The Beauty Who Loved Him by Bethany-Kris

2.

“I didn’t expect youto come around today,” Vaslav said as his fingers skimmed back down the silky soft column of Vera’s throat. She swallowed against the touch, but it was the way he could feel her skin pebbling that tested his poor self-control.

“Yes, you did.”

A blatant challenge.

Vera even cocked an eyebrow when she added, “You did.”

She didn’t call him out on why, and he opted not to push her into it just yet. Instead, she seemed content to let her head roll forward while his fingers ghosted over her thrumming pulse on the side of her neck before sweeping along her bare shoulder. The cable knit cashmere dress, a stone grey that complimented her porcelain flesh, left little to his imagination as he gobbled in the view of the low dip of the neckline showcasing the valleys of her breasts. With a skirt that ended just above her knees, the length was at least appropriate enough in that regard.

Everything else about it ...

Sin.

Skin-tight with looser sleeves she’d pushed up to her elbows, the very pattern accentuated her hips, and a tight waistline. A similarly low back gave him more skin to enjoy with the tips of his fingers while he let their silence stretch on even if she wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“You’re wearing heels again.”

She had the nerve to shift her crossed legs one over the other under the table just to draw his eyes to the ankle-high suede boots with a heel slightly longer than what he would consider safe.

“Wedges,” Vera all but scoffed.

“If you break your ankle walking in—”

“Don’t baby me.”

Vaslav’s fingers tangled into the wispy, soft ends of her loose hair, and he tugged hard enough to hurt. Of course, it also pulled her head back so those sky-blue eyes of hers were locked firmly on him. Just the way he liked.

Even if he did find fire staring back.

“I would never,” he returned, smirking only a little when he added, “We both know that’s a job for your father.”

A flush crept up her chest and throat at his blatant taunt, but she didn’t bite the bait. Not even when he lifted his brow to make it clear he could plainly see the elephant in the room even if she wanted to pretend differently.

“Are you purposely being a prick?” Vera asked, then.

Vaslav shrugged. “I did think you were being a little cold.”

So, yeah.

“Well, I think you look a little tired, but you don’t see me pointing it out, Vas.”

That perked his amusement.

Only a bit.

“Krasavitsa, beauty, I know how I look,” he said without inflection. “I have mirrors.”

And dark circles, thanks to the lack of sleep over the past forty-eight hours. The tail-end of a raging migraine kept his pain at a steady, sharp five on a one-to-ten scale as well. Amongst a list of other sufferings and complaints that wouldn’t make a damn difference to where this conversation was going, and none that he cared to share with her.

She didn’t need to worry.

Not about him.

“But no seizures lately,” Vaslav noted.

More to himself than Vera.

She still heard her.

“Oh?” Her whole face brightened.

“I’m about due for one, really.”

That didn’t impress Vera at all if the way her gaze narrowed, and her smile fell was any indication. “Why do you have to do that?”

“Do what?” Vaslav nodded at the birch keepsake box on the table as he came to stand beside the chair rather than behind it. She watched him the entire time. “Go on, open it. I am curious.”

“You said my father—”

“What about him? I put him to work. He’s waiting for lunch. We’ll take some down for him.”

Vera’s pinched expression nearly made him laugh. “He’s ... here?”

“At the guesthouse, yes.”

He enjoyed the dawning recognition lighting up her eyes, but it didn’t stay long when she leveled her next questions on him. “And he’s okay?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

Dryly, Vera muttered, “You tell me.”

Vaslav chuckled at that. “Stop it, kisska. I made a promise, didn’t I? You agreed, he wasn’t hurt. Simple.”

Vera smacked her tongue off her top front teeth. “It was more like a deal, let’s be honest.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“Of course, you don’t.”

Vera reached for the birch box with the hinged cover displaying a carefully wood-burned crown interwoven with roses. “I haven’t seen this since I was sixteen.”

“If it’s yours, why didn’t you bring it?”

“It wasn’t the right time,” she said.

Vaslav couldn’t say he believed her, though.

