by Olivia Gates
If she’d tried to guess for as long as she lived, she would have never imagined anything of this nature or magnitude.
But what was too terrible for her to contemplate was not what had been done to him. But by whom. His parents. The parents he’d loved and idolized. The people she’d known all her life, who’d been as much a part of her being as her own parents, and whom she’d loved and trusted almost as much.
And it explained everything. Everything. About him, who he was, how he’d come to be this way, what he could do. It explained his actions, past and present. Why he’d left her, why he’d stayed away even though he’d needed her and Alex in his life, why he’d tortured himself with depriving himself of them. Because he couldn’t bear to be near the people who’d bought their own lives at the price of his.
And it explained his turmoil now. If anything was a testament to his love, it was that he’d come offering his heart, his life. He would endure the torture of living that life close to the family that had betrayed and abandoned him in this unspeakable way, just to be with her.
Now the tears that had seeped out of her soul as she’d listened to him, as she’d tried to process the enormity of his injuries, stopped, as she was hit with another realization. Ivan didn’t want vengeance. He’d never wished to punish the people he’d trusted most and who’d sent him to hell.
But she did.
She wanted to tear down the whole world to avenge him. Since she couldn’t, she’d tear down her own world.
She wiped at her tears angrily, but when she rose from her slump in Ivan’s arms and looked down at him, what she saw in his eyes almost caused her heart to burst with outrage. That look of vulnerability, of defeat. She suspected what it signified.
He validated her suspicion. “I’ve been running away all these years from my dread of this look in your eyes, this revulsion when you realized what I really am, what I’ve done.”
Before she could shout a vehement correction, he rose from the bed where he’d poured out his heart and horrors, turned away as if he could no longer meet her eyes.
“But you were right in persisting to make me tell you the truth. You had a right to know what kind of man I am, where I’m coming from. It would have been unfair to you if I let you marry me without knowing what you’d be really getting. I love you too much I feared it would alienate you, if not at once then later. But it’s no excuse—”
She grabbed him, spastic hands sinking in the rock-hard flesh of his arms as she snatched him around to face her. “Stop, Ivan, stop. It’s all for you, for the horrors you’ve endured, for the childhood you’ve lost. This is sympathy that my heart and my whole being aren’t big enough to hold. But the revulsion you see? It’s all for those who’ve done this to you.”
The hesitant hope in his eyes, something she’d never thought to see tainting his indomitable wolf-like gaze, made her want to smash everything in sight.
“I love you, Ivan!” This was almost a scream. “I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you, loved you all through the years when I thought you’d abandoned me, and loved you way more when you came back and snatched me from death’s jaws, then dragged me back to life. But now that I know everything, now that I understand what drove you, what you are, I love you far more than ever before. So much more than I thought I could withstand. But it kills me to imagine what you’ve been through. It’s driving me crazy to know I’d never be able to do anything about it, that I can’t reach back in time and rescue the child you were. I hate it, violently, insanely, that I’m helpless to heal the man you are.”
His face crumpled in such agonizing relief it made her burst into tears again. The need to protect him from even one more single moment of pain overwhelmed her, made her charge him, pushing him down again on the bed, raining her agony and reiterating her I-love-yous and I’m-sorrys on him.
His powerful arms trembled around her as if he couldn’t believe she was still really there, and really feeling this way. And her rage spiked again.
She tore away from his kisses, seethed, “I might not be able to do anything about your past, but I can and will do something from now on. This crime your parents committed against you was macabre, unforgivable. And though no punishment could ever be enough, I will do everything in my power to see them punished.”
He surged to cup her face, the eyes she adored urgent, anxious. “Nyet, moya dusha, no! I never wanted to punish them.”
“Because you’re far better and stronger than I am. They have to be punished, Ivan. They can’t get away with this!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. And you’re wrong. You have healed me. Just seeing you like this, knowing you still love me and aren’t horrified by my past, everything that’s ever happened to me has ceased to exist. The one thing that burdened me was my fear of scaring you off if you found out. Of losing you. But now that I know it not only didn’t matter to you, but you feel this powerfully about it all, about me, nothing else matters.” He kissed her trembling tear-wet lips when she started to protest again. “As for my parents...I never wanted to see them, thought I couldn’t be around them. But now that you know, now that I know you’ll be mine no matter what, I don’t mind having them around.”
“I mind. Even if you’ve forgiven and forgotten, I can’t risk that you’d feel even a twinge of heartache around them, not for the world. And I can’t be around them either. If I’m around my parents, around Cathy and the kids, they’ll always be around.” She rose on her knees, grabbed his hands in a convulsive grip when he started to protest. “Marry me, Ivan, today, right now, and let’s go back to Russia. Or anywhere in the world you want.”
Then her streaking thoughts shrieked to a halt. “God, Ivan, I just realized something even more terrible. The people who sacrificed their own firstborn shouldn’t be around Alex’s children! They should be exposed to my family for the monsters they are so they’d be cast out of everyone’s lives.”
“Anastasia, please, just let it go. You can’t believe Alex’s children are in any danger of them. They’ve been exemplary parents to my siblings, and doting grandparents.”
