An Aria in Venice: A Musical Interlude Novel (9 page)

I grin, unable to stop comparing him to
the way the people in the
Lord of the Rings
sound when they talk about
the quest of the One Ring, and that’s exactly what this thing between Nikolai
and me is like ... a quest. Wait! I do believe conquest is the more appropriate
word.

Me: Thought I was forgiven.

N: I said all is FORGIVEN, not FORGOTTEN.

Me: What’s the difference?

N: PLENTY!!!!!

About five minutes pass, even though it
feels more like an hour. I figure I’ll give him time to calm down and stop
yelling at me in caps.

N: What can I do to help you sleep?

Oh God no. He just had to go and ask. Do
I dare tell him what’s really on my mind? What can it hurt? Everything, you
silly, desperate girl. Alek will be ticked. So would Mother. On top of all
that, I now have the memory of Luca’s kiss still tickling my lips and the
promise he indirectly made to me. Nikolai’s right, he’s slick. I know this
because each time we’re together he seems to find a way to slide up under my
skin. However, I can’t help what I feel for Nikolai. We’ve been through so much
over the years. He was always the one who snuck into my room and held me until
I fell asleep, the ghosts of what happened the night he saved me drifting
between us, a bond to calm both our minds as we move through a world filled
with doubt, guilt, and remorse ... always remorse hanging out in this picture.
These thoughts fuel my fingers, giving them a life of their own.

Me: I want to know what you’re wearing.

A two minute pause. Anxiety
builds inside me.

N: Stop this now. Before it goes too far.

Me: Why???

N: I will not bring you down with me.

Me: What does that mean?

I can almost feel his pain,
even though we’re only texting. I would do anything, give him everything, just
to see all of that taken away. Why doesn’t he know that? Why is he rejecting
me?

N:  There will never be
anything between us.

N:  Go to Venice with him.
Be happy.

Adriana

Sometime during the day, I wake up and
feel less cold than I did before I cried myself to sleep. I focus on the body
lying next to mine. Jojo. She must’ve come in and found me lying here, and
wrapped her arms around me.

Without disturbing her, I take a moment
to study her delicate features: small forehead, tiny nose, thin wrists that
remind me of a little baby, a dainty ballerina with a sting in her wit that’ll
leave you feeling as though you stepped into a yellow jacket’s nest. Jojo is
the poster girl for complicated, deep, and super talented. She can out dance
any of the girls at Aterballetto. We met only three years ago, but we soon
became fast friends what with both of us having families that are so
dysfunctional even Oprah might decide to run away from us.

Her eyes flutter open and she stretches
them wide, focusing her hazel irises on me. She’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans,
meaning that after she snuck in this morning she must’ve collapsed on the bed
beside me.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” she says
with a hint of a smile. Our faces are only a short distance apart. I guess it
should feel a little strange, but it doesn’t; and she’s holding on to my left
hand now. No wait, she has a death grip on my fingers.

“Morning, Jojo,” I croak out through a
throat clogged with leftover tears.

“So tell me,” she begins, “whose face do
I need to bash?”

I manage a smile as I imagine this dainty
little blonde hopping onto someone’s back and doing her thing. At the same
time, I know she could easily do something like that, because sometimes
physical strength doesn’t come from the body, but rather a state of mind. As
in, being mad enough to beat the crap out of a guy who keeps dismissing you.

“It’s nothing. Kind of silly, I guess.”

She raises her right eyebrow. “So me finding
one of the happiest, most super perky people I’ve ever met all balled up and
crying in her bed is nothing?”

“That’s right,” I answer, hiding my eyes.

“Uh huh. What did Happy Legs do?” she
asks, smirking. This is her nickname for Nikolai. She calls him that to be
sarcastic because she swears he’s got to be the moodiest man on Earth, but when
he dances it’s so easy to see where all his happiness lies ... inside the
dance, of course. It’s the same with me; yet another passion that binds me to a
man who’s about as hard to rein in and tame as a wild horse.

