Contract Marriage: Married to My Ex-Husband's Alpha Stepfather [BL]

[KATYA]

This couldn’t be his new normal.

Katya just couldn’t take it anymore.

So, when the flowers came that evening, Katya didn’t pick up the call. Didn’t answer any calls at all. Not even from his friends and parents.

The office that was meant to be his escape had turned into another zone he wanted to escape. Yet to an extent, it was easier to be at the office than at home.

Maybe because now, he knew where Sergei lived.

Even if it was with Irina.

Of course, that day, Katya stayed working late too.

This time, though, he didn’t turn on the light in his office. And he locked it so that anyone would think no one was in. He didn’t understand what he was doing, but it felt better like that.

Because the thought of running into Sergei again was more haunting than the fact that now Katya’s backpack had only three things instead of one.

The empty water bottle he had carried for six whole months.

The sweater he had been given on Friday evening.

The same sweater he was currently wearing, even as he cuddled on the couch.

The scarf around his neck, even when the weather wasn’t as bad, and Katya could easily turn on the heater in his office. It was among the best in the market.

The workers had made certain of that.

Though after the Friday encounter and Katya coming to work on Monday to a whole new office heater, it wasn’t that hard to imagine who could have gone through the trouble.

And Katya hated himself for it.

The flowers Aleksandr had set were in the bin. He had thrown them himself even before the delivery guy could reach the elevator.

The note that the flowers had come with was just another with the little rose tile. And Katya couldn’t even bring himself to think of anything.

Well, he really didn’t, no?

After all, thinking of Sergei’s rainforest scent on the sweater he had intentionally refused to clean up was normal, yeah?

Because the fact that he had left his window slightly ajar while listening for any sounds that could come from the side of the elevators was okay too. Right?

Oh, Katya.

Katya didn’t sleep the whole night.

Until the clock struck four o’clock, when he decided to scroll on his phone to wait for the volunteers he would be going with to the trip.

And he found himself scrolling down Irina’s Instagram feed.

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but seeing Sergei there on a post that was made at lunch hour today was not what Katya had been hoping for.

The way Sergei looked at her was like she was the peace he had been seeking for ages.

How most of the videos with Sergei somehow ended up with Sergei looking at Irina with eyes that Katya could swear he had seen at the hospital that one time.

But it was a reach, no?

If so, then why did Katya fall asleep with tears on his face?

"El Nueva Trip in 30 minutes," Katya’s phone kept ringing, and Katya slammed it hard on the table. But that shit didn’t stop ringing.

And Katya checked the time.

4:30 am.

He had only slept for thirty minutes.

Thirty freaking minutes.

"Is it too late to cancel?" Katya sighed to no one in particular as he turned off the alarm.

After all, he needed just five more minutes of sleep, right?

Well...

The omega woke up three hours later.

Eight o’clock.

"Oh, gods," Katya sat up fast as he stared at his phone.

He had set alarms earlier for every thirty minutes.

So how the fuck had he slept for three whole hours?

Katya rushed to the washroom and cleaned up fast.

It was only when he had settled and got himself ready to type an email apologizing for being late and not honoring his appointment that he noticed a few things he could swear were not there when he had gone to sleep at four o’clock.

For starters, there was coffee from his favorite cafe, still steaming. Not the cafe he used to go to sleep, think of Yaroslav, no. The cafe he had been going back to since the first time he had come back to Frolo after his studies abroad.

There was a fresh bunch of white lilies on his desk. Lilies that were too similar to the lilies from months ago. This time, too, they were cardless.

There were cookies, too, from the cafe across the street. He loved their cookies too much, and he’d only ever yapped about them to his friends about it all.

So, the first instinct was to think of his friends.

But even that wouldn’t pass, because Svetlana Vasikieva was never a morning person, and Andre, as much as he loved Katya, he would never wake up early to bring Katya his favorite cookies at Moskowsky Holdings of all the places.

The window he had left ajar before going to sleep was pushed inward just enough to make sure the window was closed even without the window fastener.

Yeah, Katya felt like he was going insane.

"Rahim!!" Katya called out as he tried to think of an apology for the trip.

The volunteers probably already left, and he was disappointed.

Maybe Katya would say that he had a lot of work.

"Yes, Chairman Katya," Rahim said, walking into the omega’s office without Katya opening it for her.

Worse, without turning the lock.

What the fuck had happened in the time Katya had been asleep?

"Did... Uhm... Did something happen at the company?" Katya asked, even though he knew his question was vague. He couldn’t even justify what was going on in his head; he was trying so hard to be normal.

But what the fuck was normal about any of this?

"No, sir."

"The coffee, cookies, and flowers... Who brought them?" Katya asked instead, trying to sound normal, and honestly, none of it was.

This was his hell again, and fuck if he wasn’t even sure what the fuck he was into.

Did he sleepwalk?

Then again, Katya had never once been a sleepwalker.

"There are no logs for visitors to the executive floor, sir. And I didn’t see anyone get in here," Rahim said calmly, like she was starting to see the confusion on her boss’s face.

"What time did you come to work?"

"Six-thirteen, sir," Rahim said, and Katya stared at the coffee that was still hot.

"The coffee is still hot. If you didn’t bring it, how come it’s—" Katya sighed at how delusional he sounded at the moment.

Gods, he was screwed.

"Oh, that’s the standard Moskowsky company coffee temp controller," Rahim said when she recognized the coffee cup and what it was sitting on.

"The WHAT now?"

"That’s Mr. Moskowsky’s temp controller, though," Rahim mumbled in confusion.

"WHO??" Katya screeched.

"Maybe it’s a mistake, but I’ve only seen this exact one in his office months ago," Rahim added, and Katya could swear he had gone bonkers.

So, he decided to change the subject.

Maybe he could get a normal day for once, right?

"The El Nueva volunteers..." Katya trailed off, knowing damn well he had let people down.

"Oh, they will leave at ten o’clock. Mr. Moskowsky gave us one of his private jets. Said the roads would be too rough and the weather is already cold, so it would be easier to use one of his," Rahim said casually, and Katya felt like he was drowning.

He wasn’t sure what he was drowning in, though.

"Uh... That will be all. Thank you," was all Katya managed.

He was spiraling ad he didn’t want anyone witnessing how hard he was spiraling. He couldn’t. not when his mind could only come up with one person to explain this mess.

There was only one person that insane and who would be bothered enough to mess shit up like that.

"Also... the El Nueva preparation kit was already delivered to your office," Rahim added before leaving.

And when Rahim stepped out, Katya stared at everything in confusion.

Was this Sergei’s doing?

If it wasn’t him, then it meant that someone else was watching him that closely.

But if it was him, then the last six months hadn’t been about freedom or distance. It would all just be a controlled environment for Katya.

That was too dangerous, because that man was unavailable. Had been unavailable.

Didn’t care about him.

Had someone already.

Didn’t even show up for the meeting yesterday.

Katya should not have thought further than that.

But deep down, the answer was as clear as day.

And if he was right, what would the past six months of freedom have meant then?