Page 64 of The Lies Between Lovers

“I have a list.”

“Do you?”

Vera shrugged. “I like to pile things in my mind until it gets too high and then ... well,” she finished with a mutter.

“It all comes down.”

“Usually.”

In the middle of the chesterfield, upholstered with crushed black velvet, Vera sat wrapped in the slate gray quilt from the king-size bed. The way the quilt hung from her left shoulder gave a peek of bare skin and where he’d left a quarter-sized love bite just below her collarbone earlier in the night. She sat with one leg hanging down from the couch and the other tucked under her and the blanket.

Vera peered up at him, and as she shifted on the chesterfield, the quilt fell a little more from her other shoulder. The perfect picture of innocence and sin all rolled in one waited just a sofa away. He didn’t even think she realized the way she appeared with proof of their fucking still evident on her skin, hair mussed from bed, and a sleepy pout.

“Are you going to keep standing there?” she asked.

“Why not? At least, until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“That’s not fair. Maybe I don’t want to think about any of it. Did you consider that? Maybe I’d rather do anything else.”

Vaslav arched a brow. “Or you don’t want to tell me.”

“Some of it is about you.”

Fair.

Except whatever it was had left her unable to return to a comfortable, warm bed. Even if he wasn’t in that bed and she’d been looking for him. He didn’t like that at all.

“Start talking,” he murmured, offering no room for argument.

Vera rolled her eyes, and all of the sudden, the fire became more interesting than him again. “I think I’m broken.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t want to be alone, remember?” she asked.

Vaslav’s brow furrowed. “You were sad. Your neighbor was attacked, you felt a sense of responsibility, and here you are. Not wanting to be alone seems normal to me.”

Expected, even.

Vera shook her head, the mid-length sleek strands of her black hair flying back and forth at the action. “I lost my biological mother when I was born—never even knew her.”

Clearing his throat, he admitted, “I know. It was in the information Igor gathered and brought to me before I invited you for tea that first time.”

A nod answered that.

She offered nothing else.

Not wanting the silence to stretch on, he prodded with, “But you had a mother, didn’t you? Your father married again when you were quite young. Didn’t that help?”

“I love my mom. She taught me to read, actually. Her name is Claire.”

I know, he said again. Although, silently this time. He didn’t think it was smart to continuously remind Vera that he’d already been given an intimate look at her life from infancy to adulthood. Just because he was able to skim those details on paper didn’t mean he understood the complex workings of her life that brought her to the point where she was sitting across from him.

Vaslav blew out a steadying breath that did nothing to settle his newly frayed nerves. Whatever was playing on Vera’s mind affected him in the way that if she would just tell him what was wrong, he’d fix it. However he could, by whatever means necessary. The somber mood radiating from the young woman wrapped him like the quilt around her delicate, bare shoulders.

“Imagine being little,” Vera said then, “and knowing death already. I had a family that wouldn’t let my mother’s memory die—and I’m grateful for that, I felt like I really knew Gia because they loved her so much, and they told me all the time that she loved me—but with it also came the story. What it meant to be gone, I mean. It’s final, always. Once they’re gone, you don’t get someone back.”

His gaze dropped to where his hands clutched the high back of the chesterfield because that was easier than admitting she was right. Or rather, letting her see that fact reflecting in his gaze. Death was not kind. It couldn’t be a friend.