100

Pavel It takes my housemates a couple days to notice that the lights are out inside my head. I’m still eating. Still speaking although not much.
It wouldn’t be hard to argue that I was dead inside before I met Kayla. Now, there’s no doubt. I don’t allow myself to think. Or to feel. Or to do anything but the most mechanical of actions.
After I dropped Kayla off that night, I returned the rental car. Flew back to Chicago.
Found Ravil and told him I was staying. And then I went out on the roof to let the cold bite of an April night soak into my bones. Freezing all my organs exactly in place.
It’s not until Sasha asks me how the apartment building hunting is going that anything even moves in my chest.
Not that my heart flopping like a fish on land is anything worth celebrating.
“The deal is off,” I tell her, without looking away from the television we are all gathered around.
She hits pause on the Game of Thrones episode. “Wait… what?”
Dima looks over from his work station, stopping his usual incessant clacking of keys.
“Turn it back on.” I lift my chin toward the television like I actually care about some dragon queen.
“Oh my God, what happened?” Sasha gasps.
Now everyone looks-Nikolai, Oleg, Story, Maxim. Apparently Ravil hadn’t shared my failure with the rest of the suite.
“Did she break up with you? She found out about the part, didn’t she?”
The pain I hadn’t allowed myself to feel seeps in through the cuts Sasha makes.
“Turn it back on.”
Maxim leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“I’m sorry, Pavel,” Story says softly. Oleg circles his fist over his chest in the sign for sorry.
“Wait-what Kayla ended things? Is that why you flew back there Monday?”
I shake my head, shocked by the pain in my chest, my ribs, my gut. “I was wrong for her. It was a bad idea to move out there, anyway. This is for the best.”
Sasha stands and throws her hands out. “So what, you’re not going to fight for her? You quit just like that? Well, damn, I’m glad I didn’t go into business with you if that’s how you approach challenges.”
“Sasha,” Maxim warns.
“Pavel doesn’t quit,” Dima says quietly from his work station. “He’s stubborn as hell.”
“I don’t keep my women against their will, unlike you mudaks,” I snap.
Maxim straightens, probably offended, since he kept his bride prisoner here until he tamed her. So did Ravil.
“There’s a pretty large area between keeping a woman captive and trying to work things out,” Nikolai counters.
I shake my head. “No. It wasn’t a good match to begin with. It’s better this way.”
“Really, dude? Because you both seemed pretty smitten when I saw you two together,” Dima says.
Fresh pain rips through my chest, so sharp I can barely breathe.
“Pavel, give her some time, but don’t give up. She’s mad that you interfered, right?”
I drop my head into my hands. “It’s more than that, Sasha.” The sound of Kayla’s hiccuping voice over the phone replays in my head, and I’m suddenly bone tired. “That’s why I won’t fight for her.” I get up and stalk to the penthouse door to go to my room across the hall. “And don’t interfere,” I warn, turning back and pointing a finger at Sasha.
“You’re an asshole, Pavel,” Sasha calls as I shut the door.
No argument here. I stalk to my room and stand at the window that overlooks the city. I’m definitely an asshole. Why I thought I could navigate a relationship when I literally know nothing about keeping a woman happy is beyond me.
All I know how to do is hurt people. That is literally what I do for a living. What I did for Kayla.
What we had wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right, either. I don’t know how to love. How to heal the scars this life has given me. I thought maybe I could with Kayla, but that was just a fantasy.
Maybe if I’d learned faster. If I’d talked more. If only I’d told her sooner that I planned to move out there with her, maybe we’d have a more solid base when I broke her trust. Maybe she wouldn’t have fallen so hard when I left at the end of the weekend. A submissive needs to feel safe, but I didn’t give her much to hold on to. It’s no wonder her roommates didn’t like the relationship. It’s no wonder she threw in the towel at the first bump in the road.
One thing I do know now-me moving back to Russia wouldn’t fix anything for my mom, either.
I’m too broken to heal her. She doesn’t need my physical protection anymore. No one’s coming after her but her own shadows. She needs help from people who do know how to love. How to give and share and be happy.
I get on my phone and book a ticket. I’m going to go back to Russia to get her and bring her back here to the Kremlin. It’s one thing I can do that might be right.
Kayla On Saturday the surge of righteousness and determination I rode since my break-up dissolves, and I’m left gutted and empty. The knowledge that Pavel won’t be coming this weekend, or any weekend in the future, unravels the last bit of certainty I had that I was doing the right thing.
I force myself to get out of the house for fear I’d stay in bed all day, but of course, when I set off on a walk, all I can think of is the incredible sweetness of Pavel coaxing me outside to look for beautiful things.
I try it for myself now to combat the approaching tears.
The only problem is that everything beautiful I see I want to report back to him.
My phone rings, and I jerk it out of my pocket. Not because I hope it’s Pavel. I know better than to hope that. He made it clear he would let me go when I asked him to.
