Page 73 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

Vaslav let go of Hannah’s hand, saying at the same time, “Well, I’ll get you another.”

Too amused to step in and stop the two from sniping at one another like they were, Vera remained quiet as Vaslav learned across the aisle and grabbed an empty chair from a table beside theirs. Hannah’s plates were all but empty, so it wasn’t exactly like they needed the table space for a third seat. Vaslav yanked the wooden chair around to face their table, and nodded at it, telling Hannah, “There, sit.”

His tone stayed clipped.

Short, and annoyed.

She did sit.

Quickly, too.

“If you call me “the friend” again,” Hannah told Vaslav, arching one red eyebrow high, “I’ll start calling you the fiancé in kind. Fair?”

Of all things she could have said, that remark actually earned Hannah a smile. Softer than his smirks and fleeting because of his pain. It had been there, though. For a second.

“Fair,” Vaslav said.

“Well,” Vera put in, waving for the server behind the breakfast bar made of centuries old wood, “this wasn’t awkward at all.”

Then, she looked to Vas, asking, “Do you want a coffee?”

“Black, please,” he muttered.

By the time Vera had repeated the order to a waiting server, the other two people at the table had attempted a restart to their conversation.

Kind of.

“You are aware that the general public basically believes you’re not allowed to leave Dubna, aren’t you?” Hannah asked. “Like you’ve got some kind of gate and guard out there keeping you behind lock and key.”

“Hannah,” Vera scolded, interjecting into the conversation fast. “That’s—”

Vaslav laughed, guttural and real. It stopped her from saying anything else to shut her friend up before the unpredictable nature of the man sitting at the table decided to show itself at the worst possible time.

Except he didn’t react like she expected.

It shocked even Vera.

“Jesus Christ,” Vaslav swore, rubbing at his cheek as he turned away from the table a bit. “The papers really will write anything, yeah?”

Hannah shot Vera a pointed look, with a flat, “And some of it might even be true.”

“Thin ice,” Vera replied dryly. “You’re walking on it.”

“Oh, she’s harmless,” Vaslav said, stunning Vera further. “And funny, I like her.”

Not even Hannah knew what to make of that.

16.

When the first snow fell in Moscow, Vera swore the city changed. All the color and cement and life turned into a beautiful palace of ice. Every street and block, and even business, looked different with snow clinging to the roofs and ice hanging from the eaves. While they only had a couple of weeks of terribly cold temperatures most winters, from the first snowfall to the last in April, the weather remained mild.

The first snowfall of the year came right on time, too. Early November greeted them with the same chill and wind it always did, but Vera could have done without needing to wear a thick parka complete with a fur-trimmed hood on the day she went shopping for wedding dresses. The falling snow with every large flake spiraling down in the winds was certainly beautiful, and it meant she was one day closer to her wedding day, but shopping downtown was a hell of a lot less fun in the cold.

The quiet whistle of appreciation from Claire as her mother observed the beginnings of the city’s first winter storm made Vera even happier that she was safely inside. Turning the tablet back around so Claire could see her daughter’s face instead of the bay window where the boutique’s private dressing room overlooked the icy, but still slightly busy, street.

“I hope you’re not walking home,” Claire joked.

Vera grinned, replying, “Definitely not.”