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“Of course it does. I wish you’d had more time with her too,” Anton countered, taking a long sip of his champagne. His nose wrinkled when he reached the base. “You should have told me the vintages you’d be serving would be swill, Star. I’d have donated better wines to the event.”
She hitched a shoulder. “It’s organic.”
Warily eyeing the flute, Anton snorted. “Of course it is. Everything is organic or vegetarian nowadays. No wonder nothing tastes as it once did.” He released a soft chuckle. “Since Chernobyl, all wine has radioactive matter in it, did you know that? They say it doesn’t affect the taste, but I say they don’t have a wine cellar that isn’t tainted.”
I lived like Bruce Wayne without the Batman sideline so I wasn’t exactly ‘in touch,’ but Jesus wept, in that one statement alone, he proved he was so out of touch he might as well have lived in the Antarctic.
“Tell me about her?” Star rasped, entirely uninterested in his snobbish tastes in wine and more focused on her mother.
“Now?”
“Yes. It’s not as if this event is more entertaining than anything you could have to say.” She peered at me. “It’s okay if you want to mingle.”
Tenderly, I chucked her under the chin while my fingers on her hips squeezed her there. Twice. “I think I can cope with not having to talk to people I’m not interested in. Anyway, I’d like to learn more about your mother too.”
Anton shrugged. “For all that Galena loathed parties, she was a social creature. Plenty of friends as she was growing up.”
“Are they still alive?”
He frowned. “I assume so. If they haven’t perished from illness. There’s a room in the house in Uvala Lapad that contains all Galena’s personal effects.”
She jerked like she’d been hit with a bullet. “Why didn’t you show me?”
“Our last interaction there involved you stabbing me in the hand with a dinner fork, Star. I wasn’t entirely sure if you’d maintain our bargain or not.
"That room is a private sanctuary of mine. Aleks’ too. I wasn’t going to share it with someone who could have betrayed me.”
“I can understand that.” She pursed her lips. “What’s in the room?”
“Mostly her childhood things. Before she left for the US and to…”
“Con my father into falling in love with her?”
Anton reached for a handkerchief in his pocket and began dabbing his top lip. “Yes, I suppose. Your candidness will never cease surprising me, child.
"Regardless, she moved the furnishings of her apartment into one of my properties. Since her death, I brought her things with me to whichever home became my main address.”
“Aleks’ too?”
“Yes. Unofficial shrines, I suppose. It’s the Orthodox Russian in me. Even if I haven’t practiced for many years.” He tilted his head to the side. “Is it hot in here?”
“No. I told them specifically to maintain a seventy-two-degree temperature.”
“Why?” I asked. “Or is this because of Kat’s global warming presentation too?”
“Global warming presentation?” Anton choked out a laugh. “Is this why you disagreed with the ice sculptures?”
“There is no planet B,” Star said simply. “I’d like her not to have to live under a dome or to have to relocate to a colony on Mars.”
Anton patted his forehead. “You know I agree with you, but at least she’ll have the funds with which to make such costly endeavors. She’s still Belyaev’s heir. I’m sure that as much as the man favored male children, he’d have left her well cared for.”
“I never thought of that. She costs me a fortune in broken laptops. She needs to start paying her way.”
“I know you’re intent on bankrupting yourself with funding the foundation but I think we can afford more computers,” I teased.
“Not with the bill for that private school we just got,” she mocked.
Anton’s chuckle was weak as he slurred, “I’m certain it’s—” The sibilant hiss was extended until he stuttered, “—h-hot in here.”
