Beautiful Revenge (A Good Wife #1) - Sienna Blake Page 0,1

one. I hold it, caress it, before placing it aside on my bedcover:

a shredded piece of white lace for an innocence left behind,

a broken piece of vinyl for a love song that would never be mine, and finally…

a photo.

A photo of a man with stormy hair and summer’s-day eyes.

2

____________

Alena

Five years ago…

Nothing is as cold as a Russian winter. It’s the kind of cold that seeps into your bones, turning your marrow to ice. The kind of cold that stabs at your lungs every time you inhale. That slides under your nails like splinters, turning your fingers blue. I shiver and huddle further into the layers of mismatched blankets that we’ve scavenged from various places. It’s not even winter yet. It’s barely November.

God help us when winter really starts.

I feel him shift behind me on our tiny mattress, rusty springs protesting every movement. His arms wrap around me, pulling me back against his hard body. I melt into him. I can barely feel his body heat with the layers of clothes we both wear. When he holds me, the warmth comes from the inside.

I shift around until I am facing him, our breaths making a tiny tropical planet between us. It’s my favourite planet, his and mine. The moon is full. It shines straight through the thin, cracked window pane, giving everything in our cramped St Petersburg studio apartment a silvery glow. I gaze at him through my lashes, my breath catching in my lungs. He is the most beautiful man in the whole wide world. Not that I’ve ever left St Petersburg. Even if I did, I know that no one else could hold a candle to Dimitri Volkov.

He has midnight hair that’s long overdue for a haircut. It sits like a thunderstorm, dark and wild around his head, making him look like a kind of devil. He has high chiselled cheekbones, a strong jaw, thick lips sculpted in a cupid’s bow. Deep-set eyes that can flash with cobalt fire and brimstone or invite me to drown in them like a secret lagoon. Women look at him all the time when we walk together. His beauty is obvious. But he only ever looks at me. Only me.

He is mine, the only thing that’s ever been mine. And I am his.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he says in Russian, his voice deeper than other nineteen-year-old boys. It’s a man’s voice. It takes on this gravelly tone when he’s telling me off, the one that he has right now. The one I secretly get a thrill out of.

“Someone was snoring,” I tease, hoping to get a rise out of him.

He lets out a snort. “I was not.”

“Like a bear. Holding a chainsaw.”

He laughs. I love the sound, deep and rich, rumbling through my chest like approaching thunder, plucking at something inside of me. “You’re mixing your metaphors. But when you’re a famous writer, everyone will be using them.”

I withhold a sigh. “One day, I guess.”

He shakes me lightly, staring right into me. “You will. You can do anything, Alena.” His tone is firm, daring me to deny his words. He has more confidence in me than I have in myself.

Sometimes it’s hard to dream of being a writer. Because wanting it, chasing it, believing it, is like reaching for a star and trying to pluck it from the heavens. Impossible. Here on earth we have real problems, like staying warm and getting enough to eat. As if my stomach hears this thought, it lets out a low growl. I flinch, hoping he hasn’t noticed it.

Dimitri frowns at me, telling me he has. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” I lie. I wince when my traitorous belly lets out a louder, more insistent growl.

“Didn’t you eat the sandwiches I left for you before I went to work?” He works so hard, often pulling double shifts at the factory, but he still finds time to make me food for school.

“Yes,” I say, drawing out the word.

Dimitri’s mouth curls up, anger already flashing in his eyes. “Did you eat all of them?”

I chew my lip, guilt winding up an invisible staircase inside me. “There was a young boy, you see, not even ten. He was all alone on the street. Begging. He looked so hungry and cold and—”

“You gave a sandwich to him,” Dimitri says, finishing my sentence. It wasn’t even a question.

“I couldn’t help it. He seemed so much hungrier than I was…” I swallow back the excuses on my tongue as Dimitri’s eyes narrow. I avert my