Page 3 of The Lies Between Lovers

“I’m not something. I’m me.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not something to him.”

Vera didn’t like that at all.

“I have to go,” she told Hannah. “He’s parked and waiting.”

Not that she could see Feliks through the blacked-out front and rear windows of the sedan once he was parked.

“Lunch, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“Make sure you call me—and I mean it, too,” her friend added sternly. “We need to talk.”

“I thought we just did?”

“No, there’s other stuff, Vera. We both know it.”

Truthfully, she didn’t know anything.

Vera figured that was part of her problem, if not the biggest one. She didn’t tell Hannah that, and instead, said goodbye to her friend with a promise to call when she was feeling up to chatting. Not that she could say when exactly that time would be.

Stuffing the phone into the pocket of her trench coat, Vera stepped to the edge of the walkway, and reached for the car’s passenger door to open it. Feliks hadn’t even bothered to get out of the car or roll down the window to greet her, instead letting her go to him. He didn’t grunt hello or anything as she slid into the passenger seat and buckled up after she’d placed her handbag to the floor.

In fact, he pulled the car away from the side of the street before she had the chance to close the damn door.

“What are you in such a hurry for?” Vera asked him, noticing the three-piece black on black suit that looked tailor fit and brand new that Feliks wore. “You were the one who was late.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said in a smirk, not even passing her a glance under his opaque aviator shades. “The man of the hour won’t give a shit if I’m late, anyway.”

She blinked, confused.

“What, I thought we were going to lunch?”

Now there was a man of the hour?

“Who said anything about lunch?” Feliks asked.

“I figured because of the time—”

Finally, the man pushed his sunglasses high to the top of his head, giving her access to see the bloodshot eyes that Feliks had been probably trying to keep hidden. He sounded about as annoyed as he looked when he glanced over at her with a knotted brow and narrowed eyes to say, “I also told you to wear black, Vera.”

She peered down at the standard cocktail dress she had pulled out of her closet, barely giving the request by Feliks any thought at the time. Maybe they were going to one of those restaurants he liked that preferred to keep a dress code for its patrons, as ridiculous as she thought that was.

“I’m not going to some party with you,” she said. “I said I wanted to talk about what happened.”

Feliks nodded, and his foot pressed harder to the gas, sending the car lurching forward. “And we will,” he returned. “After.”

“After what?”

“The funeral.” He grinned, then, sending a chill racing down her spine at the coldness she found staring back from him. “I needed a date, and apparently, you had time today.”

2.

“Mr. Pashkov, wait!”

Vaslav stopped and turned on the bottom steps of his home to see Mira waving a familiar item in her raised hand.