“Anyway,” Mira said, “Mr. Pashkov said he would be up from the lake soon. I don’t know what he’s been doing all night down at the guesthouse, but it’s better than him pacing the halls here.”
Vera’s brow furrowed as she came to stand beside Mira on the top of the steps. She’d left the front door open a few inches, but there was no sign of the black retriever that had been using the steps as a makeshift bed the last time she stood there.
“Is he not sleeping well?” she asked the older woman.
That question had Mira glancing away. “Better for you to ask him that. He said he’d meet you in the dining room, lunch is nearly ready. Are you hungry?”
Her stomach must have heard the prodding. It grumbled accordingly, and the empty ache the rumble left behind was enough to make Vera nauseous.
“I could eat,” she replied.
“Good. I made too much Olivier salad. He wanted something with chicken today.”
Mira gestured Vera to the front door, and made small talk as the two headed inside. She didn’t ask Vera to remove her boots at the entrance rug, but rather, brushed off the bit of dirt as expected and ushered her across the space to the small vestibule leading into the large dining room. It wasn’t a space she’d spent much time in other than to cross through to reach the kitchen, but she knew it well enough to spot the difference the second she stepped inside the dimly lit space.
Decorated in dark red wood, she could feel the ambiance of the space and how it might welcome guests for a dinner or party. Despite the large chandelier, featuring dangling crystals on each long, spiraling arm, there wasn’t much light except for the scattered wall sconces on either side of the long table. At least twenty feet in length with a glossy black top that didn’t show a speck of dust, ten chairs sat on either side with more ornate captain chairs heading both ends.
It wasn’t the table she found interesting.
Rather, the birch box sitting at the closest end to the dining room’s entrance. She walked right up to it, actually, where it had been facing her positioned at the captain’s chair.
“I was told that was for you,” Mira said as she headed past Vera to continue to the connected kitchen beyond another vestibule separating the rooms at the far end. “You’re welcome to open it before Vaslav gets in, yes?”
Vera didn’t reply.
She couldn’t look away from the birch box.
It hadn’t moved, but she swore it was like staring at a foreign object. Not that it was unknown to her. She could viscerally remember the first—and last—time she had run her hands over the smooth top of the box, feeling the hinges on the back and the matching brass clasp on the front to keep it safely closed. Back then, as her father had sat beside her on her childhood bed while she traced the wood burned outline of roses entangled around a crown on the top, she had never imagined what she’d find waiting inside.
Vera still didn’t touch the box.
She also didn’t look away from it. The sight of it meant a lot of things but most importantly to her ... it meant that her father had been there. In this house. At some point. He had her box; he was bringing it.
Opting to pull out the captain’s chair and sit, Vera couldn’t quite bring herself to reach for the keepsake meant to store a precious part of her story. A very real piece of her history that her father had taken the time and care to have preserved for her in a twelve-inch by twelve-inch box that was less than four inches deep from top to bottom.
And there it sat on a table.
Vaslav’s table.
Noise echoed from the kitchen while Mira did her business, but otherwise, Vera sat alone in her thoughts and questions. Every worry tangled around another, and yet, she kept it hidden behind a veneer of a calm demeanor, and a steady gaze locked on her birch box.
Until she felt him behind her.
Vaslav hadn’t even made a sound.
Not until he touched her.
Her head tipped back so she could look upward the very second his fingertips grazed the back of her neck. When she knew he was there, finding his dark stare leveling into hers, it was impossible to ignore the way his presence could fill up the space around her. The box had been only a momentary distraction to his arrival, and once he was there, she couldn’t look away.
Those treacherous fingers of his, making her shiver when she should have immediately demanded to know where her father was, skipped around to the front of her throat and danced up to tap against her chin and bottom lip.
Could he feel her heart racing?
Did he know she still couldn’t look away?
“Well, are you going to open it?” Vaslav asked her. “I’ve been dying to know what’s inside since your father told me I might as well be the one to give it to you, and I’m not known for my patience.”
Except, apparently, when it came to her.
2.
“I didn’t expect you to 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.