The Beauty Who Loved Him by Bethany-Kris
8.
An unexpected thunderstormrolled in on the morning of Demyan’s departure. The heavy, whipping winds and torrent of rainfall kept Vera hidden beneath the safety of the entrance alcove of the main house while Igor rushed through the sheet of falling water to pack the one piece of luggage her father brought along into the back of a waiting SUV.
She didn’t see the point in rushing. The rain soaked him, anyway. It didn’t matter to Igor. He wasn’t even tasked with carrying the luggage but proclaimed all the same that it would give the father and daughter duo on the steps a chance to say goodbye in private.
Without the rain.
It was strange the way rain and wind could make the world look grey around her. All the color of the fall seemed to bleed away while the sky cried.
The majority of the thunder and cracks of lightning had already passed them by, and it didn’t appear like what remained of the shitty weather would keep her father’s flight grounded for an extended period, so he opted to leave on time, as planned. Beside her on the steps, dry under the small alcove, Demyan said nothing as Igor slammed the rear hatch of the SUV down and headed for the driver’s seat.
“That’s that,” Demyan said, glancing her way. “Looks like my ride is ready.”
“But not you,” she replied. “You’re not ready.”
Vera could tell.
It was all in the eyes, her father’s eyes, that was. Like hers, she found that Demyan’s eyes were often the window to his soul when he was staring into the face of someone he loved. Open, deep, and true.
“Are you going to sell the villa?” her father asked, not acknowledging what she’d already said.
Vera shrugged. “I might.”
“Or?”
“Real estate is a good investment, I hear.”
Especially real estate in Moscow. Vera had no plans on getting rid of the villa after she married Vaslav if she wouldn’t make double the price she had paid for the place, but that wasn’t important at the moment. There were a million other things on Vera’s mind besides her home in the city that had no leans against the property.
Demyan’s brow creased. “I’m not sure if you’re purposely avoiding my question, or—”
“No, I answered truthfully. I might sell it—or I might not. I don’t know, and it’s not on top of my list of priorities now. I have other things to worry about.”
And handle, she thought.
Demyan nodded and turned to peer back over the front drive and the towering birch trees that leaned hard with the strength of the wind. It was only the deep set of the alcove leading into the front door, that Vaslav had recently repainted a fresh maroon, by the looks of the paint strokes on the framing, that keep them far enough away from the wind that it didn’t carry their words away with it.
“Right,” he eventually replied. “You’re going to have a busy few weeks. Planning a wedding and whatnot, huh?”
His almost clipped tone made Vera pause.
“Amongst other things.”
Demyan sighed. “I will be back for the wedding.”
“Good. Someone needs to walk me down the aisle.”
She couldn’t imagine doing so without her father.
“I wish you weren’t so indifferent—”
“Who’s indifferent here?” she asked.
Demyan’s gaze turned on her, then. “You sound like him—do you realize that?”
Vera blinked. “No.”
“You do, and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not. You talk like you know exactly what you want, and you don’t give me any room to wiggle in an argument. It just is what it is, and you’re not even stopping long enough to ask if I care.”
Was that what he wanted?
Would it make him feel better?
“Do you not want me to get married?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Do you not want me to get married to him?”
Demyan’s lips pressed into a thin, grim line. “Vera, you’re not being fair.”
“How so?”
“For one, because instead of having an actual conversation, you just keep asking questions to keep this going in circles. I never said that I didn’t want you to get married. You should do what you want to do the same way you always have. No, I don’t expect you to consider my feelings or wants when you make decisions about your life because frankly, you never have. Some people might call it a selfish streak, but I never thought so.”
“Why not? Isn’t it?”
She’d never been good with that factoring in others to the paths she chose for herself. After all, they weren’t the ones who had to walk it. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t affect them in some way. She was more than aware how that attitude could be taken as selfishness.
“Maybe because I love you,” her father replied, “so any of those faults inside of you, I just ... didn't see them that way. And there was a time, that first year after Gia died was hard, but as long as I was holding you, things were better. I don’t think you realize that you saved my life a long time ago. For months and months, you were the only reason I didn’t shove a gun down my throat and pull the trigger every single night after they took your mother from me.”
A sharp breath burned in her lungs. In the week that her father spent at the Pashkov property, they mostly kept to safe conversations with only the occasional trip into dangerous waters. She had thought he didn’t want to overstep his bounds, not with her, or Vas, but it wasn’t like the week had been a good example for her father of what her life would be like.
