

That’s why he left St Petersburg. That’s why he left me.

I almost laugh. Look at what we’ve done to each other. Just because we were both so rash, so wild, so…thoughtless five years ago. All this because of a tragic twist of fate.

“Oh, Dimitri,” I say softly. “You only heard the half of it. I realised as soon as I said them that my words were lies. I turned back for you. I came back to you but you were gone. I didn’t leave you. You left me.”

“Lies!” He strides up to me, his hands in fists, his face turning red. “Stop trying to make this my fault. You did this.”

Even now he won’t see. He can’t.

He’s spent so long blaming me it has become like his shadow. Like the ground underneath his feet.

My body swells with pity, pushing out any residual anger. I cannot hate him even after all that he’s done. I cannot hate him like he hates me. Hate feels like a dagger aimed out. It is really the poison coating the handle, soaking through your skin and into your blood.

“I waited for you for five years,” I say, my voice calm despite the raging of my heart in my chest. “Now I know…the man I love is dead.” My voice struggles around the knot in my throat. “I don’t know who you are.”

I lost my Dimitri long, long ago. I paid for that mistake.

If I marry this Dimitri, if I sign a contract binding me to the stranger standing before me, I will pay for that mistake forever.

I square my shoulders, my soul filling with steely resolve, and pick up a small bag from my side. I arrived at this manor with nothing but a lifetime’s worth of guilt and regret. I will leave with a single