Page 21 of The Breath Before Forever

As her fingers rapped a beat against the next page of her book, Vera peered up and across the room at him with an almost saccharine smile. Not entirely true, but he wouldn’t call her on it. “For the record, though, it still doesn’t help with the smell. Mira agreed.”

Dammit.

It irked him more than anything that she was able to call him out on his recent cannabis use without a hint of judgement or even annoyance, all the while, acting as if she hadn’t asked it at all.

Nude, mind you. Oh, yeah, he forgot to mention that part.

Well, not entirely.

The silk robe she wore fell over her dainty shoulders but remained open on both ends, hanging like a thin sheet around her hips and the stool. White like the simple cotton panties she wore, the rest of her chest and front was bare. Nonetheless, the robe offered no shield for her naked breasts, and he found it particularly hard to look away when she was practically a tease sitting there like that just out of his reach. With one foot resting to the tile floor, and the other perched higher on the bottom rung of the stool, she didn’t seem concerned with her lack of clothes.

Or the place she sat.

Not to mention, him.

“The weed helps with my appetite,” he informed.

Vera didn’t act shocked at the news, but he didn’t care either way. The fact that the cannabis did help was what really mattered, so whoever disliked the smell could kick fucking rocks all the way to the lake for all he gave a damn.

“You could share it once in a while,” she pointed out, peeking up at him through her dark lashes.

He might consider it.

Except he had other things on his mind.

“Is the book that good?” he asked.

Vera didn’t reply.

“The cigarette, then?”

Vera did sigh at that question. “You’ve got me up to one a day, now. It’s becoming a problem.”

He scoffed. “Me? How did I do it?”

“Was there a problem with your suit?” Vera flipped another page, but Vaslav was almost one hundred percent sure she hadn’t actually read the previous pages before doing so. “It’s too late to get it fixed, right? Mira said it was sent in from the city last night.”

She took another drag from the cigarette that was only half gone. From the point he’d woken up and did his business in the bathroom before running downstairs to grab the suit that had been delivered the night before, she somehow managed to find her way into his bathroom to light the tiny white stick and surprise him.

And he wasn’t sure why. Vera had been all too content with leaving him to his own devices earlier in the week. He hadn’t expected today to be any different.

Becoming bedmates with the opposite sex was one thing, but housemates was another monster altogether. Vaslav could count the number of women he’d lived with over his lifetime on one hand with a finger to spare. As his mother and Mira had been two of the women he lived under the same roof with, he hadn’t shared a bed with them. Obviously. Irina, on the other hand, had seemed to take over every available square inch of his life and home that she could the second he let her do it. A strong woman with an equally strong will to ingratiate her ways and expectations on her husband, he’d adored her too much to refuse her anything. Not to mention, the sex after the fights had been fantastic.

Vera was not the same.

Not that he expected her to be, really.

Her things took up less space in their mutual closet than his own did. Tidiness certainly wasn’t an issue because for her, everything had a place, and it went in that place when she was done with it. The woman could even set an alarm and roll out of bed, get ready for her day, and never once disturb his pitiful sleep while she did it.

Vera didn’t complain, either. It wasn’t as if she moved into Vaslav’s home expected to behave a certain way or do those things—that was just how she seemed to be, and he liked it, frankly. He liked that for the most part, she didn’t get in the way, but at the same time, was a companion he hadn’t realized he needed all along. It made their fresh marriage and days feel less strange, if that was possible. New things brought changes he didn’t manage well, but somehow she swept into his home like a permanent fixture that hadn’t left.

Or perhaps the universe had finally given him something worth the many sacrifices he’d paid over his lifetime in the form of a woman he couldn’t even hate if he tried. Especially when he was mad at her.

He blamed her for that, too.

“He told me to wear a cashmere sweater under the blazer,” Vaslav said, settling on being the one who broke the silence between the two.

“Who?” Vera asked.