SWNOVELS One Last Shot: Chapter 9
Fourteen Years Ago
Innsbruck, Austria
“Aleksandr,” my father calls as I pass the library doors. My back stiffens. I don’t like to be summoned, but he literally does not know another way to interact with people.
I step between the half-open pocket doors of the extra wide doorway and wonder if he’s been sitting at this desk in the hour since we signed those papers. He doesn’t even look up from his desk when he feels my looming presence. “I need you to sign one more thing before you go.”
“What else is there?” I ask, annoyed at this distraction while I’m on my way to see Petra. “I thought we signed everything earlier.”
“You need to sign the bank draft too.”
I’m having a hard time listening to what he’s telling me because I’m too keyed up at the thought of being alone with Petra, in the dark, and so consumed by the memory of the way we locked eyes in the library.
I step up to his desk, and my father slides a piece of paper toward me. The name of the bank is displayed prominently at the top. FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS is written in capital letters on one line, and below it is the name of my trust and Petra’s father’s name. I sign along the line on the bottom of the page and wonder why I don’t remember seeing a dollar amount in the agreement we signed earlier.
That paperwork is sitting on my father’s desk, so I pick it up as I set my pen down. It’s written in Russian, and until this past year I could barely read more than the simplest two- and three-letter words. But living in Russia this last year has meant I had to learn to read the language I’ve been speaking at home my whole life. I’d been too focused on Petra to spare a glance at the paperwork I signed earlier, but now I stare at the words across the top of the page.
MARRIAGE LICENSE
I can feel my father’s eyes on me as I scan the page. It takes me three times as long to read it as it would if it were written in German or English, but I make it through the document eventually.
Then I turn to the second piece of paperwork we signed. MARRIAGE CONTRACT.
My eyes meet my father’s.
“Explain this.” It’s not a request.
“I bought her for you. Or rather, you bought her, since the money is coming from your trust.”
My eyes narrow. “What do you mean you bought her for me?”
“I see the way you look at her. I see the way you feel about her even while you try to act like she’s only a friend.” As he speaks, fire runs through my veins—embarrassment and anger and shame combined into one rush of heat. I thought I’d kept my inappropriate feelings locked away, hidden so well that no one suspected a thing. I should have known my father’s shrewd eyes would pick up on any clues.
“When I said I wanted to pay for her education with no strings attached, I didn’t mean bind us together permanently for the rest of our lives.” I knew there was no way Petra would ever accept the money from me, which is why I had my father arrange this whole deal. But where the hell had this marriage idea come from? Why would he think that, at nineteen and at the beginning of my professional hockey career, I’d want to be married?
“Sasha,” he says, and I bristle at the nickname. He only ever calls me Aleksandr and my older brother Nikolai, as if using the diminutives that all our friends call us would somehow make him less of an authority figure. “I will not watch that girl wreck you the way her mother wrecked me.”
Oh, so we’re finally talking about this.
“She wrecked you?” I say, my voice harsh. “You threatened to tell her husband that something was happening between the two of you, and she died because of your lie.”
The look on my father’s face is one of absolute shock. He really didn’t know that I knew.
“How do you know about that conversation?” His voice and his eyes are serpentine, and I wonder if he’s getting ready to strike with some low blow—something he planned and I’m not expecting. That’s how he operates.
“I told you that I’d overheard your conversation, and you dismissed it,” I say, thinking back to the car accident three years before.
Petra’s father was in our home when the police arrived to tell him his wife’s car took an icy turn too fast, and they asked what she could have been speeding home for. Of course her father didn’t know, but mine knew. “You knew she was rushing home after picking Viktor up from hockey practice, hoping to prevent you from saying something untrue to her husband. Petra lost her mother and brother, and I lost my best friend. All because you threatened her mother.”
I don’t mention how I’ve struggled with my own guilt over this event. Since we lived on the same property, I normally gave Viktor rides home from our hockey practices. But I stayed home sick that day because I had a minor cold and didn’t feel like going to school. Mrs. Volkova wouldn’t have been going to pick him up if I had been there like I was supposed to be. So maybe it’s more my fault than my father’s, even.
