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He came back to her with a shaky smile and kissed her forehead again. “Don’t worry so much. We’ll figure it out.”
She shivered. She wished he’d scoop her up and carry her to the altar right now, before anyone could stop them. Before he could change his mind.
“What am I supposed to do here while you’re gone?” Antonia would no doubt bother her with nosy questions. And it wasn’t as if she’d start school again. Perhaps she’d get back to working on the farm. Funny how feeding her mama’s chickens made her homesick for her home in America now instead of the other way around.
Konstantin shrugged. “Relax? Read? Spend time with your friends and family?”
Her shoulders sagged. Everything seemed so different now. The small village . . . smaller. Antonia, her brothers, old friends from school, they were naive and unworldly, and she suddenly had nothing in common with them. She missed Kate and Everly. It wasn’t that she was too good for Russia or the village, it was just that she’d changed so much and coming back here, living under her father’s roof, made her feel small again, childish. But she wasn’t anymore. She was a woman now. But how could she show her father that?
“I have to go, bad girl,” he said. “Or I’ll miss my flight.”
“Okay.” She looked up, trying to read his mind through his eyes, but all she saw was a depth of darkness staring back at her. Sometimes the man could be such a mystery. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
After a final hug, he got in his rental car and left her standing in the driveway, waving after him, alone.
As she trudged back to the house, she spotted her father scowling in the window. For some reason, it gnawed at her nerves. She was tired—too tired to fight with him now. Couldn’t he give it a rest? Just once? Especially after he’d clearly seen her crying. When had the man become so heartless?
When she walked through the door, he was there, his arms crossed, glaring down at her. Her face heated with anger.
If he says one word . . .
“It’s better for him to go.”
“Not now, Papa,” she gritted through her teeth. When she shouldered past him, he followed her into the kitchen.
“With him gone, you’ll have time and space to think,” he continued. “Without his influence, you can use the brain God gave you—”
She spun on him, rage igniting. “I have a brain, yes! But I also have a heart. Just because you’ve forgotten what love is, doesn’t mean I have! Maybe if you focused on Mama for once instead of me, you’d be happier!”
“Enough!” Papa’s face turned bright red as he banged his fist on the kitchen table.
Varushka felt like steam was shooting out of her ears. Her chest heaved as she stared him down, and her hands shook with anger. Maybe she’d gone too far but she didn’t care. This was the stand she needed to take with Papa. He had to let go of control. She wasn’t his anymore. She was Konstantin’s.
Forcing herself to calm, she met his gaze. “I’m sorry I said that about you and Mama, but I’m not sorry for standing up to you. You are not in charge of my life anymore. I’m an adult. You’ve done a good job, but now it’s time to let me go.”
Papa seemed dumbfounded at first, his jaw hanging open. But when he took a breath and looked like he was about to protest, she turned and walked away.
She answered to one man now. Only one.
Her Master.
Chapter Fourteen
Never in his life had Konstantin thought to himself that what he really needed after a hard day of negotiations was to come home and play with two unruly goats.
They were both adorable and ridiculous, frolicking around him like puppies when he let them out of their pen. Kroshka, the brown one with the white splotch on its forehead, was so sweet and well-behaved that he’d considered letting it into the house to keep him company. It was tiny, and he doubted it would do more damage indoors than a puppy would. If he had time to look up whether goats could be house trained, he’d work on it. The white one, Beda, on the other hand, nipped him, chewed on his clothes, and if he dared to turn his back, nine times out of ten she would butt him in the ass.
The thing was possessed.
Could the church exorcise a goat? Were there special priests for livestock exorcisms?
He checked his phone again, and shot back a sarcastic response to the ongoing group text with Banner and Ambrose. They’d invited themselves over, even though Konstantin had told them he was exhausted and had to get work done. With asshole friends like his, who needed enemies? There was no arguing with them.
Far more worrying was that his text conversation with Varushka had trickled off and died. She hadn’t answered him since she went to bed, and she was usually up by now—sometimes for hours. Maybe she was sleeping in?
Originally, he’d estimated that organizing things for the grand opening of the second shop in California would take only a few days, but between California and