She had just unlatched the brass hook on the front when he told her, “I don’t appreciate uninvited visitors, and I tend to make that clear to anyone who needs the lesson more often than not, so we don’t have a repeat of the mistake in the future. I’m not particularly choosy about who it is, or how it’s done, Vera.”

Her hands clasped the sides of the box, and she glanced sideways up at him. “He is okay, right?”

He didn’t mind that she needed to ask again.

“Perfectly fine. The first day was the worst.”

Not that he planned to explain why. Her father, on the other hand ... Well, frankly, Vaslav didn’t give one good goddamn what Demyan told his daughter about his arrival and treatment. If he was determined to stick around for a visit, then he would play by the rules Vaslav put in place for the time being. Including his current whereabouts.

“My mother doesn’t think—”

“Ah, the wife,” Vaslav interjected in a rumble of laughter. “Is she what sent you all the way here today?”

“You could pretend like you care.”

“I do, actually. About you.”

Vera blinked. “This is a strange way of showing it.”

So be it.

Vaslav gestured at the box. “Go on, then.”

She flipped open the lid fast without fanfare or even hesitation. It took all of the suspense that had kept him curious about the contents of the birch box and stomped it into the ground when the lid thunked loudly against the table. Instead of admiring the items resting in crushed, navy-blue velvet, she glowered at him.

“They were my mother’s,” she said.

Vaslav reached for the larger of the two items in the box. A veil made of mostly lace that had been packaged and preserved inside a smaller, cardboard box with a plastic window for viewing. He didn’t pull it out of the velvet it had been nestled into, but he studied as much of the lace’s design as he could before setting it back into place.

Vera picked up the smaller box, wrapped in black leather with a hinged cover, than set aside the box preserving the veil. He guessed the contents of the box in her palm by the size alone, but she took more time to open the ring box than she had with the initial lid.

Vaslav let her.

He didn’t have the same emotional attachments to things like wedding rings and other mementos. Especially when they were tied to other people. Nonetheless, when she had asked to pick her own engagement ring, he never considered it was because she already had one.

“She never got to wear the veil, but it was her grandmother’s,” Vera explained quietly. “The ring ... My father told me once that she sketched it out while he was clearing out the room they planned to use for my nursery. He had it made shortly after by the jeweler who made his mother’s ring.”

“She wore it, then? The ring?”

Vera lifted her shoulders, but even the action felt helpless when they dropped back down like a heavy weight had come to sit down on delicate bones. “Not for long.”

The lid on the ring box creaked when she flipped it open. Nestled inside a similarly blue crushed velvet was an oval diamond sitting on a band of thin, white gold. At least five carats, every facet of the gem caught the dim lighting in the room. A classic style that complimented most women, but he thought was perfectly fit for Vera.

People would notice it.

The way the ring would sit on her finger; how the diamond was sized just right. It wasn’t even on her finger, and already, he could practically see how she would look wearing it while she stood in a room full of people.

Like she was entirely his.

She took her time to reacquaint herself with the ring by tracing her thumb around the oval diamond, but she didn’t pull it free from its safe place. He figured it was time to give the ring a new home. Where he intended for it to stay.

“Let me see that,” he murmured.

Before she could refuse, Vaslav plucked the ring box from her hand and swallowed it with his own. He only grinned at her confused expression when he offered her his other hand to help her stand from the dining chair.

“What are you doing?” Vera asked as she allowed him to direct her a few paces away from the table.

“Something proper,” he returned.

Vera laughed. “You?”

“You’ll soon see.”

And then he dropped down to one knee.

All her giggles died, then.

Vaslav gave her a rueful grin. “Cat got your tongue?”

She didn’t look away as her tongue wet the pillow-soft seam of her lips, and she whispered, “That’s not what you’re supposed to say when you’re down there with a ring.”

“Right, back to the proper bit,” he told her. Gone was her earlier fire, but the careful tone she had used couldn’t be as easily dismissed. “Or do you not want me to ask you like this?”