My father, sick bastard that he is, actually laughs. “You think you know what happened, but you have no idea. It wasn’t an empty threat. She had been leading me on for years. You can think she was innocent if you want, but she wasn’t. She knew how I felt about her and she used every available opportunity to manipulate me, sharing little pieces of herself here and there when it was convenient for her, then denying there was anything between us and telling me I was a jealous fool. And I’ve watched Petra do the same to you over the last two years.”
“Like hell you have.” Petra has made it very clear that she thinks of me like a brother. There’s been no leading me on, no stolen kisses. Nothing but friendship.
Until this summer.
“You watch her like a hawk watches a mouse. You might think no one notices. You might even think she doesn’t know. But how could she not? And now you’ve decided to pay for her boarding school out of your trust fund, because you want to see her dreams come true. And you’re so naive you think you came up with that idea on your own, rather than her planting the seed and nurturing it.”
That money is a tiny sliver of what’s sitting in that trust fund. I won’t miss it, and she’ll get a shot at her dream—Olympic-level skiing. I’d be a selfish bastard not to help her when it costs me so little. Though, I’d help her even if it cost me everything.
“Unless you told her, she has no idea that money is coming from me.” Petra is a lot of things, but manipulative is not one of them.
“You sure about that?” he asks, steepling his fingertips together while his elbows rest on his desk.
“I’m positive.” She wouldn’t do that.
“Well, one way or the other, she’s yours now.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You don’t buy a girl like Petra, you earn her. Her mother was the same way, and that was always your mistake. You assumed you could buy her like you do everyone and everything else.” I pause and he doesn’t respond. “Petra doesn’t want to be bought. She wants to be loved.”
“Well, as her husband, you’ll be in a position to do that too”—his voice carries notes of boredom, as though he’s already tired of this conversation—“if that’s what you want.”
How could I ever earn Petra’s trust—or more importantly, deserve it—after the role both my father and I played in her mother and brother’s deaths? And if I told her the truth, there’s no way she would ever want to get involved with the son of the man her mother was allegedly having an affair with.
“I’m not marrying Petra under these circumstances,” I say, slamming the papers down on the desk. “How do we undo this?”
“We don’t. Everyone has already signed.”
“This can’t be legal.”
“It will be once the paperwork is filed.”
“What would make Petra’s father agree to this?” I ask. He only knows Russian, which is why this once-brilliant engineer couldn’t get a job in Austria and has worked as our property’s caretaker since fleeing political persecution in the motherland before Petra was born. He obviously knows what that paperwork said. What would make him sell his daughter off like this?
My father just shrugs. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”
My hand curls into a fist where it rests on top of the paperwork on the desk, and my father eyes it like he’s daring me to punch him. As many times as I’ve had that desire in my lifetime, it’s never been quite this strong.
“The marriage license will be filed tomorrow, and the contract in three days’ time. Unless . . .” He lets the word hang there between us, and it’s obvious he’s not going to tell me what I have to do to prevent it unless I ask.
“Unless what?”
“I won’t file them if you swear to never see Petra again. Let her go. Let your obsession with her go”—his voice is as hard and cold as ice—“or it will ruin you like my feelings for her mother ruined me.”
I take in the lines around my father’s eyes, the deep grooves across his forehead from the perpetual frowning. He looks like a man who, despite having everything money can buy, is exhausted from life. He looks like a man who’s never known happiness.
Is that the path I’m on?
“What makes you think I’d follow the same road you have?” I ask. I want to believe I’m emotionally tougher than he is, but my pull toward Petra is unequivocally strong no matter how much I try to repress my feelings.
“Because you are more like me than you want to admit. Once you commit to something, you’re all in. I don’t want to see you commit to a lost cause that will destroy your happiness.”
Even though everything he’s saying goes against everything I want, I see the truth in his words. I think about Petra all the time—what it could be like between us if she wasn’t so much younger and if she felt the same way. I’d hoped that maybe now that she’s sixteen things might change between us, but with me headed back to Russia and her headed to Switzerland . . . how much longer can I torment myself? Maybe cutting things off between us entirely is the safest course of action. She gets to go to chase her Olympic skiing dreams, and I can focus entirely on my hockey career instead of dividing my attention.
You’ll both be better off that way, I tell myself.
“I’ll say goodbye to her tonight.”
