The Carrero Contract - Finding Freedom (Book 3 of Contract Trilogy)

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Somehow, we managed to pack, navigate to the airport and fly to JFK as a group with very little meaningful chatter. Mostly small talk and nursing hangovers from our heavy night previously; a sombre mood, and the strained atmosphere is so thick it's almost opaque around us. Gino seems very aware of my turmoil about being Mrs, and after a brief joke about a shotgun wedding, Alessandra elbowing him hard in the ribs, no one brought it up again.

Alexi didn't react, just kept his eyes on his phone, which he used so he didn't have to talk to me after we left our room. He seemed completely disengaged, from all of us, abnormally sombre and quiet and disinterested in anything. He even bailed on dinner with our companions and left the three of us to eat while he was in the room, working apparently.

Consumed with a text conversation with God knows who, he left me to sort myself out, follow him at a distance and try not weep at the fact he was blanking me. It was a quiet, less animated group of friends returning from an exhaustive two days with a lot to think about.

I feel lost. Wretched, prickly, emotional and just all out of whack. Trying to keep my 'give no shits' facade and pretend like he isn't literally messing with my head on multiple levels with this whole icing me out, cold shoulder bullshit.

Alexi is closed off and simmering. He doesn't touch me once in transport from Vegas back to New York. Keeps a distance between us, only speaks to me briefly when directing or giving a yes/ no answer, and although not making it so obvious, I can tell he is trying to avoid me when he can. Always a few feet between us no matter where we are, and he rode up front with the driver on the way to the airport. He has never, in all the time I have escorted him, sat up front, for any reason at all.

Clipped, polite and commanding. All affection and love have been pulled back into that little emotionless bubble around him for the time being and I left him to it. In his icy orbit with prickly terrain. Knowing when to poke the bear, and honestly, I don't have the emotional energy right now. I am all out of sharp sticks.

I'm bruised inside from how cold he seems, a little mad at him for doing it this way but understanding that this is Alexi hurt. Experience has taught me in the past that he lashes out at me when I hurt him and this is, I guess, a less volatile reaction. He doesn't want to punish me for damaging his heart so he's keeping us apart and limiting interaction. I don't have to fucking like it and nausea swirling in the pit of my stomach is definitely linked to my emotional anxiety, rather than the residual hangover. He has me all kinds of tense and stiff.

Another pointer that he really is trying to show me I can trust him in every way, by not flipping out at me and doing something heinous to wound me back. We will never go back to the way we used to punish each other before.

It's depressing though, clawing at me internally so I get fidgety and restless and glance at him obsessively. Craving his attention. Wanting him to just stop and love me again. Be my Lexi. Just look at me, even for a second.

I end up sleeping most of the flight just to avoid bursting into tears at the huge loss I feel at his manner. Breaking inside with how easily Alexi can fuck me up and how dependent on him I have become. This one change in his demeanour towards me and my whole security and happiness is on a shaky ledge over a crumbling precipice into a hellish abyss. It's sad that I'm that easy to dent, but it is what it is.

I love him so much that it kills me to be denied his softer side, even for mere minutes. I need it to feel sane. Without it I rip myself to pieces with over thinking, insecurities and lack of faith that he loves me. I'm pathetic and weak and needy. Doubting all of this.

Easy to screw mentally, when your name is Alexi. Not that I don't deserve it, but still. My chest aches with the effort to breathe and my heart feels like he has rammed about ten knives in there between my ribs.