The Lies Between Lovers (The Beast of Moscow Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  Stepping back from the threshold, she opened it a bit wider to grant him access to her villa and a view of the entryway filled with hanging pots of plants that didn’t need as much light as the rest of the ones in the house.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes, if you want to come in for a bit,” she told him.

  “Don’t put anything special on,” he replied. “I don’t have plans to leave.”

  Vera, already turning to head for the staircase at the far end of the entry hall, spun right back around. “I’m sorry?”

  “Not right away,” Vas clarified.

  Then, he winked.

  She hadn’t been expecting that.

  Or his cheeky grin.

  Vera damn near melted when his chuckles chased her further down the hall. She’d be a liar if she said that she didn’t like it, though.

  *

  “Did you just stop by to say hello, or—” Vera’s question halted when she stepped into the kitchen to find Vaslav with a mess spread out on the glass top table. He’d pulled out the two chairs on the side he used to work, pushing them against the far wall. “I thought you said it was good to wait until spring before I planted it?”

  Vaslav didn’t even shoot her a glance over his shoulder as he plunged his bare hands—the sleeves of his cashmere sweater had been shoved up to his elbows—into the terracotta pot that her small shrub called home. Other than keeping it in a sunny place, mainly her kitchen windows because they got the most light throughout the day, and watering it a couple of times a week—she didn’t bother it otherwise.

  The shrub hadn’t even flowered anything that year.

  On the table sat a larger pot—not one she recognized. About three gallons, which was substantially larger than the pot Vaslav had initially brought the shrub in.

  “It is good to plant it in the spring,” he replied as he pulled the root-bound shrub from its pot and moved it into the larger one. Coming to stand beside him at the table, she was surprised to find he already had dark, damp soil waiting in the larger pot. “Late spring, after it blooms in the pot. It gives the roots lots of time to take to the spot before the final frost for the year sets in, but it’ll do better if it’s already been in a bigger pot and had time to grow.”

  Once he had the plant positioned where he wanted it in the larger of the two pots, he leaned down to yank a five-gallon bucket full of dark soil out from under the table.

  “Did you bring the soil and pot?” she asked, smiling. “I have lots in the shed, you know.”

  “I don’t, actually,” he returned.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Know about your shed, or your home ...” He trailed off, glancing her way before he added quieter, “Or much about you, I suppose. Beyond a very surface level, yeah?”

  “Yet, you proposed to me on a plane after spending a handful of days with me in Paris.”

  “I wouldn’t call that a proposal. I already did that once with a woman.”

  Vera tried not to overthink that, and failed miserably. “Why offer it at all, then—if we’re not calling it a proposal?”

  She didn’t really expect an answer. This man was always surprising her, though.

  “What I do know, I like.”

  Vaslav offered that information without any emotional inflection and immediately went back to his current task. One handful at a time, he started to fill the pot around where he’d placed the shrub on top of what soil was already at the bottom.

  “Can I help?”

  He chuckled, nodding down at the pail. “Have at it—this place certainly looks like you’ve got a green thumb, hmm?”

  All one had to do was look around. Her villa wasn’t overly large, the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home did, however, house just about every plant she could manage to keep alive inside. There was even a small greenhouse in the back beside a shed she used for storage where she kept her vegetable seedlings in the late spring and early summer before moving them to the raised garden beds that her neighbor helped build. Sometimes, she managed to grow enough vegetables and herbs that she could store food to use well into the winter.

  “I like gardening,” she admitted, avoiding his gaze as she reached for her first handful of soil to add to the pot. “It gave me something to do.”

  “When?”

  “How do you do that?” Vera returned.

  Vaslav let her continue reaching for damp soil when he asked, “Do what?”

  “I wasn’t purposely trying to explain how I started gardening, and yet, you ask a question that will basically give you the answer, anyway.”

  “It wasn’t intentional.”

  Or was it?

  Vera had the feeling that this man was far sharper than he gave himself credit for. Or maybe that was exactly the point. He preferred when people assumed differently.

  “I started after my accident,” she explained. “I didn’t go outside a lot; barely left my house on the good days, and only for appointments. I just ... I was so sick of seeing people, hearing them apologize, or worse, pitying me. Everybody in my life came from my connection to ballet, and ... I don’t know.”

  Her lame mutter at the end had him tipping his head to the side a bit where he could watch her from the corner of his eye as she continued filling the pot with the soil he’d brought along.

  “What do you use to mix up a good dark soil like this? I try something new every year,” she added when he said nothing. “I haven’t found a favorite.”

  “A bit of seedling mix, standard gardening soil, and compost I make myself with house and garden scraps and the dry leaves that fall in autumn. Nothing special, but I don’t have to add anything between moving them to larger pots, and they’ll survive as is with only the rain water to feed them. Unless it’s quite hot, yes?”

  “Huh.”

  “It’s why I don’t plant them later than August. It gets too hot after that, and I’ve never found they do well when I put them in the ground that late.”

