by Olivia Gates
But if he never had before, he would now. And he’d revel in every single second of their blessings and give them back a thousandfold, until he’d given them all that he was.
His gaze went first to his mother. In spite of all the ordeals she’d suffered, she’d always remained strong, stable, even, most of the time, amazingly sunny. But now... Now she radiated joy. And it was all thanks to Leonid. And Caliope.
His gaze moved next to Leonid. That little miracle that always had his insides melting with a million emotions, half of them sublime and the other half distraught. He wondered again how parents survived loving their children and worrying about them this much. But he was learning how, with Caliope’s constant support and guidance. This again led him to wonder how his father had been able to hurt him. He’d rather have his arms hacked off before he even upset Leonid.
Yes, he was now certain. He had none of his father’s sickness. And not because his ordeal had reconfigured him. He just didn’t have it in him. All his dread now was from external sources. Life had so many dangers, it suffocated him at times to think of Leonid being exposed to any of them.
But even with the constant fears that had become part of his consciousness, he wouldn’t change a thing. He wanted nothing but to be Leonid’s father, to give him the safest, happiest, most adjusted and accomplished life.
He’d left looking at the center of his universe, the spark of his existence, for last. For she was where his gaze would stay, where his heart would lie down to rest. Caliope.
How was it possible that she was more beautiful every time he beheld her?
Her radiant smile rivaled that of the bright Russian autumn sun. Her naturally sun-kissed complexion glowed with vitality in the cold, her caramel-gold hair gleamed and undulated in the tranquil breeze and her azure eyes were incandescent with warmth and welcome. Her lips, flushed and dewy, spread to reveal those exquisitely uneven white teeth in that smile that splintered his heart with its beauty. He hardened all over, as he always did when he even thought of her, which was almost constantly. Now, with her so close in the flesh, warding off the blow of longing was nearly impossible.
Then Leonid threw himself at his legs, looking up at him, demanding his full attention.
He swooped to pick him up, groaning as Leonid’s total trust and dependence inundated his heart. He almost succumbed and followed the pattern they’d established, the daily activities that included their quartet—or quintet, with Rosa.
But today would be Caliope’s. She’d been here two weeks and had barely seen anything beyond the estate’s boundaries. He wanted her to explore his motherland, experience it with him, share a part of him that she hadn’t so far. And when she did, she’d make this land a true home for him. Up till now he’d only considered it his birthplace and base of operations.
He looked up from kissing Leonid to find her and his mother gazing at them with their hearts in their eyes, savoring the picture they made together, father and son.
He kissed the top of Leonid’s head again. “Moy dorogoy, I have to take your mamochka on a sightseeing tour that you won’t appreciate just yet, so you have to remain here with your babushka, Tatjana, and nyanya, Rosa, until we come back. But I promise you, tomorrow is all yours, birthday boy.”
Caliope’s smile faltered. “He can come. I’m sure he’ll like it. He likes everything we do together....”
Khorosho. Good. He’d feared she’d say a point-blank no to the tour. But she only didn’t want to leave Leonid behind.
Caliope turned to his mother, and to his hyper senses, there was a hectic tint to her smile. “We can all go. It would a lot of fun with all of us together. I’ll go get Rosa.”
Ne tak khorosho. Not so good. This was even worse than saying no. She was trying to get out of being alone with him.
Before he could think how to say he wasn’t trying to get her alone in front of his mother, said mother intervened.
“I need Rosa while I see to last-minute details of tomorrow’s celebration. And you two will leave me something to do on my own. And you, Caliope, need to see something outside the boundaries of my retreat. Leonid would get bored to tears in tourist attractions and he’d turn your outing into a struggle for all of you.” She snapped Leonid out of his arms and almost ran away before Caliope could react, calling across her shoulder over Leonid’s gleeful shriek, “Off you go. Shoo.”
Caliope gaped after his mother’s retreating back for a moment before she turned on him, eyebrow raised.
“You planned this, didn’t you?”
His lips spread at her half accusing, half amused expression. “With my mother? No. She’s just quick on the uptake. So quick it seems she’s been impatiently waiting for me to act your proper host for longer than she could bear.”
Her eyes twinkled turquoise with teasing. “If she has been, why didn’t she give you a nudge?”
“She’s the most progressive mother on the planet and would never interfere in my life. Not that I make it easy for her to be so restrained. My only drawback in her idolizing eyes is my lack of social skills.”
She sighed as she fell in step with him. “I used to think so, too. But turns out you’re not so bad.”
He sighed, too. “I’m trying to recover from a lifelong atrophy of those skills.”
“Your recovery has been phenomenal, then. Seems you can’t do anything but superlatively.”
His heart boomed. He’d become addicted to her praise, when he’d never before cared what anyone thought about him.
Overwhelmed with gratitude that she had forgiven him to the point that she acknowledged his efforts to change for the better, and praised each instance of success, he took her supple hand and raised it to his lips.
