Page 39 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“As long as it’s what I want,” she said, hearing what he didn’t say.

Demyan lifted one shoulder under his black blazer. “Maybe the issue is that I was never good at figuring out what it was you wanted, Vera. You were always way too busy running ahead of me to just grab it for yourself. That was my fault, too. I told you to do it.”

“We’ve got five minutes to be on the road, comrade! Let’s move!”

Vera hadn’t even noticed that Igor rolled down the passenger side window to shout at the two on the steps, but it quickly brought her back to the bigger issue at hand.

“I know this seems fast to you, me and him,” she tried to clarify.

Demyan let out a tired laugh. “Oh, Vera, that’s not even half the problem.”

“Okay, then who he is, or—”

“Again, not scratching the surface.”

Vera blew a hard breath out, asking, “Then what is it? I can’t read minds, and I don’t want you to leave angry or sad. Not with me. It’s not the greatest time, you know? I don’t want to think for the next six or seven weeks that you don’t want me to do this, because I am doing it, Papa.”

“I know you are.” Demyan smiled that same comforting grin he used to give her when she was just a girl, and came shouting for him for one reason or another. When she needed her dad. “All of this makes me think I let you run so far ahead for so long that I’m never going to catch you again. Like you’re not mine, anymore. You’re not ever coming back to me, and now I have to give you away on top of it all, too.”

She blinked again, but that time, a tear or two escaped and fell from her lashes. Her father was right there to wipe it away, already turning with a hand raised for his gentle fingertips to sweep off the wetness from her cheeks, and the following tears that fell, too.

He pulled her in for a tight hug. His arms suffocated her into the expanse of his chest and crushed her there until she couldn’t breathe. Vera didn’t pull away.

She didn’t want to.

Until it felt like time stood still around them, and she couldn’t even hear the wind howling or the rain pounding down on the ground, Vera didn’t move from the safety and warmth of her father’s hug. He kissed the top of her head, and rubbed a hand soothingly across her shoulders before he muttered thickly, “He’s going to shout at me to hurry up again.”

“Igor isn’t so bad,” she sniffled as Demyan pulled away.

“At least, he listens.”

Vera didn’t know what that meant.

She had other things to say, anyway.

“I love you, Papa,” she told him.

Demyan’s lips split with a wide smile. “I know, my dushka.”

“And I’m not still running away. Not from you, or myself. Not from anyone.”

“No?”

Vera shook her head. “I just found a place where I might want to call my home.”

Or rather, a man that felt like the closest thing to it.

“I’m sorry if it’s not the home you wanted for me, Papa,” she added quieter.

“Vera, I only want you to be happy.”

*

Hours after Vera watched Igor drive her father down the long, winding drive, and a phone call with her mother that lasted longer than any in her recent memory, she was still sitting in the same spot where she’d sat to think after Demyan left. Staring out the sliding doors leading out of Vaslav’s den, her questions for herself demanded more questions as the sunlight turned to darkness right before her eyes.

Mira had only checked in on her a couple of times, both for meals. She didn’t refuse the food, but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Thankfully, Mira didn’t seem to be hurt by that.

Vera didn’t even wonder where Vaslav spent his day after her father’s departure because she didn’t have to. Early in the late morning before, Mira had made her way down to the guesthouse to give Vera a message.