by Anna Antonia
They both gave sharp nods and the urge to “Hurry.” I scrambled upstairs, running down the hallway and bursting into my room. I automatically looked over at the window I’d destroyed, but it was partially boarded up and covered by heavy drapery.
Still, I felt the cold seeping through and making the whole room cold. As cold as I felt not knowing what had happened to my Damian.
I carefully made my way over to the closet, mindful that even though Damian had cleaned up the floor, it was possible that a stray shard had been missed. My clothes were hanging neatly in the impressive dressing room. Another time I would’ve admired the sapphire blue walls, gilt trim, and flattering lighting, but panic kept me focused on getting my things and rushing back downstairs.
I saw my purse on the island and quickly checked to make sure I had my ID. Opening it further, I saw my passport and pulled it out with a frown. Damian had been extremely thorough in preparing for any inevitability.
Type A personality all the way to the core.
I grabbed my coat and hurried out of the room. I was halfway through when a sharp pain pierced my foot and knocked the wind out of me. “Damn!” Hobbling over to a nearby chair, I crossed my leg over my knee and looked at my foot.
A sliver of glass had pierced my sock. Blood bloomed, dotting the white cotton like blood on snow.
I shivered, feeling the pull of a premonition that wouldn’t be denied.
48
DAMIAN
Risa.
Risa.
Risa.
Risa.
Ri…sa…
Ri…
…
49
RISA
The view out of the window never changed. It was the cold grey of winter, of my spirit and joy.
I shifted in the chair. My legs had fallen asleep but I didn’t care. I just made sure that I could still hold his hand without disrupting him.
There it was again. Pain. A terrible, gut-twisting kind of pain that never got any easier each time I felt it.
Tears flooded my gaze, making the words on the page swirl about crazily. I let them fall as they’d done for two months. I fumbled with the book, putting it on my lap and reaching for a glass of water all while keeping hold of his hand. I then picked up the book and started reading from where I left off.
“When listening to another person…”
The words were as much for me then they were for him. I tried to focus on the now and not the then.
Now Damian was alive. Then he looked like death with a hole in his head.
The guards, black SUV, and high-speed ride to the hospital were a nightmare that visited me every night. So I did what any normal person would do—I barely slept. If I wasn’t reading to Damian, I was talking to him, and if I wasn’t doing either of those then I sang. Anything to keep the silence from swallowing us alive.
Insanity touched me every time I wondered if my Damian was still in there, sleeping somewhere in that brilliant brain that had taken a bullet and somehow managed not to explode.
There it was again. Pain.
Now. I had to just focus on the now.
Not then, not when I met Damian’s parents and the other people who claimed him with a fierceness bordering on the threat of cold, methodical violence. Security milled outside as they always did, guarding my Damian in this exclusive private clinic with a fanaticism that brought me comfort even if I wasn’t sure that I should be feeling it.
The only time I willingly left his side was when his mother forced me into the bathroom for a quick shower. “When he wakes up, he’ll want to see you at your best, Risa.”
Although I wanted to laugh bitterly and scream that I didn’t give a damn about my appearance, I always did as I was told. Her immaculate grooming notwithstanding, there was no doubt that she worried about him as much as I did.
And she always said “when” and not “if.” I took comfort from it as I stood under the shower spray and washed a body that didn’t feel like my own anymore. Without his touch, bones appeared in the place of curves. I knew it should’ve bothered me, but I didn’t care. It was just a body, a vessel.
Just like the body in the bed that looked like my Damian but wasn’t him.
I wore the clothes she or her assistant brought me. High dollar, exclusive creations that I might’ve taken pleasure in the lifetime I had before this. His mother would comment every week that the sizes were getting smaller and I would nod and shrug.
“I’m sorry.”
People came and went. Doctors, nurses, and others. They nodded in greeting, but reserved the majority of their brief conversations for Damian or his parents in Russian. I’d gotten used to the sharpness of their tongue, missing it a little when they switched to accented English to address me.
The terseness reminded me of Damian’s blunted way of speech. It was a small comfort to take in a time where there was little to be comforted about. I didn’t know exactly who these people were other than close friends or employees of Damian’s parents, but I promised myself that I would learn to speak their language.
Maybe Damian could help me polish my accent? That was if he ever…
I could never finish the thought. And so my days bled one into the other. But the view never changed. Cold, snowy, dead and waiting for Spring. Just like me.
I often kept reading long into the night, ignoring my hunger, my primitive needs until I couldn’t ignore it before racing right back to this side.
The irony of our last weekend didn’t escape me. I was so angry then that Damian had kept me from running away from him that I thought I’d explode. But nothing could tear me away from him now. What seemed so important then seemed so stupid to me now. Pride, hurt feelings, and the inability to tell him what I really felt—none of it existed inside me.
