by Bethany-Kris
Vera released his wrist to wipe away the proof of her tears. “I didn’t mean to, I just ...”
“It’s only ashes. She’s been dead longer than we were married.”
“It’s not only ashes, Vas.”
Well ...
That’s what he told himself.
He needed to.
“Let me get some water in it. Is there anywhere you’d like to put the pot? I think the windowsills in here are too small now for the size of this one I brought along.”
Vera laughed, and while the sound was weak, it was also still true. And beautiful. A sound he wouldn’t mind hearing even when he was in the grips of a migraine where every little noise sent him running for quiet relief. He wondered if she thought his only reason for coming there was to transplant what remained of his dead wife’s ashes into her shrub, but that really wasn’t the case.
“If I asked, would you tell me more about her—and you?” Vera asked while he tipped the can’s spout in along the rim of the pot, and the water spilled out. “I would have liked to know her, if she was the type to accept an apology through the gift of a shrub.”
Vaslav set the can back down, and glanced Vera’s way to find she was smiling in that sweet, perfect way. A way that curved her small pout just enough to brighten her whole face and every feature. “Vera, you did know her. She trained every ballerina that walked through the doors of The Swan House for ten years.”
He saw it in her eyes when it clicked; when Vera knew who his wife had been, and how she was connected to Irina in her own way. He didn’t blame her for not being able to put the picture together before now—the first name was a common one in Russia, and Vera had been dealing with an exceedingly difficult situation around the same time his wife was killed. Not to mention, he hadn’t once visited the house of ballet while she was alive to keep a distance between his business with the mafiya and his wife’s first love.
Not that it mattered.
“Irina Abramova,” Vera said as she took a seat in one of the chairs he’d pulled away from the table to make room to work. “Feliks’ sister.”
“I don’t like to think of them as related, if I’m being honest.”
“Oh, my God.” She wouldn’t meet his stare, then, rocking forward on the chair as the heels of her palm met her forehead. “I didn’t even realize—”
“Why I hated him so much—why he can’t even look me in the face?”
Vera’s head snapped up, and he was stunned to see more tears had escaped from her eyes. “She died the night I had my accident.”
Vaslav nodded once. “She was killed on the same night you fell on the stage and broke your ankle, yes.”
“I heard she was coming to see the show because it was the last one we were having in Moscow and—”
“She was,” he interjected. “Feliks gave her a time to leave the house. He’d sent a car, or so I was told. The car never came, and she never made it off the steps.”
The same steps that still led up to the house. The very ones he’d spent an entire night scrubbing with bleach to remove the stains that actually took a year to fade. He almost took a sledgehammer to the goddamn things just to get that image out of his head, but he realized that was burned there forever.
So many memories of Irina were lost to the recesses of his damaged brain—filed away where he couldn’t reach them anymore. But that one?
Oh, that one was as fresh as it had ever been.
Horror stared back from Vera.
Vas was unmoved.
None of this was new to him.
Reality was not his friend.
No one was.
Vera’s stare darted from him to the potted shrub on the table. “I can’t remember if I ever learned why or how she died, I think I was—”
“Probably in and out of physical rehab around then,” he interrupted, not unkindly. It wasn’t Vera’s fault that she didn’t have the details surrounding his wife’s murder, and he had no plans to offer them now. “The papers were careful about covering it, as well. The rest of the media, too.”
Vera’s chin trembled, but she still lifted it so they could see one another when she said, “Were they careful because of her connections to ... well, you know what I mean, right?”
He did.
“Partly,” he replied. “And partly because I had already made several threats after speculation was published that hit a little too close to home. Her father had her killed; he’d already dishonored her with a bullet to the face that insured the people who loved her wouldn’t get to say goodbye to the person they had known. The rest of the world didn’t need to sensationalize something that had only been meant to punish me. She’d suffered enough; she wouldn’t be disrespected after her death, too.”
So much for not sharing, he told himself.
“Well, not while I was alive, anyway,” Vaslav added after a moment. Although, every day after that had felt like his own slow death that he couldn’t escape.
Yet, here he was.
Still living.
Or something of the sort.
Vera let out another hard exhale, but otherwise, remained seated in the chair absorbing what she had learned. He didn’t fault her for needing the time.
Reaching for the pot, he yanked the heavy plant off the table and asked, “Have you thought of a good place for it to go yet?”
“Not really.”
“Let me find one, then, and then I think I had better leave.”
She didn’t argue.
In fact, she didn’t even follow him out of the kitchen.
8.
Is he nervous?
As fast as the thought came into her head, Vera could have laughed it away from the absurdity alone. But it wasn’t all that ridiculous of an idea because the second time she peered through the clear strips between the frosted glass of her front door’s windows, she once again watched Vaslav take two steps on the path toward her villa before he hesitated in taking another, even glancing back over his shoulder where his white Rolls was still parked on the side of the street. It was the way he rocked on his heels, hands fisted into his pockets that gave away the truth.
She’d been right.
