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Maybe Hope is right. Maybe Yakov is letting me in.
Hope said that without even knowing about our dinner conversation last night. She doesn’t know that Yakov told me about his dad’s murder. She definitely doesn’t know the way he talked to me last night… the way he touched me like it was the last chance either of us would ever have.
Remembering last night leaves me with a buzzing under my skin that I can’t seem to shake. So I set off on a walk to try to burn some energy.
I make my way to the back fence and loop around through a manicured area of trees and vines hanging from wooden trellises. It’s shaded and gloomy, and I’m truly living all of my wooded fairytale dreams when I hear a twig snap behind me.
In an instant, reality washes over me.
I whirl around and scan the path, searching the bushes.
I’m not in a fairytale. I’m in the real world where people are after me. I shouldn’t be so close to the edge of the property.
“Hello?”
As soon as the word is out of my mouth, I’m positive I’m being stupid. Yakov told me I was safe so long as I stayed inside the fence. So I’m about to roll my eyes and continue on my walk… when someone strides around the corner.
22
LUNA
I’m terrified when I think it’s that nameless, faceless threat, finally coming to finish whatever the hell they started that night in the restaurant.
I’m even more terrified when I realize it’s just Yakov.
“You scared me!” I clap a hand to my chest. My heart is racing, but weirdly, it picked up pace after I realized it was Yakov standing in front of me.
Then again, when I really think about it, that isn’t so weird after all.
“I thought maybe you screamed because you were happy to see me.” He has his hands in his pockets, walking casually towards me. Even when I screamed, he never broke pace. Didn’t look surprised to see me at all, actually.
Maybe it’s because he isn’t. Maybe he saw me from the house the same way Hope did and came to see me.
“If women scream when they see you, I’d take it as a sign something is wrong.”
“Or very right.” He shrugs, dropping that innuendo like it isn’t going to bring to mind a point in our very recent shared history where I was screaming his name.
I tiptoe around the enormous elephant ear standing between us and run my finger along a lush purple clematis vine. “Did I interrupt your afternoon walk?”
“If I didn’t want the interruption, I would have kept walking.”
“That wouldn’t have been very gentlemanly of you.”
He ducks under a low-hanging branch. “Stopping to talk to you doesn’t make me a gentleman, Luna. You should consider raising your bar.”
Is he kidding? My bar couldn’t be any higher. Any man who gets close to me after this is going to have to set my entire soul on fire before I even give them the time of day, thanks to him.
I’m afraid he’ll see that terrible truth written all over my face, so I turn around and keep walking.
“Now, who’s being rude?” he taunts.
His footsteps crunch along on the ground behind me, following me down the path.
I can’t help it. I smile.
We walk that way for a minute, his footsteps getting louder and louder behind me. When I finally stop walking, Yakov is so close to me I can feel the heat of his body against my back.
With him so close, it’s impossible to think about anything else but closing the gap. Flashes of the two of us tangled together last night flash through my mind, along with what it would be like if I spun around, threw my arms around his neck, and kissed him right here and now.
