Married By Christmas. Оливия Гейтс

Ivan, too.

      She’d lost him all over again.

      Not that she’d ever had him. He’d only reentered her life on a mission. Once it was accomplished, there was no more reason for him to stick around. Now she knew why this demolished her.

      When he’d been by her side day and night, she hadn’t been able to think ahead to the point in time when he’d leave again. She’d gotten so used to him being there it had felt as if the day would never come. That was why it had been such a shock when he’d not only walked away, but had also seemed as if he couldn’t bear being around her anymore, couldn’t wait to leave her behind.

      That was what hurt until she couldn’t breathe. What made her feel as if the ground had been swept out from under her, making her feel she was plummeting into an abyss. Not only had he removed his support, but also his fervor to be around her.

      But no matter how vulnerable and lost she felt without him, she knew it would have been worse if he hadn’t ended it now. Any longer with him, any more dependence on him, and his ultimate departure might have killed her. At least this way, she had a chance of survival.

      Not that survival seemed like such a good thing now. For the few days since he’d left, she’d been going through the motions of living. Staying in both Alex’s home and her parents’, helping them with everyday chores, pretending things like food and homework and bath time and laundry mattered. Trying to ameliorate the unbearable. For herself and for them.

      And it wasn’t working. She only felt worse as every minute dragged by, Alex’s absence solidifying into a gaping crater in her heart, a closed fist in her right side and a missing vital ingredient in her every breath.

      Alex hadn’t just been her older brother, he’d been her best friend, mentor, partner and confidant. Every single thing in her life was inextricably entwined with him. He’d been more to her than he’d been to their parents, to his wife and children. All of them had parts of them, interests and activities, that hadn’t included him. She hadn’t. He’d even been her squash and gym partner. And she didn’t know how to plug the holes now that he’d been ripped from her. The feeling of being torn in half constantly gushed in, leaving her sinking.

      But it was only in the last couple of days that others began noticing her condition. Though their anguish kept deepening, Cathy and her parents were slowly recovering their ability to think, at least enough to see beyond their own turmoil.

      Though they didn’t know the depth of her injuries—and never would—they now thought she was the one who had the most healing to do, and they said they would see to it. Just now they’d insisted she go home and rest. Making them promise to call her if anyone needed anything, she’d finally succumbed.

      On her way home, she pulled into a shopping mall parking lot. She had no idea how long she sat staring ahead, trying to empty her mind, to not focus on Alex or her endless memories with him since the day she’d been born.

      But not thinking about Alex only let her mind think of the other man who dominated her every waking and sleeping moment. Ivan.

      It was like watching a movie of her life’s transformative moments. For he’d been there in each and every one of them. Their cause or their conclusion.

      Every moment replayed in her mind and impacted her senses. When he’d first walked up to her, looking like a supreme being right out of a fantasy. When he’d pulled her into that first kiss, an overwhelming seduction. When he’d loomed above her, invading her body with pleasure, branding her as his, a storm of passion in human form. When he’d snatched her from death’s cold pull, like a lethal archangel. When he’d given her the only reason powerful enough to cling to life, imbuing her with his endless strength, like a guardian angel.

      The images played in a loop, but always snagged on a specific one. His face filling with colliding emotions as he’d said goodbye. Watching it over and over as she sat there, she took it apart, looked at it from every angle, until she finally realized something.

      How hard it had been for him to say it.

      Jerking out of her stupor, she fumbled out her phone, her heart starting to thunder as she searched out the direct number he’d saved on it. She hit Dial as she restarted the car. He answered after only one ring.

      “Anastasia?”

      To everyone she was Ana. Only he called her by her full name. Every time he said it, he filled the simple utterance with so much, it filled volumes in her being. She’d once thought she’d heard how much he wanted her, and everything else he’d felt in the way he said it. She’d since come to believe she’d been only hearing what she’d wanted to hear.

      But there was no mistaking how he’d said her name now. It was the very sound of agitation and solicitude combined. He was worried she needed something, and that it was big enough only he could deal with it, important enough to make her call him.

      Before she could reassure him, his urgency silenced her. “I just hit Dial and the phone rang instead.”

      Did she get that right? “You were calling me?”

      “I went to Alex’s house and your mother told me you went home, but I arrived here and didn’t find you. I was calling you when your call connected first. What happened? Where are you?”

      He’d been looking for her? Was at her home now? Why?

      “Anastasia.”

      His bark was pure anxiety now, clearly imagining another disaster had befallen her.

      She rushed to allay his concern. “Nothing happened. I—I just stopped somewhere on the way.” He didn’t need to know that she had only sit there staring at a memory reel starring him. But she needed to know one thing. “Why were you looking for me?”

      There was a long beat of silence on the other end, before his deep voice poured into her brain again, and his words snuffed out any light that remained in her world.

      “I wanted to see you again before I went back to Russia.”

      * * *

      Anastasia didn’t even remember the drive back home.

      Her brain registered nothing until she saw him sitting in his car outside her family home, like a predator lying in wait. He got out as soon as she neared, looking like a god descended to earth with the setting sun behind him. Even from a distance she felt the tension radiating from him. It swamped her as she drove past him into the garage, as he opened her door and helped her out.

      Her throat tightening, her heart hammering, she invited him into the house. Every nerve fired with his nearness, with the intensity blasting from him.

      Needing air, she led him all the way out back to her favorite part of her mother’s garden—the gazebo. It was where she’d sat alone countless times with her laptop or a book, where her mind had always ended up dwelling on the man she’d loved and lost. She turned to him now.

      He towered over her, his eyes that hypnotic green she’d always drowned in, his expression singeing her blood with its heat. And she just couldn’t do it.

      She couldn’t let him say goodbye. Not yet.

      Not before she said what she’d called him to say.

      “Anastasia—”

      “I could have died, Ivan.” Her quavering words cut off what he’d begun to say. “But I didn’t. Because you saved me. Now I need one more thing from you.”

      He took a step closer, tight, barely leashed power in the move. Power she felt could move mountains, as he’d done for her and Alex. “Anything, Anastasia. Tell me what you need.”

      “I need you to show me that I didn’t just survive, Ivan. I need you to prove to me that I’m still alive.”

      His eyes flared with such a blaze of emotions, she almost needed to shield her eyes. “Anastasia...”

      This time he said her