Vaslav was nervous.
He ended up placing the shrub in the small sunroom at the back of the villa, proclaiming it would have enough sunlight for the plant, but it also gave it lots of room to grow as long as she didn’t crowd it. Almost as soon as he found the new home, while Vera was still sitting at her kitchen table, Vaslav decided it was time for him to go.
So much for staying.
Yet, as she watched him hesitate on her walkway like he was reconsidering returning to her front door for a reason she didn’t know, Vera lost the lingering bitterness at his abrupt departure. She tried to give the man grace when he seemingly acted without reason or care. Just because he could deliver words with a cold callousness that stung didn’t mean he meant for it to hurt.
It was the emotional and mental whiplash he caused without even trying that left her battered like a flag in the wind.
Vera almost pulled her door open as Vaslav made his final decision as his strides came for her front stoop but stopped when he paused again. She had to move a bit to see the reason why—or rather, who he stopped to speak to.
Mr. Anatoly, her neighbor, leaned over the fence that separated their villas. With one hand on his cane, something she didn’t notice him using very often, and the other on the fence, he nodded at the man standing on Vera’s walkway. The two passed words between one another, and Mr. Anatoly even lifted his cane and waved the rubber end at Vaslav’s vehicle like he had something to say about that, too.
She might have let the two share their words without interrupting, but the scowl on Vaslav’s face as he was made to stand there and listen to the old man said he wasn’t pleased about it. Mr. Anatoly meant no harm; he just looked out for her when he could.
Pulling open the door, Vera poked her head out and called to the two men, “Is everything okay?
”
At the same time, she heard Vaslav say to Mr. Anatoly, “Are you going to do this every fucking time you see me here?”
Mr. Anatoly glanced Vera’s way, but that didn’t stop him from replying, “I very well might, Mr. Pashkov. It just depends.”
“On what?”
Vera blinked a bit at the tone of the conversation, not liking what she heard. “Vas, did you forget something?”
The second time she spoke seemed to do the trick because he finally glanced away from her neighbor to notice her. Despite the tension she saw in his grinding jaw, he offered her something akin to a smile that she was sure was meant for comfort.
Except it wasn’t comforting.
Turning back to the neighbor, she was sure she heard Vaslav mutter, “Well, if we’re going to do this the next time, I’m sure you can wait for whatever you had to say, no?”
“Dasvidanyia—until we meet again, Mr. Pashkov.”
That was all Mr. Anatoly offered before he spun around using the leg of his cane and headed for his front stoop without a look back. Vaslav took an extra second to glower at the retreating back of the old man, and then he too stepped away from the edge of the fence. Before long, he was climbing the stairs of Vera’s stoop and standing in front of her door.
“Well, did you?” she asked.
A furrow formed between his thick, dark brows. “Did I what?”
“Forget something,” she clarified, shrugging. “Because you seemed pretty determined to leave about five or so minutes ago. You barely even said goodbye.”
Vaslav dragged a hand down his bearded chin while his sharp gaze drifted over her in a way that reminded her of a predator. “I don’t like your neighbor.”
“He’s fine.”
“He’s nosy.”
Vera suppressed a grin.
Barely.
“I like him—he taught me how to garden and makes sure no one’s bothering me when he sees strangers at my place.”
That statement made Vaslav’s scowl melt away, but his expression didn’t give away his feelings on the matter.
“I’m not very good at this,” he told her.
“At what?”
Gesturing between them, Vaslav said only, “This.”
“I don’t know what this is, Vas.”
That wasn’t the response he wanted if the way his teeth clenched were any indication. When his stare narrowed in on her again, Vera had to fight the urge to drop his gaze because holding it left her with a heat deep in her belly that she just couldn’t explain. The last time she’d felt that, he’d told her to crawl across the floor like a kitten would if she wanted him.
Even then, he hadn’t given her everything she wanted.
Not that it wasn’t worth it.
“Let me make it clear, then,” Vaslav said.
“And just what is that supposed to me—”
She didn’t even get the chance to finish the question before he closed the space between himself and her door. His hand wrapped around the edge, shoving the door out of her grip and open as he crowded her space. She didn’t even notice the way the door banged into the wall because the hand he used to shove it open had found the middle of her chest, clenching into the fabric of her sweater dress to keep her in place as he yanked her toward him.
Vera practically stumbled into Vaslav’s chest, his fist between them the only thing keeping them separated. By mere inches. She was stuck like that, in the entry of her villa with the door wide open for anyone to see them if they passed by her home, as she stared up at the dark eyes of a man who all but refused to look away.
“Vera,” he murmured, her name drawing slowly from his lips.
She sucked in a gulp of air, willing it to steady her when she replied, “Yes?”
“I made my intentions known—they won’t change, hmm? You know what they are.”
He couldn’t be serious.
This man.
She shouldn’t have laughed, but she did. At least, he didn’t seem offended.
“I’m not marrying you,” she told him.
