III - Mine

"Did you call him?" asked Lev, as we sat on the chairs in front of the pool in swimsuits, disguising our troubles.

"His secretary told me he'd be here before 6, but I'm dying of nerves, I don't know what to tell him," I tensed my jaw, watching all the people around us; tourists enjoying their day at the hotel like nothing else.

"You will tell him what we agreed; that you don't remember anything that happened last night and that you want a divorce. You have to tell him the truth, so he will agree to do the paperwork and help you find the other two," she said, hidden in a hat that covered her embarrassment.

My stomach contracted as I saw him arrive in the distance, wearing a different suit from the morning, accompanied by the receptionist; he pointed to the place where I was and I became tiny under his icy gaze.

It was time to talk to him.

*****

"So what happened next?"

"I ran away. I wasn't able to look him in the eye, or get close, I panicked!"

"Amalia, for God's sake, it was your chance to fix things and he sure is angry now. What are you going to tell Draven when we have to go back? Your wedding is planned in two days."

"I'm going to die."

My friend shook her head in disagreement, before turning off the lamp light next to her bed. Unlike her, I couldn't sleep as if nothing had happened.

Because of my lack of determination, I ran away from the only chance I had to fix the biggest mess I had ever made in life.

The next day I woke up with a mask of terror, having not slept a wink all night from the torture I had to deal with. My heart was on its last legs from suffering so much from the sadness of having failed my fiancé and lying to him so blatantly, after everything that had happened, including Francesca's death.

After we had breakfast at the hotel buffet, where we were given the suite menu, - which we never paid for and which seemed strange to me - a different police officer arrived to escort us to the station where we would be questioned.

I was nervous because I didn't remember most things, let alone Francesca's whereabouts after being in that club. I didn't even know how she had gotten to the penthouse.

"Miss Lev, go this way," the detective opened a door, letting my best friend in first and then him. The brunette and I gave each other one last look before disappearing inside.

On the other hand, the policeman escorted me to a meeting office up ahead, where it was empty.

"Should I wait here or...?" he didn't let me finish, when he had already locked the door, leaving the words in my mouth, "Fine."

I noticed that the office had a spectacular view of the city through its large windows, but the door rang again and hopeful that it was someone friendlier than the officer, I turned around.

However, I was greeted almost head-on by the man I had run away from the day before and had no way to escape.

My heart locked up, as did the rest of my body.

"It's amazing that you made me pull influence to talk to you, after making me miss yesterday's trip to the hotel, which you requested, by the way," he spoke and my eyes widened little, as I realized how low and raspy his voice was up close.

For some reason I felt tiny before his icy stare.

"I hope you enjoyed the buffet; I changed your reservation," he stroked my cheek and I jerked away from him, startled.

"Get away from me," I pointed a finger, as I stood at least six feet away from him. He frowned at my behavior, "I don't know why you feel the confidence to touch me, but you can't do that."

"Don't you remember me? Don't you remember us?" he asked in the plural, approaching slowly and I tensed my jaw. I felt strange things in his presence, things I could not recognize, but they were not part of me.

"I don't know what level of insanity and alcoholism I was at, but I've never seen you before in my life," I sentenced annoyed, "Don't come any closer."

He tensed his jaw and the features of his face changed; as the color of his eyes darkened, I saw myself through them hanging from a rope, dead.

I froze and he was already in front of me.

"How dare those beautiful lips say they don't remember me?" he asked impatiently and because I was distracted in his eyes, I failed to notice the moment his arm went around my waist and forced me to sit on the desk.

His physiognomy enveloped me like a protective field and the weakness of my senses, let him touch my skin with his lips.

"Your body does remember me," he whispered in my ear.

Blurred memories, where I saw him consuming my body, uncovered gasps in reality that clashed with my determination and dignity.

However, when his fingers brushed across the bare skin of my back, the reflection of ashen hair and a pair of different colored eyes appeared in my memories like sharks devouring their prey.

No sooner had I regained my composure than my body was lying completely flat on the wood, with him about to shed the only garments that could separate me from a dangerous mistake.

I pushed him with all my strength and under his bewildered gaze, I stood in front of the table so that it could separate us.

"No, what were you thinking kissing me like that, I have...fiancé," I said annoyed, but then noticed the rings on my fingers, where Draven's was supposed to be.

How had everything changed in one night?

"You no longer have a fiancé, you have three husbands," I opened my eyes, as I felt him behind me and he wrapped his hand around mine, caressing the rings, "Yesterday you promised to stand by me until death do us part and you threw away the ring that betrothed you to a man you didn't want," he objected in a whisper and my heart crushed at his confession. No matter what the truth was, the ring was not in its place and stirred feelings I could not explain.

Draven had been my first love, the man I thought I would live with for the rest of my life and we would have many children, yet I didn't understand why a few simple words were making me question the habit I had for living with him, to love.

The gold ring wrapped around his ring finger brought me back to the world, giving me to understand that I had made a mistake by marrying strangers. Without stressing that it was an illegal marriage in the country.

My body remembered new caresses and sighs that made me feel different, as if I had been taken out of the ordinary life I had.

"No matter what you are thinking, no matter how much you refuse or how much you walk away, Amalia," he whispered in my ear and I had to close my eyes to contain the butterflies in my lower abdomen, "You can never escape us, we are in your blood now," he knocked twice on the wood and when I thought I could no longer handle having him, two men entered the office together, as if he had given them a signal.