Vera lifted one bare shoulder where the neckline and upper sleeve of her dress dangled dangerously. He was right about the dress, too. Every inch of the cable knit design accentuated the curves of her body in the most temping way.

“Mostly, I want you to mean it,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Whatever you’re about to say, can you mean it?”

“Funny.”

“What is?” she asked.

“Fifteen minutes ago, you thought I killed your father. Now, you want me to propose like I mean it. One thing is not like the other, Vera.”

“I never thought that, actually. Or I wouldn’t have come here at all.”

He had no choice but to believe her. He couldn’t find a reason to think she might be lying, either. More often than not, he found himself playing a dangerous game with this woman. One she didn’t even realize she played, too.

A game of trust.

He blindly gave it.

She’d not yet ruined it.

How long would that last?

“Will you marry me?” Vaslav asked, holding her left hand in his while his other kept the ring box propped up in view for them both. “Because you want to. Marry me, Vera, promise me that I won’t be alone ... and I’ll give you the world.”

He could mean that.

He did.

The woman had the nerve to make him squirm more when her shapely legs shifted in the wedge ankle boots a shade or two darker than her dress.

“I expect a kiss when I agree,” she finally said. “If you’re going to give me the illusion of a choice, then you might as well make it worth it while you’re on the clock.”

Vaslav’s mouth twitched with a smile. “Is that a yes?”

“Am I getting a kiss?”

“Vera.”

His sharp mutter of her name only made her laughter sweeter to his ears. It was even better when she whispered a breathy, “Fine, that’s a yes.”

He muffled her next burst of happy laughter with the crush of his kiss as he came up off his knee. The ring stayed safe in his hand, he couldn’t even be bothered to get it in her hand first, while he kissed away the shakiness he’d felt in her hand and had heard in her words. It was bruising; he wanted to see what his roughness left behind and how well she wore it. Every unforgiving sweep of his lips captured hers until her mouth was open for him, and he could take her breath, too.

To be fair, she let him as she melted into the back-breaking squeeze of his arms to get her closer.

Vaslav pulled away from a trembling, red-lipped Vera. He tugged the ring from its spot tucked between velvet folds, still husky when he scoffed and said, “You need to stop acting like the illusion of anything I give you is a problem when you clearly like all of it, kisska.”

The squeak-squeak of shoes coming to a rushed halt on the hardwood floors announced their forgotten visitor.

“Are we celebrating something?” Mira asked.

Was it because they were still close?

Could it be because they both smiled?

Vera’s smile just happened to be a little more of a challenge. His, of course, stretched wider as the victor.

“I like it when you don’t deny it,” Vaslav said to Vera, too quiet for Mira to hear.

Then, to the woman waiting between the dining room and kitchen, he added, “Do you think we could find something more comfortable for Vera to wear for the ride, Mira? Boot-wise.”

Vera’s brow furrowed as she peered down at her shoes. He took her momentary distraction as a chance to slip the engagement ring on her finger. By the time she looked back up, he was able to see the surprise skip over her expression when she saw it on her finger for the first time.

“Lucky it’s a perfect fit, no?” Vaslav asked. “For a family piece, I mean. I suspect he didn’t have it resized.”

“A ring! We are celebrating,” Mira crowed.

The most excitement he had heard out of her all day. She was terribly bored without his mother sticking her fingers in every aspect of Mira’s days, but he didn’t regret cutting off the communication. It couldn’t last long.

Vera’s lips curved with her sweet happiness. “You’re a trip sometimes. You know that?”

“Mmm,” he grunted noncommittally. “Mira, the boots?”

“Yes, on it!”

He let go of Vera’s hand, all too pleased with the fact that he had been right again as he reveled in the sight of her arm falling back to her side. The ring did snare a person’s focus on her hand like a trap for the eyes. Unmistakable in the way her delicate fingers displayed it—and him.

His claim on her.

“Why do I need boots?” Vera asked.

“We’re having lunch.”

“Okay?”

He smirked. “With your father.”

“I still don’t see what that has anything to do with boots.”

“Soon you will.”