He shook his head while a smirk formed on that sinful mouth of his. It was more tempting when he was this close; it took far more effort than she was willing to admit to stop from leaning up to kiss him. It would only take a second, less than a breath. She could already feel the tingling tease of his beard against her sensitive skin.
“That’s absurd,” she added. “Crazy.”
Although, quieter.
Vaslav’s hand let go of her dress but caught her under the chin with only his forefinger and thumb. “Silly girl. You still think you have a choice.”
She didn’t hear him, or maybe she just didn’t care to listen.
Not really.
Vera was too caught up in the way he leaned in the same way she had thought about doing. His kiss came fast—just the barest graze of his lips against hers—but the second he felt her mouth move against his to take what he offered; his gentleness was gone. Her back found a wall when he shoved them against it, never once breaking their kiss while his tongue darted past her parted lips to seek what he wanted to find.
Helpless to the way he consumed her in every stroke of his tongue and sweep of his lips, she melted into him. Into the way he smelled, like a man who spent a good portion of his day outdoors. Crisp and woodsy. The weight of it blanketed her as he practically licked the breath from the tip of her tongue.
Vera was breathless when he pulled away, and shuddered from every soft kiss he dotted along her trembling lips and down her chin. Her head stayed tipped back against the wall, but she found it was hard to look him in the eyes again when her heart thrummed harder with each and every kiss.
“Like a little hummingbird, my kisska,” he told her as his mouth traveled down her throat and along the side of her neck. “I can see your heart racing. I can taste it.”
He did, too.
Sucking on her pulse until she exhaled a breathy sigh. It should be shameful how she could feel the wetness pooling in her panties and how an ache started between her thighs. Except she liked it too much to feel anything bad about the way her body responded to his attention and touch.
Then, he grabbed her waist hard enough to snap her attention back to him whether she could stand to look him in the eyes or not. Straightening to his full height, his mouth finally left her body, giving her enough sense to feel steady, but he didn’t move away. She was still trapped beneath him against the wall.
It wasn’t that bad of a place to be.
“We’re not even lovers, we’re barely friends,” she whispered. “You can’t make me be your wife.”
“Would you like it if I took that as a challenge? Be careful, I might have already.”
God.
A shiver chased his threat straight down her spine. She shouldn’t like that—the way he could make a simple question feel like a dangerous promise.
Instead of waiting for her answer, Vaslav licked his lips and said, “Did you see me outside?”
Vera’s brow dipped lower. “With Mr. Anatoly?”
“Before. When I hauled the pail out to the car. Were you watching me act like a fool on your walkway?”
She could have lied.
What would be the point?
“You were coming back ... or I thought so,” she said. “It kind of seemed like you couldn’t decide there for a second.”
He’d been nervous.
She didn’t say that, though.
He nodded. “To thank you.”
“You don’t need to do that. I only listened to you talk about your wife a little. Sometimes that’s all someone needs. Time to talk. Someone to listen.”
“Net, it’s my birthday. And I woke up today wanting to do something because of it. I never thought I’d make it out of prison alive, never mind turning forty-seven. A day I don’t even celebrate felt like an achievement the moment I opened my goddamn eyes. But who was I going to spend it with?”
Vera blinked.
Vaslav pur
sed his lips, sucking air between his teeth before muttering, “You, Vera. I wanted to spend it with you.”
“You didn’t even stay more than an hour.”
“Maybe the hour was all I needed, no? What I know, I like.”
Without warning, he leaned down and pressed a lingering, but soft, kiss against her still lips. She couldn’t escape the kiss—didn’t even want to—but the rational part of her brain was screaming at her to listen. Dumb, she was not. Vaslav happened to be a dangerous man, who for whatever reason, set his sights on her. It should concern her more that she lost all control of her sensibility when he kissed her.
Vaslav pulled away from the kiss only to pinch her tender chin between his finger and thumb, muttering, “Now look at you—all red and swollen. You’re too soft for me, ballerina.”
His touch brought back the same delicious burn as his beard did scraping over her sensitive skin when he kissed her.
“You need a better beard oil.”
He grunted out a disgruntled noise. “I ran out of what I like.”
It would be so much easier for her if his presence didn’t make her feel almost airless. Weightless, and unseen. To the rest of the world, anyway. She could forget right where they stood, what had come before that moment, all to be looking at him.
And Vas?
All he did was demand, “Now tell me what you know, yes?”
It wasn’t a question, though he posed it like one. An open-ended one that came with his heavy tone. An order he expected her to follow because he was the kind of man who accepted nothing less. Still intoxicated by his closeness and his overbearing demeanor that drove her crazy left her unsure of how to respond. She knew a great deal about a lot of things, and very little about much more.
Between them there was only one thing she thought was important.
“All I know,” she started, “is that you want me to be your wife.”
Not why.
Or when.
Those seemed like important details to her.
“I can’t marry a man who doesn’t love me,” Vera said. “Who won’t even give me a reason why he wants to marry me other than he likes what he sees.”
