Page 18 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“But apparently,” he mused, “not heard.”

Demyan wisely chose to be quiet.

Peering down at Vera again where she sat at the outdoor dining table next to him, Vaslav asked, “And what about December first, yeah? I didn’t forget.”

She finally took her gaze away from the dog in the water who had, in fact, found a stick. He really needed to join the pup down here more. It was Marrow’s favorite spot.

For obvious reasons.

“I thought it would be a good date,” Vera told him.

“Yes, but for what?”

She gestured at her father. “He asked if I’d picked one for the wedding.”

Ah.

There was the missing piece; the one bit of missing information from the initial conversation he hadn’t been properly engaging at the table.

His surprised hum had Vera’s brow lifting higher before she popped a piece of sliced pickle into her mouth, and then sucked the juice from the tip of her thumb. The staple at any Russian’s meal, the pickle gave her something to chew around her barely suppressed grin.

She put him on the spot.

Knew she’d done it.

And liked it.

Cheeky witch.

Vaslav’s gaze narrowed slightly at her challenge.

He considered asking her right then and there where she planned on sleeping that night. He had an opinion on the matter, of course, but did she want to discuss it right now?

“Vera,” he warned.

The tone should have done it.

A dainty shrug fell from her bare shoulder where the neckline of her dress draped down to expose everything from her collarbone to her shoulder blade. “Yeah. It’ll be my birthday and our anniversary on the same day.”

Vera’s gaze drifted her father’s way when Demyan said, “I hear a common complaint between wives and their husbands is the man being forgetful of certain times of the year. Like important dates. Could be useful.”

Vaslav stiffened, turning to ice in an instant. The switch that flipped on in his brain went from zero to sixty instantly. It would have been nothing, meant nothing, for him to reach across the table in that moment to get a better grip on Demyan’s head to smash it through the pristine glass beneath their plates.

He didn’t know where the self-control came from that held Vaslav back from giving into the sudden, intrusive violent urges toward his unwanted and resentful guest, but it may have been the fact that being near Vera made him ... happy.

Or something like it.

Content, at least.

It just wasn’t enough to stop him from wanting to kill her father.

He didn’t know if the other two people at the table noticed the sudden change in his demeanor. Frankly, he didn’t give either of them the time to before he’d stood up from the table with enough abruptness to make Vera jump beside him. Her shocked, widening stare followed him as he scrubbed a hand down his thicker, but not by much, growth of facial hair on his throat, and walked away from the lunch without a single glance back.

Utensils clattered at his departure.

“Vas?” Vera called. “Where are you going?”

It was only a few strides from the table before he slid through the sliding glass doors leading into the rear rooms of the guesthouse’s ground level.