“What makes you think it was him?”

“Are you kidding me? Look at the way you
turn all blushy red when I say his nickname. Plus, I kinda caught him doing his
stalker thing,” she explains. I perk up at once.

“What do you mean?”

“He was sitting in his car when I pulled
up, just kind of staring up at the window. Don’t believe whatever bullshit he
told you. The man has it bad.”

A rush of heat and anger mixed together
flows through my body. I cannot believe he actually had the nerve to drive all
the way over here after sending dismissing me the way he did last night. A
walking contradiction, that’s exactly what Nikolai Belikov seems to be these
days. “Well, he made it clear he doesn’t want me.” My stupid voice cracks on
the last few words. Why should I be upset this way? It’s not like we’re a
couple. Girls have crushes on guys all the time. “Like everyone else, he’s too
busy loving me to really see me.” I start getting teary-eyed again.

Jojo brushes the hair that lies across my
neck away and moves it behind my head. “Okay, that’s it. No more of this.” She
wipes away my tears and smiles. “Plus, you’ve got a bet to win. Lis has already
piled up enough dirty tutus to last for a year.”

“Ew. I’m so going to make sure I win.” I
give a whispery laugh and her grip on my hand tightens. Suddenly, she slides
her face closer to mine and kisses me on the lips ever so lightly. I don’t pull
away. I guess it should feel wrong or weird at least, but it doesn’t. It just
feels strangely different. I’ve been without a mother’s touch for most of my
life. Sure, Katerina provides everything a daughter could ever dream of without
even so much as thinking about a price tag, but it has always been known to
both me and my half-brother, Dmitri, that Alek is her favorite child. I’m more
of an afterthought to her, someone to think about loving when my brother isn’t
around. Lis and Jojo are the first true female friends I’ve ever had.

Jojo pulls back, staring into my eyes.
The intensity of the moment turns into smiles and grins; finally, we both burst
out laughing. “If only I could turn into a guy for just a wee little moment in
time.” She holds up her thumb and index fingers to emphasize her point.

“I would never let you go,” I tease,
playing along.

Her grin fades and I see that sadness
return to her eyes, which usually turns her into the ice bitch I first met, a
girl who I later realized was just reaching out for someone to understand her.
“You have such a beautiful soul, Adriana. Go on this trip. Forget all this
drama. Lose yourself for a change. Be free of this … this Dostovsky haters
crazy shit. I know you won’t regret it. Promise to try and have some fun?”

“Okay. Promise.” I’m too tired to say
anything else.

Nikolai

If I were to die tomorrow morning, then I
hope my death comes during a massage. There is nothing that compares to the
warmth and pressure of skilled hands pressing into every crevice of my body,
molding me into submission, except for maybe Adriana’s warm hands touching
every part of my body.

When Katerina first sent me to this
parlor inside the heart of downtown Milan, I was skeptical. She knows how I
feel about strangers touching my body, how doing so reminds me of the things
that happened to me while I was being held inside the clutches of a madman, the
person who I blame for screwing with my head.

Voron voronu
glaz ne vyklyuyet.
The raven won’t peck out the eye of another raven.

My old house master used
to drill this phrase into our heads every single night until I fully embraced
the meaning of what he was trying to say. That was the night I used his trust
of me to turn my situation into a way to escape. And I swore no one would ever
hold me a slave ever again. That included matters of both heart and body.

I was wrong. Turning my
head to stare at my comrade, Alek, the brother of the woman who has captured my
heart, I feel a strong sense of gratitude the way I always do when I recall the
way he stormed into the complex I was being held inside eight years ago and
threatened everyone. He was all of 120lbs at fifteen years old, but his
personality, the sheer determination in his posture and the gleam in his eye,
made him seem like a natural born killer. Right now, he has his eyes closed, a
peaceful expression on his face, as he gets treated to his massage.

“Oh … yes. I could lie here all day,” he
moans.

