Want her there? He’d been wanting for as long as he could remember. Longing for a moment just like this—her, next to him, promising to stay. But he never wanted it like this. He didn’t want her there temporarily, and he definitely didn’t want her there because she felt obligated.
“Oh,” she breathed. “I see.” Her arms now hung loosely at her sides, and her eyes were wide with the surprised betrayal of someone who’d just been sucker punched.
Her crestfallen expression cleaved him in half. “I’m just not sure it’s a good idea, Elena.”
“Right,” she said, forcing a smile on her face. “No, of course. I—I understand.” She turned quickly, her sneakers squeaking on the floor, and she crossed the room to where she’d left her things by the couch.
“Elena, I’m sorry—”
She crouched to zip up her backpack. “Why? It’s my fault. I put you in an awkward position. I shouldn’t have come without talking to you first.”
“What are you doing?” Because it looked like she was getting ready to leave right that second, and dammit, he didn’t want that either.
“You have a lot to deal with, obviously,” she said slowly, as if choosing her words carefully. “Maybe it would be easier if I just go unlock the house instead of you trying to track down your neighbor. I still have a key. And then I can stay at a hotel tonight before heading back to Chicago tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to stay at a damn hotel,” he growled. “You have a bedroom.”
Elena stood, swung her backpack over her shoulder, and extended the handle on her suitcase. The wheels made a click-click noise against the floor as she crossed the room before pausing at the end of his bed. “If you need anything from the house, do you want me to have someone from the team bring it over?”
A familiar panic seized his chest. “Are you leaving? You don’t have to go right now, Elena.”
“Or I can bring stuff to you tomorrow. I can stop by before I go to the airport to say—” Her words got stuck on something in her throat that she had to cough to clear. “To say goodbye.”
The door to his room swung open once again before he could respond. He bit off his words with a scowl at whomever had the bad luck to interrupt right now. The team’s media manager poked his head around the corner. “Can I come in?”
Elena held Vlad’s gaze for a split second before greeting the unwanted visitor. “Yes. Come in.”
The media manager looked back and forth between them, finally catching up to the drama apparently unfolding in front of him. “Um, I can come back.”
“Can you please give us a minute?” Vlad asked.
“No need,” Elena said, her voice clipped and her lips thin. “I was just leaving.”
She walked toward the door without looking back.
“Elena, wait—” Vlad tried to sit up as he called her name, but the tightness in his leg sent him flinging back with an argh.
The door clicked shut with quiet finality.
CHAPTER THREE
“Where y’all from?”
Elena looked out the window from the back seat of the Uber she’d called to pick her up from the hospital. “Chicago.”
The driver, an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a kind smile, laughed. “No, I mean originally. Your accent.”
Not a week had gone by since she’d come to America that she didn’t get asked that. Some days she was willing to offer details, but today wasn’t one of those days. “Russia,” she answered plainly.
“I thought so. I thought maybe Ukraine or somewhere in that region. What part of Russia?”
“Moscow,” she lied, because no one ever knew where Omsk was, and when she explained that it was part of Siberia, they always wanted to know how cold it was, and she just didn’t have the energy for that kind of small talk right now.
“Cool,” the man said. “What brings you to Nashville?”
“Just visiting a friend in the hospital.”
“Hope everything is okay.”
She smiled because it was the polite American thing to do. “Yes. He is going to be fine.”
The driver must have finally caught on to her reluctance to converse, because he turned up the radio and settled into his driving. Elena returned her attention to the passing scenery. She didn’t recognize much of it. In the few months she lived with Vlad after they got married, they’d rarely gone out together beyond the borders of the suburb where he lived.
But when the Uber driver took the exit, things started to look more familiar. Big trees and wide lawns on twisty-turny streets protected the rich and famous from the riffraff that might wander in without permission. When she joined Vlad in America—her visa was delayed, so she didn’t join him until a few weeks after they were married—she had expected a nice house because he was a professional athlete. Everyone knew that American athletes made a lot of money, and he’d already been playing here for a year. But when he’d pulled into his long, tree-lined driveway and she saw his soaring brick house for the first time, her mouth dropped open, her voice reduced to a useless squeak. A girl from Omsk could never imagine such grandeur.
The effect was different this time when the Uber driver pulled in. The magic was gone.
“Wow,” the driver said. “Nice place. Is your friend famous or something?”
It was a safe assumption. Nashville’s suburbs were home to the world’s biggest country music stars. “He’s done well for himself,” Elena offered, opening her own door.
The driver got out and went around to the back to get her suitcase. He set it on the paved driveway, and Elena thanked him as she hoisted her backpack on her shoulder. As the driver pulled away, she tipped him on the app and then climbed the cement steps to the small front porch. The door was black and flanked by two long windowpanes. The first time she’d come here, she’d been afraid to look inside as Vlad unlocked the door. Her stomach had churned and twisted as he opened the door and stepped aside for her to go in first. Her shoes had echoed on the glossy floor in the cavernous entryway, but his were a soft, gentle thud as he came up behind her.
“Welcome home.” His voice was a honey glaze, warm and sweet and soft.
In her peripheral vision, she saw him lift his hand as if to touch her. She moved away.
Elena shook off the memory and pushed open the door. Not much had changed. The same decorative table that had been there before was still there, still a deposit for loose change and mail and other odds and ends from his pockets at the end of the day. Pulling her suitcase behind her, Elena walked toward the wide staircase that bisected the entryway. Ahead was the kitchen. To the left was a large living room with a fireplace and a wall of bookshelves. To the right was a dining room with French doors leading to a covered patio. Her first night there all those years ago, he’d ordered takeout and set it out on the patio with candles. She’d taken her plate and eaten in her room.