Eternally Seduced (74 page)

          “I’m here, baby.”

          She shook her head. “Staffan – our baby’s dead.”

          Pain clawed him inside and out at the words. Even though he knew that, had already known for days, it fucking hurt to hear Saffi say it, knowing it was his goddamn fault their baby was gone. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

          She turned her head away. “It’s my fault,” she whispered. “My fault.”

          “No, baby, it’s not---”

          She was restless, fidgeting. Staffan stilled, panic blazing inside him as he tried to figure out what was wrong. And then Saffi turned back to face him, and he realized that she had been using all her strength to remove his ring.

          He shook his head wildly. “Saffi, no, no---”

          “No more lies,” she whispered and pressed her ring into his palm.

          The darkness was coming back, and there was no pushing it away. “Saffi, please.” He started to weep. “Don’t fucking do this. Let me fix things. Let me love you---”

          “No more lies.” She pulled her hand away, her voice lifeless. “I don’t want to see you again.”

****

          The funeral mass was held a week later, with only a select number of people invited. Silver went up the podium, speaking on behalf of the March family. His voice shook as he thanked everyone who came, his message perfunctory. And at the end, he ignored every warning that his family had given him and looked at his brother-in-law. They had told him that Saffi would not be able to bear the stress of hearing Staffan speak, but he didn’t give a damn. It went against his very nature to be unfair, and his whole family was being fucking unfair to make it seem as if his sister was the only one who hurt. Staffan had lost a child, too, and whatever their differences may be, it did not stop Silver from seeing that Staffan felt the loss just as deeply as Saffi did.

          Saffi stiffened as she saw who was taking the microphone from her brother. Staffan looked…he looked like he always did. Beautiful, unbearably so. But there was a haunted look in his eyes that made her want to close
her
eyes and wish the entire world away.

          She didn’t want to see him hurt. She couldn’t bear to see him hurt. She just wanted to be alone in her pain because it was all her fault. Everything that happened was because she had lied. She had been selfish and her daughter paid the price for it.

          When Staffan cleared her throat, Saffi prepared herself for the worst.

          “My baby girl’s name is Lace. That was the only thing Saffi and I agreed on. If it had been a boy, he would have had a horrible name. Saffi threatened to call him
Vidunder.
”

          From the aisle, Constantijin’s face clenched in reaction, feeling his friend’s pain. Rathe inhaled sharply.

          “It means ‘monster’ in Swedish.” There were smiles at his quip, but mostly there were tears.

          Staffan continued hoarsely, “So I retaliated, and I told her if that’s the way things were going to be, I was going to follow the March tradition.”

          Pearl choked back a sob and her husband drew her into his arms.

          “I told her that my son could also be named something like
allabogdanite
or
sinkankasite
.” More tears and laughter followed his words.

         
Staffan struggled to breathe. “It was basically a draw when it came to our boy’s name, but if it had been a girl –
Lace…
” He stopped, willing himself not to break down. “It would have been perfect. And if both of us had the fortune to spend a little more time with our baby girl, she would have been perfect.” His gaze sought Saffi’s. “Because Saffi would have made a perfect mom, and Lace would have taken after her---”

          The words were too much. The pain was too much. There was no way to prepare herself for Staffan’s words and Saffi ran, needing to get far away from Staffan as possible. She stumbled at the first step and then she was falling, sobbing as she fell on her hands and knees.

          When she looked up, Staffan was there.

          “Saffi…”

          She shook her head at him. All Saffi could here was her baby’s silent screams. Her little girl – her little Lace – was crying all alone and it was all her goddamn fault. “My fault,” she managed to gasp and the tears started falling. “It was my fault she died.”

          Staffan hauled her to his arms. “No, baby, it’s not. It’s not your fault---”

          She was stiff and unyielding in his arms even as she cried. She could not allow herself to draw comfort from his touch. “You don’t understand,” Saffi whispered. “I was so selfish. That one weekend when I risked everything – my father’s campaign, my betrothal to Jeremy…with my lies, I even risked hurting
you
and then
her
.”

          The defeat in her voice terrified Staffan. “Look at me, baby. It’s not your fault. It could never be your fault. If it’s anyone’s fault, then it’s mine because I didn’t take care of you.”

          But she still did not answer, and it felt like he was losing her all over again.

          “Saffi, please…forgive me. Please say you’ll forgive me.”

          He looked up at the tender touch of her hand against his cheek, but the look on her face made him swallow in fear. “I do forgive you, Staffan.”

          But somehow, the words didn’t comfort him.

          “But it’s my punishment to be alone, for being selfish…for being stupid…for being…” She choked the word out, “…
crazy
.”

          He flinched. “Saffi, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t fucking mean any of those.” His voice became desperate and urgent. “I just wanted---”

          “You don’t have to explain.” She pushed him away, and she felt so fucking fragile he had to let her go, feeling like if he kept holding her, Saffi would break.