It’s Sasha. She’s been calling for the last few days, but I haven’t taken her calls. I haven’t even listened to her messages because I didn’t want her to change my mind.
Now though?
It’s already changing.
I answer. “Hey, you.” I sound ancient. Tired.
“Kayla, what the hell? Are you okay? Why haven’t you called me back?”
I want to ask about Pavel. A million things. But I can’t. So instead, I squeeze my eyes closed to keep the tears from coming out.
“Are you okay?” Sasha’s voice is quieter. “What happened? Please talk to me. I’m so worried.”
“Did you know?” I ask, tears clogging my throat.
“That you broke up? Yes.”
“No, about the part. Did you know?”
“Oh. Well, I suspected, yes. I mean, he is Pavel. He makes men piss themselves and weep for their mothers.”
“Did he tell you what they did?” my voice raises. I don’t know why I’m mad at Sasha right now, but I am.
“No, of course not,” she says immediately. “They don’t tell me anything. That would make me an accessory.”
The green-eyed monster settles down.
“How could I be so naive? I thought I got that part on my own.”
“Who cares how you got the part, Kayla?” Sasha protests. “It’s always who you know in show business. You know that. That’s why you’ve been working those promotions-hoping to get out there and meet the right people. Well, the right person got behind you this time. It doesn’t matter why.”
“It does matter. I thought I was good enough to do this, and now…” -I choke back a sob- “… now, I know I’m not.”
“Bologna,” Sasha says, making the word sound cute in her accent. “You are good enough. Pavel got you the part, now you do the rest. Show them how great you are. Get yourself the next part all on your own. Don’t you dare walk away from that part, or I will fly over there and kick your ass myself.”
“I wasn’t going to walk away from it,” I sniff. “I wanted to be that proud, but I couldn’t bring myself to make that call.” I think of the other call I’ve been burning to make. “I think I overreacted with Pavel.”
“You did. I mean, I’m sure there are many things I don’t understand about your relationship, but I do know the guy was ready to move out there to be with you. I mean, he was head over heels in love, Kayla. I don’t see why you’d throw that away so easily.”
My knees go weak, and I drop onto a park bench. “He was ready to move out here?”
“Yes! We were going to finance his real estate venture out there. He was working on a plan.”
Hope skids across my chest and then flares to life like a match strike. All the desperation that’s crowded in this week starts to lift.
He was going to move here. He wanted to be with me full time.
And I ended things. Oh God, I made such a terrible mistake. The totality of it comes crashing down on me from every side.
“I gotta go, Sasha.” I rise to my feet, a surge of adrenaline suddenly running through me. “Thanks for calling.” I hang up before she can answer and dial Pavel as I walk swiftly toward my apartment.
He doesn’t answer.
Dammit.
I end the call, then change my mind and call back to leave a message.
“Pavel?” I croak into the phone. I’ve reached the front of my apartment building, and I stand in front of the planter I’d never noticed until he made me look for beautiful things.
That’s the thing with relationships, too. Just like life. Whatever you look for, is what you see.
When you look for beauty, you find it. When you look for problems, you can discover those, too. What Pavel and I had was something unusual. Special.
I finger one of the leaves now. “I’m sorry. I, um, I probably overreacted about the part. Can we talk?” I hang up, my heart pounding.
I go up to my apartment, which I thankfully have to myself for once. I pace around the living room for the next hour, but he doesn’t return my call.
Gah.
What do I do now? I send the same message as a text.
Still no reply.
I wait another hour and try to call again, knowing I’m acting desperate and not caring. Hell, I am desperate.
I threw away my relationship with Pavel because it wasn’t normal. It didn’t fit in a pretty box that could be tied up with a bow. It wasn’t a romance novel relationship. My friends didn’t understand it.
It challenged my moral compass.
None of that has changed. I don’t know how to fix all those things. But what I do know is that I want it back. I want Pavel in my life. I want to soften his edges and draw strength from his hardness. I want him in my corner, backing me up, protecting me, making me swoon with his soft, dommy commands.
Pavel doesn’t answer, so I try leaving another message. “Pavel?” I can’t stop the tears, and I don’t try. “I’m sorry I ended things. Please, can we talk? I was so muddled; I had sub-drop that day, so my emotions were out of whack, and Sheri had made me promise that morning not to let the relationship interfere with my career, so I guess when it did, I just overreacted. Can you call me back, please?”
He still doesn’t return my call.
I try seven more times, and finally, at midnight Chicago time, I text Sasha to ask if Pavel’s around.
Her reply shreds me: He’s gone. He went to Russia.
I sink to the floor and sob.
I lost him.
I had him-he was going to move here to be with me-and I ruined it. He was so sure he was bad for me that the moment I agreed, he backed off. He backed off so far, he left the country.
I drop my forehead to my knees and cry for the man who holds my heart. The man I love.
The man I lost.