Page 25 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

Vera gave it, anyway. “I didn’t ask you to love him, you’re not the one who has to.”

Demyan didn’t push the line she drew in the sand with that statement, instead asking, “But do you? Do you love him?”

She refused to drop her father’s piercing stare when she replied only, “And I didn’t say you had to like him, either.”

Demyan shook his head and failed to suppress a frustrated grin that he eventually scrubbed away with the palm of his hand. “God, you’re your mother all over. Stubborn like nothing. Roman’s gonna give me a stroke before he’s thirty but you—”

“Was she like me?” Vera asked, then.

That stopped her father right up.

Demyan tipped his chin a bit higher as he eyed Vera and the way she hugged her oversized cardigan close to keep the cold away from her bare legs and arms. She hadn’t bothered to change out of the tank top and cotton shorts she wore to bed.

He nodded at her instead of answering the question, and said, “Why don’t you get in the house? I managed to keep the fireplace going last night. You don’t need to be out here.”

She didn’t move. “I meant Gia, not Claire.”

Demyan swallowed audibly while his lips pressed together, and he stared out at the lake. Anywhere but at Vera for more than a handful of seconds. “Yeah, I know,” he said, emotion thick in his hoarse voice. “Frankly, she never liked to listen to me, either, Vera.”

Huh.

“Your brother bet me a thousand dollars I wouldn’t be able to even get a vacation out of you.”

Vera’s brow dipped. “A vacation?”

“Like a date and time. Even a plan, Vera.” Demyan rolled his eyes and slapped a hand against the top of the post as he pushed away from it. “I should have shut my mouth; Roman likes taking my money too much. He gets a complex from it.”

“In the spring,” she said suddenly.

Demyan’s head snapped up at that. “For what?”

“I’ll come home to visit in the spring.”

That declaration only had her father staring toward the arch of overhanging trees where the dirt road entered the drive of the private guesthouse. Without saying anything at all, his gaze said it all. Says who?

“Maybe I can convince Vaslav to take a late honeymoon to the states,” Vera said.

Not seriously.

Demyan barked out a laugh. “Right, I’ll believe that one when I see it. From what I hear, that man doesn’t leave this country unless he has no other choice. People watch, see ... he’s known for making it very hard for anyone to find him in the first damn place. If you think he’ll be seen within fifty miles of me, you’re not as smart as I gave you credit for.” Gesturing at their surroundings, he added, “Why do you think he’s put me in a little bubble where only he knows I exist for the moment? It’s not even personal. He just doesn’t do business that way. And a ring on your finger won’t change any of that, I promise you.”

The news didn’t shock her.

His account of it, however, did.

“Men in familiar circles, right?” she asked, knowing her father would understand perfectly fine. Of course, he’d have an intimate look at Vaslav Pashkov, the international criminal. Birds of a feather flocked together. Wasn’t that how the saying went?

Demyan openly frowned. “I never hid the things I did from you. I didn’t pretend to be a different man from who I was. Can he say the same? Do you even know what bed the beast is making for you?”

She hated that he was right.

And that it still didn’t make a difference.

“What does it matter about the bed,” she returned, wanting this to be the last time she had this conversation with her father, “as long as he’s in it with me?”

*

It was closing in on lunchtime before Vera finally learned the truth about Vaslav’s lack of appearance that morning. She didn’t pretend to be pleased about the sight that greeted her inside the man’s master bathroom, either.