Page 32 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

He didn’t wait for her to respond.

Maybe he didn’t care.

Vaslav fisted the towel around his waist to keep it in place as he stepped over the mess on the floor, and headed for the back hallway where he’d first come into the room. She heard his footsteps pad down that hallway to the stairwell at the back before they fainted as he climbed the stairs back to his rooms.

She was left in chaos.

Surrounded by his anger and destruction.

“And all because you wanted to help,” she said to the empty room.

The room seemed to exhale the swell of tension and anxiety that had filled it full. It left her feeling even more alone.

A scary state, considering the alternative that waited for her upstairs. Even then, she wanted to be with him more than she needed to sit there holding papers that also wouldn’t change a thing. Of course, she understood.

She had looked right through the beast’s mask that was only there to hide the man, and the complex, guarded, hurting soul she found underneath was not at all what she expected; she didn’t fault him for holding his secrets and fears close. Never mind, how his soul called to hers. Even then, as she clutched the papers tighter to her middle and her tears fell more, she had to stop herself from going to him.

Vera couldn’t.

Hadn’t she done enough?

Not while his anger spilled out upstairs in crashes and unintelligible shouts. Not when he couldn’t stand the very sight of his own presence, and even the light fixtures hanging from the ceiling overhead rattled from something else being toppled over.

He didn’t scare her.

His rage didn’t keep her away. That’s not why she waited. Everyone was entitled to their peace, and Vaslav was allowed his private pain. Alone if that’s what he needed. Even if that meant sitting an entire floor lower than him, safe away from any line of fire, was what killed her the very most.

Didn’t he know?

She’d hold him when he cried, too.

If only he’d let her.

7.

Thwack.

Smack.

Thwack.

Smack.

Vaslav became lost in the rhythmic noise of the mallet hammers whacking in unison as the sound echoed over the lake. The final two thuds of his hammer, and his companion’s, coming down on their respective post stakes sounded different than the harder initial whacks.

Sturdier.

He moved for the pile of remaining stakes, only a half of a dozen, but the other man working side by side with him opted not to move. Passing the quiet Demyan a look as Vaslav chose his next post, he found him studying the peaceful water with fondness.

“My family has a lake property,” he said without warning.

It was the first piece of conversation either man offered the other that morning. Demyan’s fifth staying on the property.

“That so?” Vaslav asked.

Demyan nodded absentmindedly, but otherwise, he didn't pay Vaslav any mind as he went about tapping in the first six inches of the sharpened end of the stake where he’d marked the next hole six feet away from the last.

“Kept in the family,” Demyan explained. “The lake isn’t as large as this one. It’s fed by a similar landscape, the mountains.”