by Bethany-Kris
“You told me to do whatever, remember?”
He did, actually. The contractor who came in to do the remodeling job hadn’t exactly been impressed with Vaslav’s lack of interest, but apparently made do with Mira calling the shots.
“But I like it,” Vaslav added with a shrug.
“Sometimes I think it still feels like she lives in here, though.”
Vaslav, pressing his hands into the cotton sheets that still smelled like the fresh breeze that had blown them dry, peered around the space again. He lingered on the doorway that led to the sitting room and library, and the one attached to the bathroom that had also gotten a remodel with a focus on black marble.
Irina had walked through those doors hundreds of times, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t envision it with the changes. The black crown molding with similar woodwork to the bed’s ornate head and foot boards weren’t the same as the smooth, light oak that had once framed the doors high ceilings.
Even the fireplace that hadn’t been changed much at all, one of six in the home, where he’d watched Irina sit and read night after night ... didn’t bring forth the image of her there.
“Does it?” he asked.
Mira lifted one shoulder. “To me ... sometimes.”
“Not me,” he muttered to himself, although Mira had already started to creep out of the room when he was lost in a forgotten time.
He didn’t feel Irina here at all, but Vaslav wasn’t sure how that made him feel. After everything, how should it?
*
The time had crawled past six in the evening when Vera finally darkened Vaslav’s bedroom door. He had nothing better to do than wait for word from Igor in regard to their situation with Viktor, so he opted to follow Vera’s lead and sleep while he had the chance. There was no better time considering his home was the safest place to be at the moment. Rest didn’t come easy to him, but he was just exhausted enough and a little numb from the Vicodin swimming in his veins that when he laid down on the slate gray quilt Mira brought up, he was out.
By the time he’d jerked awake from a dream he couldn’t quite remember, the position of the sun in the sky told him that over half of his day was gone, and he forced himself to get up. After a shower, that took forever to get hot thanks to lack of use, and time spent buzzing his hair to the short crop he preferred before moving on to trimming down his inch-thick beard. He lathered up his face with cream to shave.
Had he been able to see his barber, the job would already be done. He could leave it to grow, but he liked to go into autumn with a clean face that grew in as the weather became colder. Less maintenance throughout the winter.
He’d just tapped off the excess water from a razor when he heard Vera’s call of his name from the next room.
“Mira said you were probably in here?” Vera added when he didn’t answer back right away. “She’s almost finished with dinner and wanted to know if—”
“I’m in the bathroom.”
“What?”
“Come in here,” he called louder, his tone offering no room for argument.
Another second or two passed before he heard the soft patter of bare feet crossing the hardwood floor of the bedroom. Pulling the skin of his throat taut, he’d just started stroking the razor upward under his chin when Vera leaned against the door frame of the bathroom.
For a while, she lingered there silently watching him work away at the facial hair on his throat and under his chin. Meeting her gaze in the mirror, he decided to break the silence first by asking, “Did you sleep well?”
She shrugged under the over-sized cardigan that he easily recognized. It practically swallowed her dainty figure, sweeping down to her mid-thigh while she’d shoved the heavy sleeves up to her elbows. Underneath, the simple cotton shorts and plain white t-shirt looked like something she might have slept in.
“Where did you find my sweater?” he asked.
“In the den.”
And she’d had time to venture to the kitchen to see Mira?
His brow lifted at that admission. “Just how long have you been awake?”
“Long enough to look around.”
Her tiny smile, almost challenging him, had Vaslav daring to grin back. At the news of another person wandering among his things and private spaces, he might very well explode. With her, he only wondered ...
“Did you find anything interesting?” Vaslav asked.
Vera laughed. “Only the cardigan, really. Didn’t take you for the olive type.”
He wasn’t, but he’d had the damn thing forever, and it was well worn now. The color complimented her fair skin tone and bright ocean-like blue eyes. Even his shave came to a pause while he enjoyed the view of her and the way his sweater hugged her body.
“I only wear it outside.”
To work around the property.
Vera’s eyes brightened a bit. “I know, I could smell that on it. Are you shaving everything?”
“Da.”
Every bit.
“But it’ll come in quick,” he added.
With that, Vaslav went back to work dragging the clean razor up his throat in straight, short lines until the skin was smooth. Vera remained in the doorway as he worked to the spot under his ear, the only sound being the rush of water from the tap into the oval, marble sink basin and his razor tapping against the rim.
“Shame,” she returned after a few seconds passed them by. “I never even got to really feel it the way I wanted.”
If he was a man with a less steady hand, Vaslav might have left a nick on that swipe of the razor. Grinning from her bold comment, he tapped the razor clean under the stream of water, and went for the next stroke, replying, “Like I said, it comes in quick.”
“Anyway,” Vera murmured the longer Vaslav’s stare lingered on her in the mirror between strokes of his razor, “Mira said another twenty or so minutes and dinner will be ready.”
“Vera.”
