Page 10 of The Lies Between Lovers

“No,” Vera said in a hiss.

Not at him.

Her breath always became short when pain was involved.

Feliks cleared his throat and shifted a bit on his feet to glance further up the hill where the large crowd had gathered to watch the pallbearers pull the casket from the hearse. The hundred or so feet wasn’t that far to walk, really, but Vera needed a second.

So, she took it.

Sitting on the marble bench carved into the statue of a looming angle that had long turned green, she crossed her legs, and massaged the spot where her pain had flared up. She wasn’t even bothered by the way Feliks kept his gaze averted from her hands that worked on rubbing out the ache in her weak ankle.

He’d always been like that.

Ever since it happened.

“I’m quitting, officially,” she said, offering him nothing else but that statement.

Feliks let out a heavy sigh; tucking his hands into the pockets of his slacks, he turned back to face her, but still kept his gaze anywhere but on her bare ankle that she’d crossed over her knee. “No, you’re not.”

“I am, actually.”

“And what are you going to do, then, hmm?”

Vera’s chin tipped up, and while the sun was high in the sky and bright in her eyes, she squinted through it to stare Feliks right in the face. “Excuse me?”

“After you’re done with The Swan House. What do you plan to do? I can’t see you getting any notable teaching position with any other company in the country. None are worthy. Are you going to head back to the states? For what? A family you barely speak to? I know what you paid for the villa in Noble Row, but the housing market is trash, so you’re probably not even going to get half of that back. Vera, you don’t do anything, sweetheart.”

She blinked at that.

Feliks chuckled then, adding lower, “I’m not wrong. Other than the kids and the classes at The Swan House, you have no other purpose. You’re just comfortable enough that you don’t have to worry about money, but you’re also boring enough that you won’t spend what you do have. So instead, you lock yourself away except for a few times a week when you venture outside to teach kids how to dance or buy groceries.”

Now, she openly glared at him.

“I do more than just teach the kids and—”

“Like what?”

His cold question was answered by silence.

She hated him for that.

For being right ...

Even if he wasn’t entirely right at the same time.

“I’m so glad,” she told him, contempt dripping from her every word, “that you have my whole life figured out, Feliks, and you didn’t even need to have a conversation with me to do so.”

He shrugged. “Vera, it’s you.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Feliks smirked. “Well, what you see is kind of what you get.”

He was so quick to insult her; something else about the man that hadn’t changed in all the years she’d known him. Really, it wasn’t just her, and she knew that, too. Feliks treated almost everyone exactly the same. Unless someone had purpose to him, or he had a motive to keep them around, he didn’t mind letting a person know just how useless they truly were in his existence.

Even if he was cruel about it.

“You know what,” Vera said as she stood from the bench, ignoring the sharp stab of pain when she dared to put weight on her ankle again, “that’s enough, Feliks.”