At her audible gasp, Maksim immediately broke contact, afraid she’d consider this a breach of their unspoken pact. He couldn’t risk spoiling the spontaneity she’d miraculously developed with him.
Pretending an easy smile, he hoped to dissipate tension. “I’m honored by your opinion of my efforts, moya dorogoya.”
He couldn’t stop calling her my darling. But she probably thought he meant the milder my dear, since he used it with Leonid, too. But they were both his darlings. His only loves.
Still, he kicked himself for succumbing to the need for any physical expression of his emotions when her answering smile wasn’t as open as it had previously been. Injecting as much artificial ease into his own, he handed her into his Maserati, then filled her silence with his usual commentary on the areas they were passing through.
At her insistence, after he took her to the major landmarks of the city, he swung by Volkov Iron and Steel Industries headquarters and factories. It felt as if he were seeing it through her eyes, his view of it colored by her appreciation. She told him she’d never seen anything so advanced and extensive. As usual, her approval was what counted most to him.
As the sun started to decline, and while they approached the final man-made attraction he had on his list, she suddenly turned from watching the road to him.
“You haven’t told her.”
His mother. About the accident. It wasn’t a question.
He still answered. “No.”
“I’m not prying,” she said. “But Mikhail came up yesterday and it was clear she didn’t know you were involved in the accident. I just need to know what you told her so I won’t say anything wrong if the subject crops up again.”
After parking the Maserati, he turned to her, needing to make one thing clear. “You can never pry. It’s your right to know anything and everything about me.”
Some deeply moved, if stunned emotion swept in her eyes, darkening them.
She didn’t already know that she had every right to all of him? Or was it that she didn’t want to have that right, since she’d already said she wouldn’t take all of him?
He forced himself to smile. “But thanks for your concern. I told her the same story, just took myself out of it. She loved Mikhail as a son, and she suffered his loss almost as much as I did. I just couldn’t make it even worse than it is.”
“So she doesn’t know about...”
It was the first time she’d alluded to his aneurysm, even though she seemed unable to bring herself to name it. That she had brought it up must mean it had been on her mind. As, of course, it must have been. Then she held up a hand, asking him not to answer.
But he did. “No, she doesn’t know about my...condition.”
Her sigh was laden with what sounded like pained relief. “I’m glad you didn’t tell her. She’s so happy now.”
“And it’s all thanks to you.”
She shook her head. “It’s all thanks to Leo.”
“And you. I know when my mother is being her usual gracious self and when she is emotionally involved. I can tell she considers you a daughter, not only her grandson’s mother.”
Those incredible eyes he wanted nothing but to lose himself in gleamed with tears. “Isn’t it too early for that?”
“Time has nothing to do with how you feel about someone.”
Her slow nod was an admission of how time hadn’t factored into what they’d felt about each other from the first moment.
Out loud she only said, “You’re right. And I’m glad you think she feels like this, since I feel the same about her. It’s the best thing for Leo, to have his family in such accord. I believe he senses it and is thriving on it.”
“It’s the best thing for you. And for her. You two deserve to have this special connection, regardless of any other consideration, and I can only see it growing deeper by the day.” Her nod was ponderous this time, then conceding. To stop himself from swooping on those serious lips, he said, “Now for our last stop in my guided tour, the oldest building in Arkhangel’sk.”
In minutes, they were entering the main tower of Gostiny Dvor—The Merchant Court—and Caliope was, as usual, inundating him with questions.
It delighted him how engrossed she was. She already did know a lot about his homeland, as much as could be gleaned from the internet, but she kept asking things only a native would know, to deepen and personalize her knowledge.
He kept answering as they walked through the massive and long complex of buildings. “This place was the raison d’être of Arkhangel’sk in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During that time, Arkhangel’sk handled more than half the country’s exports. As we Russians like our buildings grand, the lofty status of the city back then necessitated building something imposing. It took a team of German and Dutch masons sixteen years to build it. And this turreted trading center was born to become the nexus of all trade between Europe and Russia.”
As they entered another section, answering another of her questions had him elaborating on the place’s history. “Yes, everything arrived or left from this network of depots. Luxurious European textiles like satin and velvet were imported, while flax, hemp, wax and timber were exported. But after Peter the Great conquered the Baltic coastline and moved the capital to St. Petersburg, most foreign trade was rerouted and the Arkhangel’sk trade center was abandoned. But by the mid-twentieth century, at the height of communist decay, many of the buildings here followed suit in deterioration and were demolished. After the fall of the Soviet empire in the latter half of the century, the crumbling place was elected to house a local-history museum, but for a long time restoration was never completed due to lack of funds.”
“Until you, Arkhangel’sk’s archangel, waved your magic wand—” she spread her arms in an encompassing movement “—and restored it to its former and current glory.”
He blinked in astonishment. “How do you find these things out? I’m sure they’re not on the internet.”
She gave him a self-satisfied look. “I have my ways.”
Unable to stop, he traced that mischievous dimple on her right cheek. “You have your ways...in everything.”