“Do not think this entitles you to leave
me to do your job as well as mine,” I snap without meaning to. Lately he has
developed a bad habit of running off with Katerina’s assistant designer, Erin
Angelo, leaving me to lead the practice sessions in his place. Being a dancer
at heart, I am no Maestro, but my love for music and loyalty to my friend
compel me to obey him each time he abandons me.

“Whoa, comrade. Are you sure this bad
mood you’re in is all about aching muscles?” he asks, lifting his head off the
table.

Hell no. If only you knew.
“Of course it is. What else could it
be?” I wipe all emotion off my face.

Alek narrows his shrewd blue-brown eyes.
The lucky bastard has all the best characteristics of both his mother’s goddess
like body and his father’s charisma and intelligence. I close my eyes and moan
when my masseuse, Meiko, presses into one particularly knotted section of my
upper back muscles, giving me the chance to close my eyes before I give away
too much to my eagle-eyed friend. Alek’s silence tells me I have only managed
to divert his attention without fooling him at all. He will ask me about the
source of my irritation later on, I am sure. I open my eyes and submit to
Meiko’s perusal of my inner thighs, my calves, my ankles.

“One of us should’ve been born a female,”
Alek says, a peaceful expression on his face, the one that reminds me so much
of Adriana. I open my eyes wide this time, even though it is almost painful to
look at him. Although Alek and Adriana are two years apart in age, they could
easily pass for twins. “We understand each other without a need for words.”

“Yes, right. I am most certain I would
have been the female,” I confirm, feeling grateful for this strange change in
our conversation, if not somewhat disturbed by the subject. Alek has been
acting this way, somewhat delusional, ever since he started spending more time
at Black Butterfly. My comrade romanticizes everything these days.

He lifts his head and narrows his eyes.
“Why can’t I be the girl?” he asks.

“Because you would never last a day
without being able to find a soft, warm body to er … hold on to. A woman has
patience we men can never understand.”

“Hm. You make a good point,” he agrees.
“Fine. You get to be the female.” We both share a laugh because we know Alek’s
sexual appetite is legendary among the circles we swing through each night, the
parties I hold at my house. The things I do to take my mind off his sister. It
is official; I am the worst friend on the Earth.

The woman massaging Alek’s shoulders
motions for him to settle back down, pressing her fingers into the muscles at
the bottom of his ass cheeks as she does so. He obeys right away, caught inside
the lull of a woman’s soft voice, our conversation forgotten for the moment. It
does not hurt that his therapist is incredibly gorgeous, either, as is my own.

Meiko is as beautiful as her name. She
has made it clear on many occasions that she is here to serve me in many more
ways other than massage therapy. Unfortunately, this woman is not the one … she
is not my Rishka.

“And now you understand why I must
volunteer for the role of female,” I mutter, grinning at my friend, his
features relaxed as he falls under the spell of two of the best therapists in
Italy.

“You say something?” he asks, his eyes
still closed.

“Never mind. Enjoy your massage, my
friend,” I answer.

The only time Sasha—Alek’s nickname he
earned back in Moscow—brings up such offhanded comments is when he has
something on his mind. I suspect this mystery has a lot to do with the
long-legged brunette who will be taking over the process of designing our
shop’s outfits. He has been chasing after the female counterpart of our new
design team, the house owned by the man I found kissing my Rishka inside a
swimming pool. The same guy I will more than likely wind up murdering because I
know his type, and I am willing to bet he will not be able to contain himself
around her during this trip to Venice.

I cannot believe I sent her away, crying
into the arms of another man. I am a shit for a friend, a heartbreaker. In the
end, I know without a doubt I will regret what happened between Rishka and me
last night. Or maybe I should say I will regret what did not happen between us.
Damn life
. Fuck trying to be good. In Moscow, I would not have thought
twice about the ramifications of hurting someone; but now, that kind of
decision haunts me, driving me back toward the very things I swore I would
never allow to enter my life again.