She’d just started to turn away from the door, but at his murmur of her name, he caught sight of her pause before she’d fully turned back around. “Yes?”
“I won’t kill your father.”
Finally, he averted his own gaze from the reflection of her behind him in the vanity mirror as the realization started to dawn on his companion’s pretty face. Even her lips, that mouth of hers that looked so kissable and soft, fell open but no words came out.
“I don’t think I follow,” she started to say.
Vas lifted one bare shoulder high, though he could feel the heat of her stare drifting down his mostly naked form where he stood at the sink with a black towel wrapped loosely around his hips. Keeping one hand on the rim of the sink while he took care to shave around the lower part of his scar, he gave her time to think over what he said.
He could paint the picture, but it wouldn’t be as nice as hers.
“You have no reason to kill my father to begin with,” Vera eventually said.
“I do if he steps in my way.”
“How could he—with me,” she said, her tone going flat all at once. “You mean if he steps in the way of me.”
“Igor filled me in on the fact that Demyan Avdonin has a spy keeping an eye on you. In my city, no less ... someone working under my extension of control. Now he has also paid for a flight that I bet wasn’t provided without some explanation. How many times has your father called your phone since this morning?”
Vera’s reflection blinked at the question. “I didn’t really—”
“Don’t lie.”
“Okay. So he’s called a few times. And maybe left a message or two.”
Vaslav tipped his chin down to watch the water clean the razor once again. “It’s only natural that he’ll feel a sense of responsibility; for him to want to keep you safe, no? He’s an important man in his part of the world—why wouldn’t he keep an eye on the only child that’s decided to stay away?”
“I didn’t tell him very much about you.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
“I was more concerned with getting back to Russia,” she said simply. “And the situation going on with Hannah was enough of a reason to get him to do what I wanted.”
“Until his little spy feeds him more information, and then what?” Vaslav eyed her in the mirror, refusing to drop her blue stare when he said, “My bet is that he decides his daughter has found herself involved in some way with a man he considers ... what’s a good word?”
Vera swallowed hard enough for him to hear it. “I know what kind of man you are. You don’t need to make threats on my father to make it clear.”
“Actually, I’m working on sealing the deal, hmm?”
Her brow lifted. “Excuse me?”
“I won’t kill him,” Vaslav repeated as he tilted his head to the side for better access to the part of his scar that damn near met his ear. “When he comes here, because he will once he realizes there’s something his daughter has been keeping from him, I won’t touch him, Vera.”
“If what?”
Her question was sharp enough to sting.
Vaslav only chuckled. “If you tell him we’ll be married by the winter.”
Vera sucked in a fast breath, hissing back, “You can’t manipulate me into a marriage—”
“Who is doing that?”
“You. You just said that I had to agree to marry you or my father will die.”
“I did not say it like that, kisska.”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped.
“Why because you’re angry?”
Vera openly glared from the doorway, but Vaslav was unconcerned with her mood or that terse pout directed his way. If anything, it made his dick twitch under the weight of the towel around his waist with the mental image of that pout staring up at him while she was on her knees. At least, his mind’s eye wasn’t entirely dead.
“I only said you had to agree by the time he came here,” Vaslav added after a moment. “Because he will come here.”
He had a terrible habit of predicting the moves of others before they could even plan them through—he wouldn’t complain when it also kept him alive.
“And you don’t see how that’s manipulating me into the choice you want me to make?” Vera returned.
“Who said you wouldn’t want it, too?”
He should have taken more care to focus on cleaning his razor rather than the woman in the bathroom doorway, but he paid for his mistake with a deep nick from the blade on the edge of a particularly gristly part of scar tissue. His responding hiss of air came more from the sight of blood falling down his cheek than the burn from the minor cut.
Vaslav didn’t even have the chance to reach for the damp cloth he left hanging on the edge of the sink before Vera had stepped into the room and snatched it up. She slid in beside him, and that tender touch of hers warmed his cheek more than the cloth did. He barely thought about what he did next; she was too close for him to waste the chance.
He trapped her against the sink while her hand still pressed the cloth against the tiny cut and her gaze locked on his. With both hands caging her in against the rim of the black marble sink, he leaned down closer.
“It’s almost cartoonish when the beard’s shaved,” she told him quietly, referring to the scar she wasn’t even staring at. “Like the kind you see on a movie mask or in a comic book. I can see why you like to keep the beard.”
Vaslav arched a brow. “Except it’s attached to a very real face. I don’t always like to scare the children.”
“Are you going to let me move?”
“In a minute.”
Vera pulled the cloth away to check the cut, and when she was satisfied that it wasn’t going to continue bleeding, she tossed it to the sink. “Well, if you’re not going to let me move, then can I finish shaving you?”
Something electric hummed under the surface of his skin at the very idea of her doing such a thing, and he liked it entirely too much. The woman didn’t know it—couldn’t possibly—but she was playing with fire. Refusing him one minute, and asking to serve him the next. She was only cementing the choice he’d made about her even more.
