CHAPTER 81
ALEKSANDER ‘CHRISTIAN’ VOLKOV.
TWO YEARS LATER.
When I was five, I lost my first tooth because I was chasing after a fucking butterfly. Whether the butterfly was pretty, I have no clue.
When I was ten, my mother gifted me a Spider-Man figurine.
When I was twenty, I delved into drugs, inhaling every shit New York had to offer up my nose.
In my late twenties, I became a junkie. I got tattoos. I rebelled against my mother.
Two years ago, I had a close call with death.
And every minute up to now, I have relied on my mother to remind me of every tidbit of information about myself.
What I like.
What I was like.
What my personality was like.
The dos and don’ts I lived by.
The first time I woke up in a hospital, I couldn’t remember my own fucking name let alone move or breathe without the assistance of tubes.
A year later and I beat physio. I could walk.
Right now?
“I didn’t know they would corner us like this, promise. Kevin recommended this café and I thought it was like a small-ish not crowded place you know?”
Small-ish?
Yeah, and I’m Donald Trump then.
Poppy doesn’t do small. Poppy doesn’t do anything less extravagant. Poppy is the type of Richie Rich that spits on beggars by the streets and strays from burger joints because a, the burgers are too greasy and full of ‘calories’ or burger joints are known to carry ninety percent of diseases from NYC.
Her fucking words not mine.
I gaze at her and every day I ask myself the same question.
Of all the women I grew up around, I fell in love with Poppy Woodcock?
She’s pretty, sure. If you count the lip fillers, the facelifts, the BOTOX and the Ozempic body then yeah, she’s every guy’s wet dream.
Add in the fact that she’s daddy’s little girl. Million-dollar yachts and what not and any guy would kill to be in my position.
The bonus of it all is that Poppy Woodcock is head over heels in love with me.
No man wouldn’t want that. No sane man wouldn’t want Poppy.
Yet…
I care about this woman like I care about my secretary. The spoiler being I can barely remember my secretary’s face let alone her name.
Apparently, I proposed to Poppy before my accident.
An even bigger ‘apparently’ is that I’ve been swooning and piping over this woman for more than a decade.
Childhood sweethearts, they call it.
“Ready to order?”
I offer but my words are as bland as the look on my face.
I tolerate Poppy because my mother wants me to try to get back to my normal self.
I entertain Poppy because again, she tried to help me when I spiraled into a life of drugs and alcohol.
“Order here? God, no!”
There she is.
Arrogant. Classy. Sophisticated.
My fiancé.
“Poppy, you dragged me all the way here because you had something important you wanted to talk to me about.”
Her manicured hands shimmer their way to mine and her touch does nothing to a single bone inside me.
Being in love doesn’t sound like me but being in love with Poppy? Yeah that accident messed me up pretty badly.
“You are always working and I-.”
“Because that’s what normal people do. Work.”
She doesn’t work.
She has an aunt who squeezes her in for shoots and modeling gigs once in a while. That isn’t work, she does it for fame.
For charity, if we are being honest here.
“But all you do is work, Alek! You have no time for me and when I do ask for time, all we do is hang around in your office.”
“I’m who I am, Poppy. If you don’t like it, we might as well call it quits. Like I’ve said countless times.”
And fuck whatever my mother has to say about merging Volkov Industries and Woodcock Enterprises.
She lets go of my hand, the paparazzi by the window outside the café flash their cameras in our direction.
The minute we arrived, most people inside this buzzing café had to leave.
That’s what being a Volkov means.
That’s what being with a Woodcock in NYC means too.
Her caked eyelids twitch then her brown eyes smart with unshed tears.
I have seen this little play so many times and every time I fall for it.
“Why do you always do this, huh? I try… I have been patient; I have been trying to understand that you are a little unwell
but the Alek I knew…”
A little unwell? If losing all your memories and trying to learn how to walk again was a little then the great World War might as well have been another carnival in Disneyworld.
“The Alek you knew has been dead for two years, Poppy.”
A tear escapes one of her eyes and she wipes it quickly.
I have been trying to get her to call off the engagement without involving our parents but she won’t let go.
“No, he’s not. What you just said right now sounds like what my Alek would usually do. The Alek I know and the one that still exists tries to push people away every chance he gets but deep down that’s not what he wants. You always said that I was the best thing to ever happen to you. I will remain to be the best thing for you because I love you.”
Christ.
“Poppy-.”
“You don’t have to say it back because you already did in the past like a gazillion times but I still trust you’ll love me, Aleksander. We are meant for each other.”