“They’ve been my and Alex’s second parents!” she wailed. “If you could only see how they loved Alex, how they treated him like a beloved son...after they’d thrown you away to certain death or worse. Oh, God!”
He pressed her to his heart again, stroking her back, her hair, crooning words of comfort. After everything he’d endured, he was trying to soothe her.
“I’ve always understood what drove them to sacrifice me,” he said, his voice now more than calm. Peaceful. “It was a deadly situation, and they had to make a terrible choice. I never had any wish to confront or expose them and now more than ever I see absolutely no reason to. I’m the one who caused you and I all the heartache, not them, when I let my hang-ups and fears of my past deprive me of you, deprive us of each other. And I’m never doing that again. I also don’t want you to give up anything for me. I want you to have your family and friends and everything that makes your life normal and whole. I only wish to share it with you.”
Her still-mushrooming outrage choked her all over again. “There is no going back to normal for me, not after I learned the truth about what happened to you!”
He caught her trembling face in a cherishing grip. “I only told you so you’d have access to every corner of me, so there would be no part of me you didn’t see, didn’t own. Not so you can wallow in a past I already intended to leave behind. My love for you fills me, heals me, makes me whole in ways I could have never dreamed I’d be. And I want us to never look back, to move only forward.” His lips clung to hers, as if he needed the contact to breathe. “All you have to do now is tell me everything you wish for in a wedding and in a home for us and I’ll make it happen. Even if you want it today, right now, I’ll make it all happen.”
“You know I want only you.”
“See this?” He made a sweeping gesture at her, them, his smile exquisite. “What you feel? This is reward and cure enough to erase ten times the injuries and injustices I’ve suffered. But you will be my bride, and we will have a wedding, and you will have your family with you. After their incalculable loss of Alex, we can’t let them lose you, too. They deserve to be happy for you.”
And for the next hour she argued, cried and bargained, unable to think how she’d let him out of this room, how she’d expose him to his parents, who she knew were coming to dinner.
But he patiently, persistently, adoringly countered her every protest on his behalf.
Then at long last, she realized.
This was part of his healing.
This was how he’d truly move on.
* * *
“Getting married? Next week?”
Those were the exclamations that met Anastasia’s announcement at the dinner table.
She didn’t know which stunned her and Ivan’s parents more. That they were getting married at all, or that they’d set their wedding date for six days from now, which also happened to be Christmas.
He’d finally convinced her not to elope, to have a wedding where all the people in her life would take part. She’d succumbed only because she knew this was important to him and she wanted to give him whatever he wished for. Once that was decided on, he’d messaged his brothers. Six days from today was the earliest he could round them all up.
She looked at Ivan now, her eyes asking if he’d like to say something, but he only gave a slight nod, giving her full control over the situation.
She swept a glance around the table, her gaze unable to rest on Ivan’s parents. She now hated them, and hated how Ivan must be feeling sitting so close to them. It amazed her all over again that he didn’t show any emotion that even she could detect, nothing in his eyes and vibe but adoration for her.
To honor his wish to make this as normal and smooth as possible, she forced herself to flash a smile at her parents. “I hope that was you being surprised in a good way.”
“God, darling, yes!” Her mother’s stunned eyes shone with tears as she reached out to squeeze her hand, before turning to her father. “We’re thrilled. Aren’t we, dear?”
Her father nodded dazedly. “It’s just that we didn’t know what was going on. And it’s so soon we won’t have time to do much.”
She waved her father’s concern away. “There isn’t much to do.”
She had to make that perfectly clear upfront. Her parents had always dreamed of giving her as elaborate a wedding as Alex’s, but with her seeming to be a bachelorette for life, she’d long thwarted them. If she gave them half a chance, they’d go all out. Ivan, too, would go to lengths she couldn’t even conceive of to give her a legendary ceremony if she let him.
“We’re going to keep it very simple.” Before her parents or Ivan could voice any objections, she added, “I actually didn’t want a wedding at all.”
Because of Alex went unspoken but heard by all.
“When Ivan proposed a few hours ago I suggested we just inform you over dinner and elope.” At everyone’s gasps, she reached for Ivan’s hand. “So you’ve got Ivan to thank that we’ll have a wedding. He insisted that Alex wouldn’t have wanted us to get married without one. But even had everything been perfect, I’m not one for frills, as you all know. I just want a gathering where everyone we love would be present.”
She had to stop to swallow the bitterness that would now perpetually fill her throat. They’d both have to bear his parents’ presence at their wedding, smile and pretend that everything was okay.
“Thank you, Ivan.” That was her mother, turning to Ivan, her gaze filled with so much Anastasia couldn’t fathom. Though she could guess. This was the man who’d saved her daughter, would now marry her and become a new son, after she’d lost her own. It must be all emotionally tumultuous for her. “I doubt any of us would have been able to change Ana’s mind.”
Ivan gave such a gracious smile. “It’s my pleasure and privilege, Mrs. Shepherd. Quite literally.”
“Please, call me Grace.” Her mother gave Ivan a wary, wavering smile. “And thank you for giving us the chance to see Ana becoming a bride.”