“A permanent goodbye,” my father says. “You need to break things off in a way that she won’t keep trying to revive the friendship.”
The knife in my stomach twists. The pain is unbearable and I haven’t even ended things yet. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do this, but I have to do it anyway. I can’t marry her under these circumstances. She deserves better than this. “I understand.”
“Good,” my father says, “because if you try to see her again after this, I’ll have to tell her where the money for her schooling came from. And why.”
My eyes bulge at his words. Petra would leave school if she knew I was paying for it. She’d never accept a gift like that from me—I still can’t believe she accepted help from my father. “You wouldn’t.”
His eyes are ice. “Oh, son. I would.”
I thought it would be impossible to hate him more than I do, but I was wrong.
I turn and leave the room, trying to imagine what life without Petra will even feel like.
This boarding school and ski training is the only way for her to achieve her dreams, I remind myself. If you really do care about her, let her go.
I come around the bend in the garden, resolved that I won’t tell Petra about the marriage. I’d have to reveal too much about the way our family’s history is intertwined, too much about my own feelings for her. I’d have to tell her that her father apparently loves her so much he’s willing to do whatever it takes to help her achieve her dreams, but respects her so little he essentially sold her off to do so.
When I reach the top of the ladder, Petra is on her hands and knees, lighting a candle. “What’s this?” I glance around the treehouse and notice other candles and a blanket she’s kneeling on. The whole scene is very romantic, and I keep my face expressionless so she won’t see how this scene is everything I want, right when I know for sure I can’t have it.
Her skirt is bunched up around her thighs and I know my eyes pause there for a minute, just like they lingered on her body earlier in the library. I slide my gaze up to her belly, focusing on that sliver of skin between the waistband of her denim skirt and the tight button-down sweater she’s wearing. How am I going to say no to this?
“I wanted to be able to see you in this dark, old place,” she says.
In my momentary internal war with myself, I forgot I’d even asked her a question. I give her a small smile because if I wasn’t here to end things, this would be a perfect scenario. God, how I wish I could at least kiss her before having to back away, but that would make what I’m about to do even worse.
“Well, are you coming in or just going to hang out on the ladder all night?”
I plant my hands on the floor and pull myself up into our secret hideaway. It’s cramped up here now that we’re fully grown, so I sit cross-legged on the blanket facing her. I need to keep some distance so I can keep my head.
For a minute we just stare at each other. I’ve tried to hide my true feelings this summer, but they seem to have saturated the space anyway. She looks at me like she can read my mind.
I reach behind me and grasp the book I’ve brought her. “Here,” I say, shoving the book toward her. “I found it for you.”
“Oh my gosh, Sasha!” Her voice carries the notes of delight I’d hoped it would. I spent too fucking long finding that book for her—months of searching through used book shops in half the cities in Russia. I’ve had it since I came home a month ago, but wanted to give it to her as a going away present—something to remember me by. She gazes at the cover like she’s soaking it in. “I can’t believe it.”
“Why would you even want a first edition of War and Peace in Russian? You don’t know how to read it.” This fact has made her a pawn in my father’s games.
“I told you,” she says, like I don’t listen to a word she says, “it was my mother’s favorite book.” She glances at the cover again, then continues like she often does—giving me small snippets of information, doling them out like treats. And like a fool, I collect them, hoping that one day I’ll have a complete picture of who she is and what makes her tick. “Mama had one just like this and she lost count of how many times she’d read it. It was practically falling apart. But I don’t know what happened to it after she died. It’s like it disappeared off our bookshelf.”
A shiver runs up my spine as the darkness surrounding us seeps into me. I know exactly where that tattered book is. I’ve seen one matching its description on a shelf in my father’s private study many times and thought nothing of it. Another piece of her family he’s taken from her and she doesn’t even know it.
“Well, now you have your own copy.” My words are gruff, full of finality. I shouldn’t be running all over Russia doing her bidding when I’m supposed to be focusing on my hockey career. Half the reason I joined up in the KHL was to get the hell away from her so I could stop obsessing over her. It clearly didn’t work.
