Page 4 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

It shouldn’t need to.

Right?

“Ah, fuck,” Kiril muttered when he’d shut the engine off and shot a look toward the wide stone stairs leading up to the woman waiting at the front door. “She’s gonna mother me to death again. Tell her I’m not allowed to come inside, Igor said or some shit, okay?”

Vera scowled at the kid in the front seat, but he pretended like he didn’t notice where she sat right next to him. “Stop it, the very least you could do is let her care. What, she makes sure you’re fed while you’re around and not wearing jeans with the knees blown out of them.”

She knew because he told her as much.

The kid really did talk a lot. Just not about things that Vera sometimes wanted him to, for that matter.

“Hey, I like my jeans with the holes in the knees, okay?”

“Tell her that, then.”

Kiril’s responding facial expression didn’t exactly agree. Neither did the quick shake of his head. He eyed the empty driveway, saying, “I need to call Igor. He’s supposed to be here all day.”

“That’s a more valid excuse to stay in the car, for the record,” Vera pointed out before making her exit from the passenger side. She didn’t wait for his response before shutting the door on whatever Kiril was about to say, either.

She eyed the line of terracotta pots full of the same shrub she had left at home in varying degrees of growth and greenery. When did Vaslav plan to plant those?

Mira was already smiling in her kind way when Vera reached the steps and took the first few two at a time.

“I saw Kiril when he was opening the gate and already called Mr. Pashkov up from the back for you, Miss—”

“Could you just call me Vera?” she asked, hating to interrupt Mira but knowing it also needed to be said.

Mira pursed her lips, and keeping her hands neatly folded at her front, bobbed a bit on the spot in response. “Informally, I suppose I can.”

Vera raised a brow.

“And I will,” Mira quickly added. Then, she leaned sideways to look beyond Vera the higher she came on the stairs. “Is Kiril coming in?”

“Maybe later. He’s got other things to handle right now.”

And that was the most she would lie for the kid, too.

Mira nodded, but the way her mouth pinched in a tight smile said she wasn’t entirely happy about it. Vera almost wondered ... did she want to be a mother—was that why she mothered Kiril whenever the young man was within breathing distance of her?

“Anyway,” Mira said, “Mr. Pashkov said he would be up from the lake soon. I don’t know what he’s been doing all night down at the guesthouse, but it’s better than him pacing the halls here.”

Vera’s brow furrowed as she came to stand beside Mira on the top of the steps. She’d left the front door open a few inches, but there was no sign of the black retriever that had been using the steps as a makeshift bed the last time she stood there.

“Is he not sleeping well?” she asked the older woman.

That question had Mira glancing away. “Better for you to ask him that. He said he’d meet you in the dining room, lunch is nearly ready. Are you hungry?”

Her stomach must have heard the prodding. It grumbled accordingly, and the empty ache the rumble left behind was enough to make Vera nauseous.

“I could eat,” she replied.

“Good. I made too much Olivier salad. He wanted something with chicken today.”

Mira gestured Vera to the front door, and made small talk as the two headed inside. She didn’t ask Vera to remove her boots at the entrance rug, but rather, brushed off the bit of dirt as expected and ushered her across the space to the small vestibule leading into the large dining room. It wasn’t a space she’d spent much time in other than to cross through to reach the kitchen, but she knew it well enough to spot the difference the second she stepped inside the dimly lit space.

Decorated in dark red wood, she could feel the ambiance of the space and how it might welcome guests for a dinner or party. Despite the large chandelier, featuring dangling crystals on each long, spiraling arm, there wasn’t much light except for the scattered wall sconces on either side of the long table. At least twenty feet in length with a glossy black top that didn’t show a speck of dust, ten chairs sat on either side with more ornate captain chairs heading both ends.

It wasn’t the table she found interesting.