Page 89 of The Lies Between Lovers

“Sure,” she replied, leaving the yellow tea pot painted with matryoshka dolls with him at his desk while she headed for the door. “It won’t be long, Mr. Pashkov.”

She had just reached the door.

Vaslav’s attention went back to the rose he’d placed off to the side during their conversation, although it hadn’t really left his mind. Resting on top of the envelope he’d gotten from the doctor full of brain scans and official reports he didn’t care to mentally revisit, the hidden medical information sat atop the file of information Igor had gathered on Vera months ago.

A pile of secrets.

Or was it answers?

“Mira?”

“Hmm, yes?”

The squeak of her shoes told him that she’d turned around in the large doorway, but he didn’t look away from the dried rose. Although it lost quite a few petals in its travels, the bulb somehow managed to find its way into the pocket of the slacks he’d been wearing the night they danced under the Eiffel Tower. Had she picked it up, or was it the stranger who helped the two that evening?

Did it even matter?

Whoever did it, Vaslav found the broken rose—long dried—and kept it tucked in the top drawer of his den’s desk where just the sight of it brought him back to that night. Over the past handful of years, his life had turned into a constant nightmare of erratic episodes and blindingly long bouts of migraines with pain he couldn’t escape. That night wasn’t any different, really.

Another episode.

More pain to fill his bucket.

Except there was Vera, and whenever he pulled out that rose and was faced with remembering that night, he didn’t really think about the things he hated. He thought about her.

“Vaslav?” Mira pressed, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“Sorry, the rose distracts me.”

Had she noticed it?

Mira didn’t say either way. “It’s fine. What did you want?”

“To ask a hypothetical question.”

She offered him one of her easy smiles when he finally took his attention away from the dried flower. Mira remained still in the open doorway, as patient as ever.

“Would you marry a man you knew was hiding something from you?” he asked.

Her eyes widened. “I’m not sure—”

“Not something he’d done, or anything like that. Those are surface things. Everybody lies. Everybody does things to get what they want. Not like that.”

Mira shifted from foot to foot, then, muttering, “Maybe a call to your mother would suffice for a conversation like that. I’m not exactly the type of woman who would understand the nuances between—”

“And my mother would?” He scoffed hard. That bitch was fine right where she was for the moment, and he had no plans on inviting her closer with something like a personal phone call. His mother didn’t need the encouragement. “No, I definitely won’t take it to my mother. And now, you’re the only other woman around whose opinion I could get on something like this, so here we are. Consider it.”

“Maybe I just don’t understand what you’re asking.”

“More ... about himself,” Vaslav settled on saying. “Say you knew he was hiding something important—say like his health. Would you agree to marry him still?”

His head fell to the side as he watched the clarity wash over Mira’s face, and she finally grasped the not-so-hypothetical question he’d laid at her feet. He didn’t mind the time she had to take before deciding on whatever answer she concluded.

Except it still wasn’t one he wanted.

“Asking her would get you closer to the truth,” Mira said.

Maybe so, he mused.