Fixing her with a warm gaze, he covered the hand she had placed on the table. “Every mother and father should be there when a man offers his heart and life to their daughter.”
A murmur of appreciation went around the table as another wave of searing love filled Anastasia’s heart.
She was on the verge of tears, when Ivan’s father, who’d been her beloved Uncle John until a few hours ago, rose to his feet, his face splitting on a delighted smile. “We need to toast the bride and groom!”
Ivan’s mother, Aunt Glenda to her, and until so recently almost as close to Anastasia as her own mother, followed her husband, enthusiastically sweeping around the table and filling everyone’s glasses with the sparkling white wine her father had selected to go with the seafood.
As she filled Ivan’s glass, she squeezed his shoulder, looking down at him in such awe and affection. “You’re going to be as good as my son-in-law, too, do you know that?”
Anastasia winced at the sight Ivan made with the woman who’d abandoned him, the skewer in her heart turning as she realized their green eyes were almost the same.
She battled to keep tears at bay as he looked up at his mother. Then he made it almost impossible when his face shockingly gentled as he patted her hand, the same unexpected and agonizing kindness in his voice. “Anyone who loves Anastasia can count on me as the best relative they can have.”
Looking delighted, his mother beamed down at him. “And as the one Anastasia loves most you’re going to be deluged in new relatives yourself. Good thing you can’t have enough family!”
Fiery indignation on his behalf lashed her, flinging the sharp words out of her mouth. “Ivan doesn’t have any family.”
Ivan raised his glass to her, his gaze soothing her. “The only important thing to me is that I’ll now have one with you, my love.” He looked around the room, his gaze containing nothing but genuine geniality. “And clearly many extensions, too.”
She nodded tightly, letting him pull her back from the brink, gratitude engulfing her that he was giving her the opportunity to make it all up to him for the rest of her life.
But as if to further inflame her, his mother touched his shoulder again, her eyes probing, pained. “Are you an orphan?”
There was no use. She couldn’t hold back. And she didn’t.
“Worse. His parents abandoned him.”
His parents had the gall to look horrified.
Then Aunt Glenda whispered, “That’s terrible. Were you very young? What happened to you?”
Clearly deciding to put an end to this, Ivan rose and turned to his parents with an easy smile Anastasia had no idea how he managed. “As you can see I far more than survived. Now I found the biggest part of my soul and I am the happiest man on earth.”
Uncle John, his father, looking as if he’d dodged a bullet, laughed and raised his glass. “And now you do have more family than you’ll know what to do with. You have two fathers-in-law and two mothers-in-law and a bunch of in-laws—siblings, nieces and nephews. Before this alarms you, let me assure you it’s a bargain. We’re full of uses, all ready and eager to do any amount of chores and babysit on demand. And we’re only slightly interfering.”
Her father rose with a wide smile, raising his own glass. “Ivan doesn’t strike me as the kind of son-in-law who’d allow any level of interference.”
Ivan returned her father’s smile. “Not even from a superpower.”
Swallowing down her agitation, Anastasia volunteered the explanation. “He’s not being metaphorical here. Remind me to tell you about the time when he blithely ignored the Russ
ian premier’s demand for a personal meeting because he thought babysitting me was more important.”
All voices rose around the table, demanding she tell the story immediately. And in telling it, she and Ivan relaxed back into their flawless rapport, and what she never thought could happen did. The night turned into an immensely enjoyable interlude, especially when Cathy and the kids came over.
For long stretches of time during the night that extended into the early hours of morning, Anastasia found herself forgetting everything but that she was with the people she loved most on earth, the people who surrounded the union she was forging with Ivan with delight and caring.
But every now and then, the illusion cracked and she saw the truth. The truth that was uglier than anything from a nightmare. Ivan bolstered her, absorbing her agitation as soon as it surged. But even if he’d dealt so incredibly well with what he’d lived dreading—seeing his parents up-close again—she could not do the same.
After their wedding, she would never expose him to them again if she could at all help it. His parents didn’t deserve the happiness and privilege of knowing him as he’d made himself, didn’t deserve his unbelievable mercy.
* * *
With the countdown to the wedding rushing by, Anastasia found herself sliding into stretches of absolute euphoria.
Being with Ivan now that she was certain of his love was a happiness she hadn’t known could exist.
He, too, seemed on a constant high.
Yet, it still came in waves. That tension, like a sick buzz of electricity that zapped her muscles, a white noise that scratched along her nerves. Ivan kept assuring her it wasn’t coming from him, that he was fine, that being with her had nullified anything he’d feared he’d feel. He not only didn’t feel anything negative around his parents, as strange as it might sound, he actually enjoyed being with them.
And then they’d found there was a bonus that neither of them had considered. His siblings.
Cathy and the others, with all their kids, were all over him, as if they recognized he was kindred. This complicated Anastasia’s original plan of moving away as soon as the ceremony was over and seeing their families as little as possible. Ivan deserved to have the pleasure of knowing his siblings and being part of their lives, to bask in their eagerness and admiration, in what she knew would turn to love.