“Finish shaving me,” he replied. “After you kiss me.”
She squirmed under his constant, unwavering attention where she was stuck between his body and the sink, but stilled when her top two teeth dragged over her lower, plump lip.
“Why do you even want another wife?” she asked him instead.
“You haven’t asked me that yet. I was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with you.”
“Don’t be mean. I’m asking now.”
“But why?”
The sweetest knot formed between her brows, and a pink hue colored her cheeks.
“What is it?” he pressed, really curious now.
“Did you love her—Irina?”
“Entirely. Too much sometimes.” Maddeningly. “Until the very end.”
Vera’s shoulders deflated a bit but she laughed, too. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“I don’t understand what that has anything to do with—”
“I couldn’t imagine losing the love of my life, and thinking it was possible to find another. Which leaves me to think I’ll always be second best to a woman who isn’t even alive because something tells me that you’re not looking to fall in love with me.”
Then, she shook her head. “I’m not sure I want to be the companion of a man who can’t really be mine beyond the things he can make my body do.”
“You’re the only one between us who has said any of those things like they were true, Vera.”
Cocking his head back a bit so he could really stare down on her, Vaslav was taken back to the night before when Igor called to explain that Vera had asked to go to the hospital, and he was complying with the request whether or not his boss approved. Vaslav hadn’t even been surprised. A lonely girl wanted to ease the final hours of an equally lonely old man who had been one of her few friends.
Vaslav didn’t even consider arguing with Igor over where to bring Vera at that point. It was his greatest fear, but he couldn’t tell anyone as much.
To die alone.
Like he was.
Like I am, he thought.
Nobody would really care. Once he was gone, that would make life far easier for the people who wouldn’t miss him. His mother. The men and organization he controlled. Even the city and country that had spent an exorbitant amount of money trying to lock him away forever. It was no wonder that people tried to help him into an early grave. It was a gift they couldn’t wait to unwrap. How long could a child stare at a piece of candy before they snatched it up while their mother’s back was turned?
“The fact you’ve taken so long to say differently,” Vera said, smiling a little, “tells me a lot, Vas.”
“Life has taught me that love is just a small part of a larger picture.”
“Insignificant?”
“Wouldn’t you think,” he returned easily, “but no. Even the smallest inch on a portrait can be slaved over by the artist who painted it more than any other piece of his art. Maybe that same inch is admired the most by the people lucky enough to view it after it’s finally finished.”
Vera’s hand trembled when his thumb stroked along her pinky clutched to the edge of the sink. That same quiver couldn’t be detected in her voice. “And you’re saying what—that your story isn’t done being painted?”
Apparently not.
“Well, I’m still here,” he murmured with a lift of his brow, “hmm?”
That shudder she’d been holding came out in her next breath. He pretended like he didn’t hear it because he respected that it took nerve for her to be honest. It couldn’t be easy to admit insecurity about a memory. After all, that’s really all Irina’s life was to him now.
And his brain didn’t do so well with those. Memories, that was.
“I have the world under my feet,” Vaslav told Vera, distracted with the way her micro expressions flitted so swiftly over her doll-like
face. “From the outside looking in, I’m easy to figure out. A reclusive, insane man with violent tendencies that’s better off left on his own. Ask anyone. I think a psychologist even wrote that in the official report that was handed down the line eventually. More money than I could ever spend. A home that’s big and empty and safe. Power beyond my means to do anything I want whenever I want,” he finished with a dry laugh.
“And what?”
“And nothing at all,” he said, shrugging one tattooed shoulder. “In the end, it will mean nothing at all. All that money and the things that have made up my life will go to people who don’t deserve it. My presence will be scrubbed from every surface that I’ve touched until there’s nothing left. The rest of the world will forget about me, too. Just the same way I’ve forgotten most of it now. I don’t know if that end is in two months, two years, or twenty but I’ve decided that I don’t want to be at the end, and still be here alone. I didn’t agree to go crazy alone.”
His voice raised on that final note, and the smash of the side of his fist to the sink barely even earned a flinch from Vera.
Never once did he break her stare, though. Even as he let out a steadying exhale and said, “That’s not how this was supposed to happen. I wasn’t shown heaven just to spend the rest of my life in hell.”
15.
“Are you dying?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was at her bold question—especially not when she’d been doing it so frequently. Still, he didn’t expect her to pose it quite as frankly as she did. In a way that offered him little to no room to talk around it, or let her figure things out on her own.
Not without him being called on it, anyway.
“Well, are you?” she pressed.
Vaslav still tried to deflect. “Aren’t we all?”
He should have been enjoying the sight of her still trapped between him and the counter. He’d all but closed the distance between them so her soft curves were molded against his hard lines. She might act like she couldn’t get away, but all she really needed to do was slip under one of his arms barricading her on either side.
It wasn’t that hard.
She didn’t move an inch.