For a long moment, he thought she’d reach up and drag him down for the kiss he knew she was burning for as much as he was.
But she turned away, pretended to look around before returning her gaze to him, with her desire under control. “So are you planning on feeding me, or are you out to make me lose the weight I’ve put on with Tatjana’s mouthwatering feasts?”
Suppressing his own hunger, he fell into step with her as they exited the complex, grinning down at her. “I’m definitely feeding you. There can’t be enough of you for me.”
Before the heat that flared in her eyes reduced him to ashes, she suppressed it. “There definitely is enough of me, thanks. So take me somewhere with a weight-conscious menu.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Seafood?”
She burst out laughing. As his other eyebrow joined in his perplexity, she spluttered, “Long story.”
On their way to the restaurant, she told him of Aristedes’s seafood-related teasing of her during that dinner. He laughed at her account, and they kept laughing all through their meal, about one thing or another. It was amazing how much had changed between them, yet how much remained the same.
They lingered over their meal for hours; then he took her driving outside the city until they reached the nearby Severodvinsk. On its outskirts, he parked the car in the best possible spot, then waited, a smile dancing on his lips in anticipation of Caliope’s reaction.
For a while there was none. She was engrossed in discussing Leonid’s birthday, expressing her delight that Maksim was flying her family and friends out for the celebration. Then she suddenly stopped and swung her gaze around to stare out of the windshield.
“The aurora!”
His lips spread as she squealed in excitement, sat up straight, eyes wide with wonder, as she, for the first time, witnessed nature’s own light show and fireworks.
He watched her as she started swaying with every change in the celestial lights. The glowing curtains undulated as if raining from the heavens in emerald shimmers tinged with cascades of rubies and sapphires and laced with diamonds. They seemed to be dancing to an unheard rhythm, the same one that had caught Caliope and was moving her body with every sweeping arch, with every wave and curl of light moving across the sky, punctuated with sudden rays shooting down from space.
It was a long while before she could tear her eyes from the spectacle. “I’ve heard how the aurora was spectacular, seen photos and footage of it, but nothing conveyed even one iota of its reality. It’s...beyond description.”
He nodded, overjoyed at her enthrallment. “That it is. But it’s more spectacular than usual tonight. It must have decided to put on an unprecedented show just for you.”
She pulled one of those delicious comical faces. “Yeah, sure. It’s all on account of the exceptionally clear sky or stronger solar winds...or some other factor.”
“Granted, that’s the scientific explanation. But why now, and so suddenly? It didn’t start showing off until you took notice and started watching.”
“Then what are you proposing? That the wavelengths of my delight boosted the magnetic waves causing this phenomenon?”
“Thought waves are electric and magnetic. Why not?”
She pondered his question, her eyes pools reflecting the myriad emissions before she smiled and sighed. “Yeah. Why not? I am enchanted enough to cause it to show off for me.”
She sank back in her seat to continue watching the magnificent display, sighed again then suddenly turned to him, face flooding with dismay. “Leo would have loved this! He would have freaked out!”
“It’ll still be here for the next three months. We’ll bring him another time, after making sure he sleeps during the day so he’ll be awake for the show. Tonight I wanted you to relax and enjoy yourself, be yourself, not Leonid’
s mother.”
She relaxed back in her seat, her dainty lips twisting. “You make it sound as if I have no life outside him.”
“You only have work. You have no recreation, no fun.”
“Look who’s talking!”
“I looked, and I didn’t like what I saw. Neither of us has to work that hard anymore.”
“Who’s working hard? I’ve barely worked since... Well, since you came back. And come to think of it, neither have you.”
“I have almost ground to a halt for the past three months,” he admitted. “But I thought you were working as hard as ever to make up for the times we spent together.”
“Are you for real?” She pulled another of those adorable faces. “Apart from the daylong outings and the ton of indoor activities you always plan, it’s a miracle I’ve had time to bathe.”
That image of her bathing, the very thing he’d tormented himself with this morning, hit him between the eyes—and in the loins. But the tenderness that she aroused in him was just as fierce. He wanted to give her everything and ensure her fulfillment in every way.
“You only had to tell me I was interfering with your ability to work.”
“And what would you have done?” Her eyes gleamed with challenging mischief. “Don’t tell me you would have come less frequently for shorter durations. I think it was beyond you to do that. I actually thought it quite a feat that you didn’t set up camp in my living room to be with Leo around the clock.”
“It wasn’t only Leo’s side I could barely leave, moya dorogoya.” All traces of levity fled at his rasped confession. “But I would have made sure your work never suffered. Don’t you know by now that I’ll do anything to ensure that you have everything you need, want or aspire to in your life?”
Her eyes became black wells ringed in azure fire as she bit her lower lip, nodded. She knew he meant it.
But did she know she meant everything to him?
He opened his mouth to tell her that, that he loved her, worshipped the dirt beneath her feet. But the look in her eyes stopped him. She looked almost...lost. And professing his feelings to her would put her in an even more untenable position.