What can I say to that?
Nothing.
So, I sit like a good fiancé listening to stories about glam and fashion, letting her touch me like we are couple of the year.
Because really that’s what the media has dubbed us.
‘Couple of the year’.
***
“Sir, your mother is in your office.”
I glare at my secretary, a sigh escaping my lips.
“Did you tell her I would be gone for hours?”
“No, sir. Was I supposed to? No… I mean… I would but she didn’t seem like she would leave any moment soon.
Apologies, Sir. I should have…”
“Emily?”
She readjusts her wide-rimmed glasses.
“It’s Avaline, Sir.”
Same thing.
“Take a breath, Avaline. Next time my mother shows up, make up something that will deter her from waiting. Got it?”
“Yes, Sir. Got it.”
I push the glass doors to my office and my mother’s perfume hits me before I even spot her in my swivel chair.
“Mother”, I say dryly.
“Is that any way to greet your dearest mother?”
“If she disrupts my work, then yes.”
“But you weren’t at work when I got here, were you?”
Lucia Volkov has always been controlling.
I don’t know if she was like this before but all I do know is that my accident changed her.
I changed her and not a moment goes by without me feeling guilty for causing pain to this woman.
“I was with Poppy but you knew that, didn’t you?”
She and Poppy are joined by the hip. The reason why I can’t break up with Poppy and cause my mother any more pain.
“Everything going on smoothly between you two?”
“I don’t love her, mother. Never think I will.”
“You loved her before you can love her again-.”
“Why does everyone keep forcing me to be the old me? Huh?”
Her eyes go wide, the wrinkles being clear beneath her makeup and suddenly I feel like I’ve reverted back to the monster I’ve been trying to hide since the accident.
The monster who dreams of killing people and enjoying it.
“Alek, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to-”
“Don’t do that. Don’t… feel guilty, please. Poppy and I are good, I’m trying to make it work. I’ll try to make it work.”
For you.
“Good. All I want is for you to be happy.”
“To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Just checking up on things since you are too busy to pick up my calls.. Maria told me you almost fell down the stairs the other day?”
Maria and her big mouth.
“I tripped, things like that happen on the regular.”
“I think you should move back in with me.”
“Absolutely not.”
I can’t subject myself to that again. Being in her house, pretending to be fine, having to lock my demons in around her.
“One maid and one housekeeper won’t help you if something goes wrong.”
Having Maria and that one maid is already a bigger headache.
“I’m not moving back with you, mother.”
“Then at least let me hire more help in case…in case…”
“Will that make you happy?”
“Yes.”
Another blurred memory of Poppy travels to my broken brain.
‘Will that make you happy?’
‘Yes.’
Yet her voice, her voice does something to me.
Then like always, the memory becomes a blur and it’s back to square one.
XxX
I didn’t go home for two days.
Having more maids to watch my every move rubbed me the wrong way.
Two days later, I’m in my own home, underneath my own shower gazing at the tattoos that cover my torso and I can’t make a sense about any of them.
Then there are always the scars.
One on the side of my neck that looks like a cut.
Two on my shoulders.
A few knife wounds on my torso.
Before I had the accident, I wasn’t a CEO, I wasn’t a perfect son.
On the contrary, I joined in with the wrong crowd, got stabbed a few times hurting my mother over and over before I got the accident that might have eaten half of my brain.
Some call me lucky.
I call myself cursed. Cursed to roam the world while trying to be one man and trying to hide the new me.
The cold water trickles down my hair, down my scars, down a body that feels like more of a shell than my own body.
I watch the water swirl down the drainage, both my hands fisted against the wall as I try to breathe.
Just breathe, Alek.
Breathe.
Breathing doesn’t come easy and not because I’m not trying but because my heightened senses spot her before she can even say a word.
I’m well aware I’m naked.
I’m well aware it might be one of those nosy maids my mother brought in the other day.
And it pisses me the hell off.
I push my hair off my forehead.
Then I turn around.
Pretty blue eyes gaze at me from the bathroom door.
Her eyes go wide, a deer caught in headlights, but she doesn’t run.
Not at first, no.
Her eyes glide down my naked chest, down my torso and they shoot straight to my cock.
But this chick?
This nosy maid?
She licks her pink lips nervously—lips with no lip fillers, lips not like Poppy’s… and then when common sense knocks into her head, the little minx runs out of sight.
It takes a minute for me to try to grip what just happened.
It takes another minute to decide I don’t care.
I value privacy. Controlling mother or not.
And this new maid is fired alright.