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I just hate him, okay?
I hate him. And I hate how he makes me feel.
Because I’m not supposed to feel thisgoodwith him.
I’m not supposed to feel this relieved or this safe. Or thistrusting.
“You’ve got a great kid, Clara. She deserves better than the world has given her.”
I open my mouth to protest, to tell him exactly how insulting that is, but again—he holds a hand up to silence me long enough to explain.
“I mean that not as a dig against you,” he continues, “but just as a fact. She’s too intelligent and too bright to suffer under the thumb of abuse and poverty. You’re right: I’m not her father. But I am in charge of her safety and her well-being. Providing her with an education and opportunities you and I both know wouldn’t otherwise be within reach is fulfilling my duties as her protector. Something her fucking ‘father’ never did.”
Tears sting my eyes. I have to look away before he sees them.
I hate how so damn relieved I feel because of him. I hate how full my heart is every time I see him dote on Willow the way she should have always been doted on by Martin.
And, even now, sitting in Demyen’s office discussing her education and future, I hate myself for having denied her all of this for so long.
And why? Because I was too fucking terrified to stand up for myself. To stand up forher.
“Thank you” is all I manage to croak through the lump in my throat.
“Clara. Look at me.”
I do. It’s hard to do, but I do it anyway.
Demyen tilts his head to one side as he looks back at me like he’s trying to decide something. Finally, he sighs. “You and I… Well, let’s not even go there. It’s a fucking mess. But things don’t have to be messy for Willow. And even though you and I have a ton of shit to deal with, none of that is on her. Whatever happens to you—or to me, for that matter—all I’m saying is, Willow’s safe. She’ll always be safe. I’m giving her the life and the resources I wish I had when I was her age. Let me do that much.”
He opened the door, metaphorically speaking. I have to walk through it. “Did you attend a private school?”
A shadow passes over his face. I almost regret asking, but I have to know. He mentioned not having the resources he’s giving her and that surprises me. I figured he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth.
“I did.” His voice sounds tense, and he looks away for a moment. “But not because my parents cared about my education. Fuck, I’m pretty sure if my father sent me to boarding school in Tibet, she wouldn’t have noticed.”
As maddening and confusing I find him, my heart breaks for the child he once was. And as fucked-up as my own childhood was, I can’t imagine having a mother who didn’t care. So I make the mistake of telling him precisely that.
“I can’t imagine what it was like?—”
“No, you fucking can’t.” Demyen goes tense. His eyes are pitch dark as he wades through the memories. “Tolya and I were used to keep up appearances, but a whole lot of goodthatdid. Once word got out through the inner circles that my dearest mother was spreading her legs for half the city, well…” He shrugs. “Tolya defended me from the beatings at school until I was old enough to throw my own punches. But by then, our father suspected I wasn’t even his, just some bastard of my mother’s whoring. So he didn’t fucking care if I came home with straight A’s or broken ribs.”
I want to reach for him. I want to hug him. I want to hug the little boy somewhere deep inside him and tell him it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay.
But we both know that’s a lie.
Everything is fucked-up.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.
His gaze flickers back to me, hard and accusing. “For what? Throwing a good man, mybrother, into prison? Or forcing me into the life I once thought I had the chance to escape?”
I freeze.
I never considered that. Not once. The way Demyen swaggers through the days and nights lording his power and prestige over me, over everyone else within a fifty-mile radius, it’s easy to assume this is everything he wanted. That it’s all by his design, catered to his whim.
I never, not for a single, solitary second, wondered if he actuallywantedit.
“I’m just sorry.”