Never mind, if she even wanted it.
“And so I decided back then, after things got better, and I didn’t need to hold you at night just to keep from finding my gun, that no matter what, Vera, I was going to let you live. You weren’t even supposed to. You should have died with your mother. The lack of oxygen during your birth should have killed you.”
“I’m still here,” she whispered.
“It’s your life,” Demyan murmured, “and I want you to do anything, everything, with it.”
“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 watchedIgor 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.
A particularly bad migraine hit Vaslav; he would see her when he did.
Along with the news of her father’s flight the following day. She barely even had time to say goodbye before Demyan was gone on top of her worries swirling around Vaslav. Mostly because that was the first time he had gone out of his way to inform her about the state of his well-being.
Literally.
Every other time she was there, and he couldn’t hide it. Because she fully suspected that his pain and troubles were ever constant in his days, never ending. Better or worse, well, that could be debated. She doubted he was ever totally free, though.
Like the past week.
How often was he bedridden?
Or worse?
And she was just down the hill ...
It was only when the squeak of a shoe stopped near the den’s doors did Vera glance away from the picture the evening painted in the backyard. She expected to find Mira had come to ask her if she needed anything for the evening, but Vaslav stood there. Hands tucked into a pair of black sweats, with a plain white t-shirt pasted to the planes of his broad chest, and dark circles under his pensive stare that zoned right in on her.
She frowned. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Not particularly.”
As he spoke, his jaw worked around every word. Like it took a great deal of effort to form the words, and then, he had to get through speaking them, too.
Still, he asked, “Didn’t Igor tell you that Kiril—”
“Would take me home, yes,” she interjected. At the flinch in his brow, she lowered her voice another octave. Barely above a whisper. “I don’t really have anything I need to be in the city for—no work, the villa is fine if Kiril can water the plants every few days, and ... yeah.”
“You’d like to stay here.”
It wasn’t even a question.
Vera nodded. “I would. With you.”
That part needed to be clear. Especially as she watched Vaslav’s gaze travel over the state of his den. The same place where they had first sat down for tea was unrecognizable from that initial meeting. What furniture had survived his latest bout of rage—when he toppled the desk as she sat in the office chair on the other side—was only a fragment of what she remembered being in the room that day. Gone was the glass coffee table with the ornately twisted legs made of metal between the couch and chairs facing the windows. Nothing remained on the walls. Every picture and piece of art depicting forest landscapes and snowy mountain caps had been taken down.
Or damaged, and then removed.
She didn’t ask.
That wasn’t the point.
Someone, probably Vaslav just from the sheer size alone, had reset the desk in its proper position on the large rug, however, they hadn’t bothered with anything else. The glass bowl that had been full of individually wrapped taffy candy remained shattered on the floor with its sweet counterpart scattered amongst the rest of the wreckage from the desk.
Papers.
Files.
A pen holder, and all its contents.
The laptop and lamp.
Even a dried rose bulb sat atop the remnants of a night she wouldn’t soon forget. Not because she had feared what happened, but because she suspected it wouldn’t be the last time. It clearly wasn’t the first. Was it easier for him to just topple or ruin the closest thing he could get his hands on than to manage the way he felt?
“Are you sure staying here is what you’d like to do?” he asked quietly.
Vera rolled her teeth over her bottom lip before replying, “I’m not sure what you expect from me, but I won’t be living apart from you after we’re married. By my choice.”
“But you might not always want to be here.”
“So, I’ll keep my villa. I do like the city.”
He cleared his throat. “And you have the plants.”
“They do need water,” she admitted with a small smile. “But for the most part—”
“You want to be here.”
He said it with a gesture at the chaos that had been left to sit for days. She wondered if that was because Mira didn’t dare step into the room to fix it, or if Vaslav was just punishing himself by continuing to come back and stare at it all. What other reason would he have to let it sit and rot?
“Does that happen often?” she asked him.
Vaslav sighed as he scrubbed a hand down his mouth and unshaven jaw, but he nodded with a distant gaze locked and loaded on the mess. “It can.”
“What does that mean?”
“Depends on the week.”
“And what, the weather?” Vera asked sarcastically.
She couldn’t help it.
His explanation wasn’t great.
