Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            Colton snorted and then stopped himself. “Holy shit, dude. Are you serious?”

            His chest fizzed and buzzed with anxious joy, as if the bubbles from the champagne had risen again. Was this her answer? Was this her way of telling him she’d made a decision? Elena’s eyes found his from across the ballroom. Vlad opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried to go to her, but his feet wouldn’t move.

            Without warning, Elena spun around and walked back out.

            A wave of déjà vu washed over him. Only a few months after she joined him in America, he watched her sling a backpack over her shoulder and disappear into a security line at the airport for a flight to Chicago. His heart had begged him to go after her, to tell her to please stay with him, but his mama—always the romantic—had told him it would take time.

            “Be patient with her. ‘I let a captive bird go winging . . . ’ ”

            Vlad forlornly finished the stanza of the poem. “ ‘To greet the radiant spring’s rebirth.’ ”

            “She needs time, Vlad. If she needs to go away to find herself, to find her rebirth, you have to let her. She will find her way back to you.”

            Had she finally found her way back to him? Vlad broke free of the shackles of indecision and forced his feet to move. The hallway outside the ballroom was crowded with wedding guests and sloppy drunks who’d just returned from a night of honky-tonking. He spotted Elena about fifty feet ahead, walking so fast it might have just been easier for her to break into a jog.

            He raised his voice above the din of conversations and laughter. “Elena, wait.”

            She kept walking, so he broke into a jog and switched to their native Russian as he caught up to her. “Elena, please stop. Where are you going?”

            She stopped so quickly that she skidded and nearly toppled over in her high heels. Her long red dress swirled around her legs. On instinct, he shot out his hands to steady her, wrapping his fingers gently around her bare elbows.

            “Be careful,” he whispered, his voice a low rasp because the shock of touching her had stolen all the air from his lungs.

            She slowly turned around, and with regret, he let his hands fall away. She radiated heat and smelled like comfort. “I can’t believe you’re here,” he said, still speaking Russian, because that’s what they did. They always used their native language with each other. “You look so beautiful.”

            Elena shook her head and refused to meet his gaze. “I’m sorry. I should have called. I shouldn’t have surprised you like this.”

            He reached again for her elbows. “This is the best surprise of my life.”

            Her eyes darted left and then right. Anywhere but at him. “Vlad, maybe I should just wait for you at home. I don’t want to interrupt—”

            “You’re not interrupting. I want you here.”

            She bit her lip and hugged her torso.

            “Hey,” he said. He took a bold chance of caressing the underside of her chin to encourage her to look at him. “Are you nervous to meet my friends? You don’t need to be. They will love you. I promise. They’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”

            “Vlad, you don’t understand. I thought . . . I thought this would make it easier. I thought I could come here, and we could meet on friendly terms and it would be easier this way. But then I heard your speech, and I saw you with them, and I—I don’t belong here. I’m not part of this. I never was.” Her voice shook, and her lip began to tremble.

            And suddenly, reality was like a hard hit on the ice. Cold and jarring. His stomach pitched as he put an extra foot of distance between them. “Elena, what—what are you doing here?”

            “I’m sorry . . .” She barely got the words out. “I’m going back to Russia.”





CHAPTER ONE


            Six months later


In another era, the neglected building on the south bank of the Cumberland River might have been quaint and inviting. Happy, even. But no more.

            Empty, broken flower boxes hung beneath windows that had been painted black and boarded up from the inside. The thin scraps of what had once been red-and-white awnings flapped in the humid June breeze, clinging to the building’s past like ghosts who whispered of the dangers that awaited. Only fools would willingly fail to heed their warning, but Vlad had already proven himself a fool. And even as his mind berated his body for its weakness, his skin prickled in anticipation of the sweet relief he knew he would find once he knocked on the door.