Page 67 of The Beast of Moscow

Vera left the rest of her feelings unsaid; they weren’t really needed, and she already told Hannah exactly what she thought and felt a long time ago. Long before she divorced Viktor and fled Moscow for Italy where her mother was waiting to be a haven.

She only wanted her friend to be happy and safe, and Hannah finally was.

Nothing else mattered.

*

“We’re doing breakfast tomorrow morning anyway, right?” Hannah asked, swinging around where she sat on the wooden bench only fifty feet away from one of four feet that made up the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. “Why don’t you just stay the night with me at my hotel?”

“I could,” Vera replied, tossing what remained of her ice-cream sundae into the trash bin.

The thing about her and Hannah?

They liked to eat.

A lot.

Almost all of their activities and travel over the day included some kind of snack or treat to try. Hannah had even gone as far to create a map on her phone for the two to follow like a scavenger hunt of sweet and savory treats.

Paris style.

Or rather, Hannah style.

Taking the other side of the bench to sit, Vera crossed her legs and leaned closer to her friend to see the picture Hannah offered on her phone. The shot of Hannah standing on mossy green cliffs with raging waves at her back had Vera’s heart skipping a beat.

“You look happy,” she said.

“I was. Do you know how slippery moss is?”

Vera nodded, sitting straight again as Hannah tucked away her phone. “Slippery enough to know I wouldn’t have stood that close to the edge for a picture.”

“You never were a risk taker.”

Well ... Vera didn’t necessarily believe that. Her risks simply didn’t look the same as others. Not that she bothered to say so—Hannah knew; her comment hadn’t even stung a little.

“Anyway, I could stay with you tonight,” she said, bringing their conversation back to Hannah’s original question. “The driver won’t be there tomorrow to pick me up until ten, I think, so—”

“Speaking of which,” Hannah jumped in to say with a grin.

The glow from the lights on the lit-up tower overhead almost haloed Vera’s friend to make her seem even more like an angel when she posed her next question, “You haven’t said very much about the friend you came here with ... how come?”

“Not for a lack of you asking.”

Hannah didn’t even look a bit ashamed. “And?”

“Too bad we didn’t make it over here before sunset to see the tower light up, huh?”

She even turned away from her friend as she made that comment about the infamous iron lady in hopes that Hannah would get the point. Vera just wasn’t talking when it came to Vaslav, whose name her friend had not yet even learned. There wasn’t much to tell anyway.

“Stop it,” Hannah groused, “you’re not even playing fair.”

“There’s nothing to play.”

“Nothing to tell, you mean.”

Vera shot her companion a wink.

Hannah scrunched her nose up right back.