  She remembered the driveway lined on either side with beautiful adult lilac trees reaching toward the sky. She hadn’t noticed, or thought to ask then rather, but the bushes had become smaller the closer the drive came to the house on the hill. Like he was planting new ones each year. Along with a row of smaller cuttings that had been growing in terracotta pots along the front of the house.

  “How long have you been working with these—what’s the proper name again?” she asked.

  “Syringa vulgaris—Krasavitsa Moskvy.”

  Vera smiled. “Beauty of Moscow.”

  “I’ve been working with them for a few years,” Vaslav said, sighing as he wiped his hands together over the bucket to shed some loose dirt. “Every year, I’ve used root boxes to take cuttings from the two adult trees at the gate to plant over. I average a fifty-fifty success rate with it. Although, this is the last year for that, I think. I’ll have to start planting all the ones I managed to start in pots along the drive in the spring. I think I have enough now.”

  She bet the property in Dubna would look gorgeous in the spring when the lilacs were in bloom. Full, white blossoms with a fragrance one could smell clinging to the wind. Even though the majority would be juvenile trees, eventually they would tower and blossom beautifully, too.

  “Was it because you were ashamed?” he asked then, changing the subject altogether. “Why you stayed inside and closed off the world?”

  Vera stiffened, her hands finding the edge of the terracotta pot to steady the trembling in her fingers. “Embarrassed, ashamed ... I was a failure, and it wasn’t even my fault. Honestly, a lot of it was just in my head, but by the time I’d realized that, everything else—and everyone else—had moved on, in a way. I guess that’s when I learned that just because my world stops doesn’t mean everybody else’s does, too.”

  What a sad lesson that had been for her to learn while she was at her very weakest. It also solidified Vera’s belief that no matter what, she could survive by herself. She learned to like her own company because of
it, too.

  “Were you alone?”

  “Mostly. I had a few friends.”

  They thinned out over the years.

  Vera sighed, saying, “And my family lives stateside, so ...”

  “Alone, then,” he deadpanned.

  She didn’t bother to confirm what was obvious as Vaslav stepped away from the table and moved along the counter to the sink where he began washing the remnants of the soil from his hands. A part of her knew she should still be packing in soil around the outer edge of the pot, but Vera couldn’t seem to look away from the way the water and dirt sluiced over the same hands that had taken her to earth-shattering orgasms in seconds. He hadn’t even taken off his rings, uncaring that the gold bands—centered with rubies, diamonds, and one with an onyx stone—had gotten packed with dirt in the process. It was the first time she paid particular attention to each ring, and the fact that there was only one finger, besides his thumbs, that bore no ring.

  Not even a tattoo.

  His ring finger.

  How many times is he going to mention his wife before you ask, Vera?

  She ignored her inner voice. That bitch never had good things to say

  “It’ll only need a small bit of water,” Vaslav said, nodding toward the pot as he turned off the taps and reached for the drying cloth hanging off the stove. “I think the soil is damp enough so don’t soak it.”

  “Sure. I’ll just go get my little can in the other room. It has some water left in it from this morning, and it’s probably lukewarm.”

  Vas smiled, and for a second, she was blinded by the beautiful sight. Only a second—she didn’t think he realized how handsome his face was when he smiled even if it did pull and stretch his grisly scar more than usual—because he was fast to say, “Good. Cold water always shocks the roots.”

  “I know,” Vera replied, bending down to pull another two handfuls of soil to finish packing in what space remained inside the pot. “I only had to kill a couple of hundred Marigold seedlings my first year to figure it out.”

  She was wrong.

  His laughter was even better than his smile.

  7.

  “I thought you didn’t add anything extra to the soil?”

  Vaslav quickly folded the plastic bag up, and turned at the table to find Vera standing in the entryway of her kitchen. He’d spent less than an hour inside the young woman’s home, and he could tell a couple of things about her already because of it. She enjoyed cooking. Her kitchen was a homage to that fact from the cupboards piled high with different glass dishes and pots to the hanging rack over top of the island that was also filled with pans and too many covers to count.

  That, and plants.

  There were plants in every corner. Plants hanging from macrame holders with various beads and knots that were different from pot to pot. Even the table housed more plants in pots than it did space to sit and eat.

  She was also clean.

  Incredibly so, favoring white tiles in her kitchen with cream-toned grout that he didn’t think saw a speck of dirt which was amazing considering the number of plants around. There also wasn’t a pet to speak of in the place.

  As far as he’d noticed.

  Instead of answering her question, he tried to deflect.

  “I didn’t mention it earlier when you first came back downstairs, but I like the dress,” he said, nodding at the beige sweater dress she’d changed into with sleeves pushed up to her elbows. It hugged her every curve in a way that reminded him he had not yet gotten to properly explore this woman’s body in the way it deserved. A shame, that. The skirt fell just above her knees—the perfect height for a good pair of autumn boots. “Although, the towel gave me more to look at.”

  Vera didn’t even bite on his bait. Although, he did enjoy her blush at the crude compliment.

  “Mmhmm. What was that?” she asked him again, pointing at the pot on the table.