          She came to her feet like she was broken inside and her limbs weren’t working like they should be.

          He remained on his knees. “Saffi, I love you. Please. I love you.”        

          “I need a divorce. I don’t just want it, Staffan.” And then she was begging him too, and with that tone Staffan knew he would give her anything she asked for, even if it meant killing a part of him. “I need that divorce.”

Good morning. Just had a tuna sandwich for breakfast – too much work to do. Don’t ask why. I can’t tell.

Twitter: Official_Staffan_Aehrenthal

          “He’s
blackmailing me
?” Saffi choked out a month later. Constantijin’s politely worded request to meet with her had initially made her wary. Her lawyers had been doing their best to get Staffan to sign the divorce papers to no avail. She had feared that Constantijin would plead his case, but instead what he was asking her to do – what he was telling her Staffan wanted Saffi to do – left her completely bemused.

          Constantijin’s face remained expressionless although his eyes were sympathetic. “No, Saffi. All he wants is for you to agree to his terms. And if you do, then at the end of the time period, you will have your divorce.”

          “What does he want? That we stay married?”

          He shook his head.

          She wasn’t even hurt. These days, she would be lucky if she felt a thing. “Then what?”

          “He wants you to temporarily take over as the P.A. to Celsius.”

          She could only look at Constantijin dumbly.

          Seeing her dumbfounded gaze, he repeated his words patiently. It hurt to see his friend’s wife look so frail and thin. He had no idea if Staffan’s plan would work, but for both their sakes he hoped it would. Saffi was close to needing an intervention by the looks of it, and Staffan didn’t look any much better.

          After Saffi had left, Staffan walked into the conference room. He had watched the entire meeting through the CCTV system installed in Constantijin’s private office, and his heart bled for every second that he stared at Saffi and saw how lifeless she still looked.

          She wasn’t moving on, and he fucking doubted that giving her a divorce would make her start living again. If he truly believed divorcing him would have made Saffi feel better, he would have been the first one to forge her signature on the papers just to be done with it.

          But a divorce wasn’t the answer. Maybe he wasn’t either, but that didn’t fucking matter.

          Constantijin handed him the contract. “I hope this will make you feel better now.”

          Staffan answered harshly, “I will feel better when she’s better.”

****

          “NO MORE FANGIRLS! THE ROOM’S PACKED!” Saffi was shouting two months later.

          The crestfallen expressions on the faces of the girls lined up outside the trailer van made Saffi guilty.

          “Please, we waited so long…”

          “We just want one chance to be close to them…”

          Oh my God, these girls were crafty! Saffi knew from Twitter’s fangirl grapevine that word had already gotten out about how much of a softie she was. Pulling her head back, she peeked at the Celsius guys, who were grinning at her.

          She counted the girls with them. One, two, three…seven in all. If one guy could please three girls at the same time…she calculated it mentally then poked her head back out. “Okay, fine, five more and that’s it!” Saffi hurriedly went back in before the others could guilt-trip her into agreeing to more compromises.

          The Celsius boys were laughing at her. After spending just a week with them, Saffi had stopped being tongue-tied in their presence. Now, she looked at them as her boys, the way mother hens looked at its chicks.

          “What’s with five,” Calvin, the youngest of the group, asked curiously.

          She fidgeted.

          Wynd, the leader of the group, looked at her with interest. “Okay, ‘fess up – how did you arrive at that number?”

          “Well…” Seeing in their faces that they wouldn’t let go until she answered them truthfully, Saffi sighed, mumbling, “I just thought that if a guy could please three girls at the same time, and then I multiplied that by 4, so that makes 12. We already have seven---” She stopped explaining as the entire van rocked with the boy band’s laughter. Even the fangirls were giggling.

          “It’s not that funny,” Saffi protested. “I really was giving you the benefit of the doubt!”

          Aaron, the biggest flirt of the four, sauntered towards her. “You don’t understand, Saffi, my love.” He had the cutest accent as well, like a mixture of British, American, and Korean, that even now Saffi couldn’t help but swallow hard at the sound of it. “We’re just impressed at,
ahh
, how logical you dealt with the problem.”

          “But I have to ask,” the serious-minded Leo drawled. “Why did you think that one guy can only please three?”

          She blinked. “How can a guy please more? One girl in each hand, and then one girl---” She stopped, seeing that the boys were doing their best to suppress their laughter. Ah, dammit, they had successfully baited her into answering one of their silly questions again!

          “Ha-ha, very funny!”

          The door opened and her assistant P.A. came in, carrying a case of beer for the crew. He was red-haired, freckled, and chubby with the sweetest and quietest disposition, unable to look at Saffi directly whenever she had to talk to him and always keeping at least a foot of distance between them.

          “Hi, Bryan,” she greeted him cheerfully, hoping this would be the night that he would finally warm up to her.

