Page 12 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

“All right, off you go,” Vaslav told Vera then.

Her head snapped his way, and she hadn’t realized until that moment how long she’d been holding her breath because it came out in a heavy woosh. “What?”

The side-by-side rolled to a stop in the middle of the driveway, halfway between where the road ended at the mouth and where the guesthouse waited on the other side of the drive. Vaslav yanked the shifting lever into park, and pointed at the man now coming their way. Whatever task her father had been left with by the fence was forgotten, it seemed.

“I’ll take the food in and get it ready to eat on the back deck. The lake wraps around to the back of the house, too. Come in when you’re ready, yeah?”

Vera blinked. “You’re not leaving me alone—”

“With your father?”

He even cocked a brow at the question. She knew how silly it sounded, but his expression only drove the point home.

Her chest tightened. “I ... well,” she tried lamely, still stumbling over her thoughts.

Vaslav’s thin patience only extended so far with her, apparently. “Trust me, he’s not even the slightest bit annoyed with you. I made sure of it. Now go.”

Ten years.

Did he know that?

Understand it?

Vera didn’t think so, but she also didn't believe that those few seconds were enough for her to explain to Vaslav that it had been a good decade since she spent more than a passing handful of minutes in her father’s presence. Not by choice. Mostly.

Circumstances kept them apart.

Life.

Her career, too.

The few times she had been stateside for productions before her accident didn’t even lead to extended stays with her parents. In a way, Vera became a woman—or stumbled into adulthood, rather—far away from the prying eyes of the people she knew loved her most. At least, when she failed, that made swallowing it easier.

Less humiliating. Even if the isolation had eaten her heart up to its last lonely shred.

At the same time, it also left her feeling like a stranger to the people she left behind. Maybe that was the problem making her nerves stay on high alert, lost connection.

Vaslav reached over to unbuckle her seatbelt, and with a single wag of his finger, she begrudgingly climbed out of the side-by-side. As she tugged off the helmet, shaking her head a bit to settle the wild strands of her hair, she could hear the approaching footsteps on the ground behind her.

She handed the helmet over.

Vaslav took it with a measured smile. “I’ll see you shortly, krasivyy.”

“You told me the post would fall, Vaslav!”

“But only your pride took a hit, comrade,” came the rueful reply.

Vaslav jerked the sporty ROV out of park and into drive once more, but he didn’t step on the gas as he pulled away that time. Thankfully. Vera couldn’t say she was in the mood to face her father in a cloud of dust.

Instead, she turned to find her father facing her while the backdrop of the lake painted a picture of a serene, natural beauty around his tense posturing.

“I held that for more than thirty fucking minutes,” Demyan said.

Vera’s brow furrowed. “Held what?”

“The post!”

She glanced at the log post in question that still stuck up straight, reaching ten feet high from where it jutted out of the ground toward the sky. Out of all the other posts, it was the only one as tall as it was, and facing a more center section of the wide lake. Another one of a similar length waited nearby on the ground.