  “It’s nothing special,” he returned, shoving the plastic bag into his pants pocket. The same place he’d kept the bag when he first arrived, although then he had simply tied off at the top with a knot to keep the contents from spilling out. Vera didn’t look like she believed him, and the fact that she remained in the doorway with the teal colored, metal watering can hanging limply from her right hand said she wanted a better answer. “It’s just a bit of ashes I add to each of the pots.”

  That earned him a reaction.

  Her brow furrowed.

  “The lilac pots?”

  Vaslav cleared his throat and turned back to the table. Despite cursing himself internally for not getting the job of dumping the ashes into the pot faster, and assuming he had enough time before she returned, he said, “Da, the lilacs only.”

  “I don’t understand. Does it help them take to the soil or—”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  By then, she’d reached his spot at her kitchen table again. Vaslav could have lied—it would have been far easier than the truth, but he just wasn’t the type. Or maybe he no longer cared to keep a secret that had been his for far too long.

  “They’re my wife’s ashes,” he said when she placed the watering can on the table next to the large pot. He’d already placed the old one to the floor; she could keep it and put it in her shed with the rest of her planting pots, for all he cared.

  Vera hadn’t been ready for that admission if the way she froze after the can thunked down to table was any indication. “I’m sorry, what—who?”

  He almost smiled.

  At least, her confusion was cute.

  “My wife. Years ago,” he said as he reached for the bucket at his feet to add a couple of handfuls of soil over top of the very thin layer of ashes around the little lilac bush, “I brought her home a matching sapling—barely a year or two into growing—to go with the ones at the gate. We planted it higher up on the property, closer to the house but it didn’t last the winter.”

  He could feel Vera’s gaze on him as he took extra care while he sprinkled in the handfuls of soil and then gently patted it all down. Some people used ashes in their garden for various reasons, but his has always been sentimental, private, and not at all related to the health of the plants.

  “As an apology because I had not reacted well to some news she gave me,” he added quieter, “I brought her home the Beauty of Moscow—fitting, for reasons I don’t expect you to understand.”

  Vera let out a slow breath, the exhale coming off a little shaky at the end, but she didn’t acknowledge it when she said, “You could tell me why.”

  “I could.”

  But that wasn’t really important.

  “After she was killed,” he said, “that following autumn, and I had her ashes delivered to my home, I didn’t know what to do with them. She should have been buried beside her mother like she wanted to be but after everything ... I couldn’t find a priest that would honor her, and I knew she wouldn’t want to be remembered the way I had found her.”

  Finished with packing a half inch, or less, of extra soil into the pot, he finally glanced Vera’s way to find she was still watching him with those wide, blue eyes of hers.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “What on earth for?”

  “That someone killed her. That, for whatever reason, you felt you couldn’t give her the final goodbye she might have expected. I can see why that would be ... difficult.”

  Vaslav scoffed. “Difficult is one way to put it.”

  It was what had started his blinding rage. Every event that unfolded after was the result of how he had found Irina on the steps of his home. What remained of her face and brain had already begun to congeal on the driveway where it pooled at the bottom. There would be no open casket, no final, private moments with her closest family and friends, and no future for them.

  Vera didn’t even flinch at his caustic change in attitude.

  “Anyway,” he muttered, pulling the pot a bit closer to the edge of the table. The damn thing was quite heavy now
with all the extra soil added in. “I wasn’t putting Irina in some urn to collect dust on a shelf.”

  She would have haunted him for that.

  Frankly, she did anyway.

  “So, I started adding a handful of her ashes to every clone I was able to successfully transplant off the lilacs at the end of the driveway. Now, she can be with them when they grow, she gets to be beautiful again every spring, and I can see them bloom and remember the evening we planted the one I brought home.” And how happy she was, he didn’t say out loud. “It helps me to keep the memory,” Vaslav muttered. One of the few he had left; trauma took the others away without impunity or care. Then, he nodded at the pot in front of him. “This was the last of it.”

  The last of her.

  “Vas.”

  He didn’t bother to reply, and in fact, couldn’t meet her gaze any longer because he could see the line of water starting to form on her lower lashes and that killed him. Like a knife in his chest someone was twisting, he didn’t want her to cry for his pain when she didn’t truly know just how violent his grief had become.

  Instead, he reached for the watering can to add a bit more dampness to the soil. Vera’s hand found his wrist just as he grabbed hold of the handle. They both stilled.

  “You didn’t have to bring her ashes for mine. You could have kept them for another shrub next year that you cut for your own—"

  He lifted one shoulder, saying only, “No, I started something ... I intended to finish it.”

  Regardless of where he planted each shrub.

  “I am sorry,” she said softly.

  With his chin still tipped down, jaw clenched tight, he nodded. “Spasibo.”

  He never thanked someone for their condolences before because those platitudes never felt true from the mouths of others. There wasn’t a soul on the earth who knew the hell that his wife had pulled him from; nor how quickly he had spiraled right back into the depths the moment he knew Irina’s heart had stopped beating.

  Yet, he thanked Vera.

  He knew she meant it.

  “Please don’t cry,” he murmured, refusing to look away from the eight-inch-high juvenile lilac in the terracotta pot.