          He mumbled a greeting.

          She had to smile sheepishly at Bryan’s typical response. “You kill me, Bry. You really do. Am I that bad?” Saffi teased him, but she was only half-serious. Sometimes, she couldn’t help but feel like she had this viral infection that kept Bryan away from her.

          The others laughed at her question, but she and Bryan ignored them. Of course he didn’t answer her either.

          Saffi waited for him to distribute the beer then started to help him stack the freezer with the rest of the bottles. At the first step she took to get closer to him, he accidentally dropped a bottle on her foot and she cried out in pain as the bottle broke into pieces, its shards biting into the tender skin of one sandal-clad foot.

          “Fuck! You okay, Saffi?” The entire band had surrounded her in an instant, but when she looked up, she was surprised to see that Bryan was the one closest to her and his chubby face was clenched hard with worry.

          “Are you okay?” he asked in his usual gruff voice.

          She nodded. “It just hurts a little.” She managed a smile even though her foot stung like hell.

          Bryan looked like he wanted to kill himself.

          Her heart went out to him. “It’s okay, really, Bryan.”

          “Sorry,” he mumbled. “My fault…let me help you.” And then he was swinging her into his arms, making Saffi gasp in shock. For a rather unwieldy guy, he felt exceptionally strong.

          “This is not...”

          But Bryan was already carrying her out of the trailer van.

          “…appropriate,” she ended lamely as he walked faster than she ever saw him walk.

****

          Staffan did his best to keep calm as he carried Saffi to his own trailer – the one he kept for show. He had another one parked far from the crew’s site, which he used to have his makeup and prosthetics done. He had made sure that Saffi had her own as well, never mind if it set tongues wagging. No fucking way would he have let
his
wife share a fucking trailer with anyone who had a dick.

          He gave his code gruffly and waited for Saffi to punch the numbers in so that the doors to his trailer would automatically open. He wondered if she realized that the numbers spelled her name.

          “I’m really okay---”

          She sounded extremely uneasy and he couldn’t blame her. This was the closest he had allowed himself to be with her, in his new disguise, and he already knew it was a fucking mistake. Inside the trailer, he swiftly lowered her to the sofa and moved away instantly, trying not to be obvious as he struggled to get himself – and his dick – under control. He willed his dick to die, but it was stubborn – as well as doing its best to get past the padding that his prosthetics team painstakingly applied to him every fucking day at four in the morning in his other trailer.

          Sometimes, Staffan had been so fucking tired working his ass off for those pretty boys that he slept in his disguise. He always regretted it in the morning, feeling like he was burning up inside all the fucking padding.

         
Two months,
Staffan thought as he got the first-aid kit out and started to assemble what he needed to clean and treat Saffi’s wound. For two fucking months he had been with Saffi, looking after her and only just fucking able to look at her while all the other men did their best to get into his wife’s pants.

          Only the members of the band and their manager had known who he was and those fucking idiots had done their best to provoke him, flirting outrageously with Saffi every time he was around.

          “I’ll clean your wound now,” he declared gruffly.

          She nodded.

          Usually, she would talk a mile a minute when they were alone, even if all he did was grunt and nod or shake his head. He didn’t talk to her so much because he didn’t want to risk Saffi learning the truth before she was ready. This time, she remained quiet as he strove to be as gentle as possible in applying the ointment and bandaging her injured foot. He cursed himself when he gazed at his handiwork. Every fucking time he wanted to make her feel good, he just ended up making Saffi feel bad.

          Was this a fucking omen?

          He looked up, and his heart broke.

          She had tears in her eyes as she choked out, “Did you really think…this close…I wouldn’t know it was you?”

          The tears started to fall and he couldn’t bear it. He tried to take her in his arms but she struggled, pushing him away. “Let me see you first…please. I need to see it’s really you.” Saffi watched Staffan remove his extremely elaborate disguise. Bit by bit, he returned to his original persona – Sweden’s #1 sex god, Mr. Fuckstatic – the rock star she had fallen in love with.

          “Staffan…”

          This time when he took her in his arms she let him, and she sobbed on his chest. She had missed him. Oh God, she had missed him even though she had nightmares every night about what it would be like to see him.

          Saffi had faithfully followed his movements online and though he had posted daily – almost as if he was updating her indirectly – there had been no pictures at all. It had made her uneasy, wondering if Staffan was holed up somewhere with women to heal his broken heart. But now she knew. Now she understood.

          “Who knows about you?” she whispered.

          “The boys and their manager.” He lifted her chin up so their gazes could meet, and his eyes searched her urgently as he asked unevenly, “Are you angry…about what I’ve done?”

          Should she be? She just couldn’t make herself angry even if the answer was supposed to be yes. He had been with her. Every day of the two months she had healed – he had been there, and he had helped her heal even though he had been pretending to be Bryan.

          “What made you do this?” she asked tremulously.