Vaslav shrugged one shoulder, muttering, “Sometimes, yeah, the fucking weather, too.”
Her regret hit like a ton of bricks. She didn’t mean to sound like she blamed him for something he might not have a lot of say over.
“Is it just hard to control, or—”
“I don’t always know I’ve done it, kisska.”
She blinked at his honesty.
Words altogether failed.
Vaslav looked to her, then, and his cold eyes didn’t seem as dark with the clear blue nailing in on her. “You might not always want to be here, Vera.”
She hadn’t needed him to repeat himself.
“I heard you perfectly fine the first time, Vas,” she returned softly.
He scoffed. “Right.”
“I did.”
His jaw jumped against, chewing on nothing but his grinding teeth. Vera glanced down at her hands in her lap where she’d folded them. They gave her something else to focus on for a moment. At least long enough for the questions racing in her mind to quiet long enough for the ones that were loud enough to take center stage.
She didn’t look up at him when she asked, “You’re not dying, are you?”
“Not unless I do it myself. Which even that is easier said than done. Otherwise, I’m just slowly going mad and losing every part of me while I do it, krasivyy. Every day is something different. I put things in the same spot just so it’s one less thing and ...” He dragged in a shaky breath, needing the extra air to say, “Someday I’m going to wake up, and I won’t know anything about myself anymore. I’ll have forgotten everything, and I won’t even recognize the face staring back in the mirror.”
But wasn’t that just as heartbreaking?
She no longer found herself wondering why he shut himself away from the rest of the world. How suffocating must his fear of someone knowing be if he wasn’t even really living?
Vera glanced up from her hands when the sight of his shoes came to a stop in front of her on the angled chair. He’d walked over from the doorway without even making a sound.
“Even you,” he said, then, so softly she strained to hear. The way he delivered that news without inflection made her heart squeeze painfully, but like everything else, she knew it was just Vaslav’s way. It didn’t matter if the truth hurt; he would still say it. “Someday, I’ll forget you, too.”
Maybe, she wanted to say back.
He didn't know for sure.
Couldn’t possibly.
“I’ll forget seeing you through the gallery glass. I’ll forget the file that I have about you that I read every day just so I have it here,” he said, pointing at his head. “And when you look at me like you do, when you think I don’t see you doing it, when you look at me like you’ve been doing it your whole life, I won’t even know that anymore, either.”
But even so ...
“I’ll still be here,” Vera said. “Even then, Vas. I promise. If that happens, I’ll be here then, too.”
She wished it didn’t cut so deep when he barked out a laugh. “Yes, because I’ve had my hands in practically every aspect of your life these past months, I didn’t exactly give you a choice.”
Or she didn’t need one.
Vera was entirely capable of choosing her own path. Why would he be any different?
She shook her head, not bothering to suppress the tremble in her lower lip or the sniffle that escaped when she swiped away a stray tear racing down her cheek. “No, because I want to. I love you, Vaslav, whether it’s your misery that loves my company, or it’s meant to be ... I’m here. And I am not leaving.”
“Vera,” he started.
Almost placating.
Vera tipped her chin up, her stare hardening. “Throw another desk. Be mean. Keep pushing. I don’t mind pulling back.”
“Stop.”
She didn’t.
“I’m not even asking for you to love me back, ty zver'—you beast, just that you’ll let me at least love you.” Vera gulped down a ragged breath that caught in her throat on the way down. “Please ... please, let me love you.”
That meant a lot of things. Vera didn’t even think it would be easy. He wasn’t an easy man, after all. She welcomed anything he brought with him, every single good and bad bit.
“Yeah, okay,” he whispered.
Vera blinked, and another tear fell down. She wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. “What?”
Vaslav nodded, and without warning, kneeled in front of where she sat on the chair. His head found her lap, and he turned his face to the side while his cheek nuzzled against the denim of her jeans. Her hands fluttered above his head, unsure of what he wanted or even what he was doing, before settling down one on his neck and another along his forehead. She didn’t say a thing as one of his hands wrapped tight around her back, and the other clasped the top of her thigh.
“Okay,” he said again.
Her shaking fingers stroked his hairline and the back of his neck featherlight.
“Okay,” Vaslav repeated, as if he needed to say it again and again until he believed it, and settled into the softness of her touch. His upper body weight fell further into her lap. “Then, love me.”