If I only knew how quickly he could be taken from me, I would’ve never waited so long to tell him I loved him. I would’ve submitted to him over and over again, however he wanted, and never questioned his loyalty to me.
Strange how clearly I could see what it all meant now that I had nothing but time.
I didn’t need a physical chain anymore but I wished for one. I’d use anything to keep Damian locked by my side and away from the coldness of mechanical beeps and blips.
“Because I want forever with you, Risa.”
The words haunted me. What was going to come next? I wanted to know. I had to know.
I turned the page. The words swam again but it was okay. They’d straighten back and I’d go on. A broken sigh came out. I shook my head. I didn’t like the phrasing of “go on.” I’d strike that out of my vernacular.
Opening my mouth, I tried to speak but another sigh came out. Then a cough. Then nothing.
I looked back out the window. Cold. Lifeless. Forever winter.
I was the girl forever waiting for her prince to wake up. I’d kissed him plenty of times, soft and chaste, in the hopes of making Damian come back to life. Nothing. Then the tube came and there were no more kisses. The room distorted beneath the weight of my fast flowing tears.
Two months. Twice as long as the time we were together.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the tears this time. I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t fight the silence.
Time passed. The staff came and left and still we stayed. Silent. Unmoving. Frozen.
And then the miracle happened.
I’d fallen into a fitful sleep and released his hand. The tentative brush, weak like that of newborn, shocked me awake. I surged up on my feet, gaze pinpointed to his hand, begging for it to be real and not a dream.
It moved again. My heart thudded so hard in my chest that I could feel the whoosh of blood as it pumped through my body.
“Damian?”
His fingers twitched. It couldn’t be an involuntary reaction. It just couldn’t. I reached for his hand, trembling from the hope that today was finally the day he’d fulfill his promise to me.
You said you’d come back for
me, Damian. You have to do it because you’ve never broken a promise to me. You can’t let this one be the first.
I licked my lips and dared to look at his face. Damian’s eyes were open. He looked at me and blinked. He tried to sit up. “Oh my God! Wait, I’ll be back.” Not even bothering to press the call button, I ran out the room and yelled for the nurse.
“He’s awake! He’s awake!”
A rush of feet and then I was on the fringe. It didn’t matter. Damian was finally awake and here on this side with us. I dimly felt the press of hands on my arms as my legs seemed to have trouble holding me up. I thanked the suited guard and asked for him to contact Damian’s mother.
She’d stepped out earlier for lunch or was it dinner? I couldn’t remember. Looking over my shoulder, I caught glimpses of my beloved and the team busily checking his vitals and a ton of other things that I knew but somehow escaped my memory.
I glanced at the window and saw the same view I’d seen for two months. A smile forced my grudging facial muscles to respond.
Spring was coming.
50
A couple of days had passed. Damian slept more than he was awake but it was different from the death-like state from before. The hope was that he’d make a full recovery but the possible neurological damage couldn’t be ignored.
I didn’t care. We’d get through anything. I was never going to leave his side no matter what.
He’d spoken to the doctors, a few words at a time and not for long, but he had yet to say anything to me. Damian smiled and looked at me often though. Anytime I’d step away from his bedside, his gaze would lock onto mine quizzically. I found myself chattering again, just like I would at the beginning whenever I was with him for more than ten seconds.
My words seemed to cause him to smile faintly more often than not. Although I missed his voice, it was enough for me. Knowing he was awake and alive was enough for me.
And then everything imploded.
I was rearranging Damian’s blankets, smoothing them just the way I remembered he liked it when he stopped me with careful pressure on my wrist. Looking down at him with a questioning smile, I was completely unprepared by his first words for me.
“Who are you?”
“What?”
He cocked his head and studied me in a way that was so familiar but suddenly so foreign. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to place you and I can’t. I don’t know who you are. Have you been hired to keep me company?”
I stared into his beautifully mismatched gaze and didn’t see myself at all. It was obvious that I was erased from his mind completely.
The life went out of me.
Continue Risa and Damian’s dark romance in “My Love Break”
Coming Winter 2014
MORE ANNA ANTONIA
Marcus’s Mercy (A Dark Romance Serial)
Marcus’s Mercy #1
Marcus’s Mercy #2
Mad, Bad, & Dangerous to Love Series
Mad for You
First Night (A Mad for You Short)
Bad for You
Dangerous for You
All to Love You – Coming Soon!
ABOUT ANNA ANTONIA
Anna is a lover of all things dark and passionate. Living in the Southeastern United States, she enjoys antiquing, DIY thrift store finds, sedate hiking along trails, and spending time with her family and menagerie of pets. Being the only girl in a household full of men makes it hard to always be a lady, but she gives it a good old college try.
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