I’ve never stopped thinking about those dark curls I want to dig my hands into, those lips I need to taste, that sharp tongue I want to feel on my skin. From her ridiculous body to her inquisitive mind to her guarded heart, there is no part of her that does not fascinate me. And if I don’t get away from her, I’m going to do something about it, thus ruining her future.
“Thank you,” she says as she hugs the book to her chest before stretching to set it down at the edge of the blanket. When she turns back toward me, she catches me staring at her again.
I open my mouth to tell her this is over, but no words come out. The way she watches my face, I can sense that she knows how much I’m hurting.
“What’s wrong?”
I swallow. “Nothing.” I feel jittery, like my muscles are spasming and I have as little control over them as I have over my emotions. I fucking hate this feeling. Is this what it feels like to love someone? Reckless and powerless and foolish?
She scoots toward me until we’re only a foot apart. “Sasha, you’re my best friend and I need you to stop lying to me.”
What can I say? That wanting her is a sickness my body can’t fight off? That as inappropriate as it is for me to lust after the younger sister of my dead best friend, I can’t seem to stop myself? That until this summer I never dreamed she’d feel the same way, but that I know things are shifting and that even though this could be our chance, it can’t be?
“What’s wrong?” she asks again, leaning in close enough that my body can feel her even though we’re not touching.
I breathe deeply through my nose, demanding control of myself. I will not think with my dick, there is too much on the line here. For her future, and for mine.
“Petra,” I choke out, wondering if this is the last time I’ll be able to call her by her name, “nothing can happen between us.”
She blinks in surprise and her lips part slightly. I can’t take my eyes off them. I could just lean forward the tiniest bit and finally know what it’s like to taste her. But you can’t.
“Why are you doing this, Sasha?” she asks. I wonder if the way her voice cracks is her holding herself together.
“You’re a child, Petra.” The condescending tone surprises me, even though the words are coming out of my own mouth. “I don’t see you like that.” Every fiber of my being stretches toward her even as my words push her away. But I think that sounded believable enough?
“Bullshit,” she spits out the word as she studies my face.
I could love this girl. Maybe I already do. A part of me wants to tell her the truth and see if we can find a way to work this out. But I think the truth would break her. I’d rather her think I’m the one who’s broken her than to know her father betrayed her this way, to know that my father is responsible for her mother’s death. So I’ll do the last thing in the world I want to do.
I do everything in my power to get the next words out without breaking down. “I don’t feel that way about you, and if you don’t realize that, you’re a fool.”
“Why are you saying these things?” she whispers, trying to hold back the tears that are gathering in her eyes.
What would my father say in this situation? Somehow, I know that channeling him will allow me to be as cold and indifferent as I need to be right now.
“Because you need to hear them. You’re playing a dangerous game, flirting with every man around you.” I think about how she shamelessly flirted with the gardener, Felix, when I first arrived home. Was she trying to make me jealous? “You’re sixteen, but you look a lot older, and you’re going to get yourself into trouble one of these days.”
“You sound like all the jealous, catty girls at school. Is that what you are, Aleksandr? Jealous and catty?” When I don’t respond, she says, “I can’t help what I look like.”
“You need to be careful,” I tell her, because it’s true. I’ve seen what men do to women who are too beautiful and too trusting.
“Oh.” Her single word is an icicle dangling between us. “You’re one of those.”
“One of what?”
“One of those people who thinks that instead of teaching boys to respect girls, we need to teach girls to be careful to not attract too much attention from boys.”
Time to end this. “No, I’m just someone who used to be your friend, but I don’t think we should be friends anymore.”
She bends forward at the waist, one hand on her heart. “What?” The word escapes through clenched teeth.
“You heard me.” My face is expressionless. “This is goodbye.”
“Sasha. No. I can’t lose you too.” The words are a whispered plea floating off her lips. I already know this conversation will haunt me for years, maybe forever. But for her sake, her plea must fall on deaf ears.
“You have no choice,” I say, keeping any evidence of emotion out of my voice.
I turn and descend the ladder as quickly as I can. I need to be away from her or I’m likely to pull her into my arms, tell her I love her, and suggest we run away together. The trust fund from my mother would allow us to live a comfortable life, but I know that idea is madness. We are too young. And more importantly, she has dreams she wants to pursue, and so do I. Goodbye is the only way we can both get what we want.