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Women learned at an early age that men were to be feared, and Ruby had clearly learned that lesson better than most.
He fucking hated that it was true but he couldn’t deny it.
“Your daughter has a show?” he asked, trying to put her at ease.
She exhaled and seemed to relax into the seat. “She does. It’s not Broadway — I mean, she’s in kindergarten — but it’s a big deal to her.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’m sure it means a lot to her that you’ll be there.”
She looked at him like he’d grown two heads. “Of course I’ll be there. What parent wouldn’t?”
“You’d be surprised.” He thought of the boarding school he’d attended in Russia — the better to learn the language, his father had said while his mother wept her goodbyes, back before she’d become so anesthetized by her dinking habit that she didn’t feel much of anything.
Surrounded by the children of oligarchs and Russia’s new-money entrepreneurs, their school events had been sparsely attended by their parents. Roman had told himself it was a product of their parents’ busy and important lives, but it had still been a kind of culture shock to see all the American parents at Yale who were so involved in their now-grown children’s lives, moving their offspring into the dorms before saying tearful goodbyes, spending whole weekends in town when they visited during the year.
Boris had dropped Roman off on move-in day, and Roman had seen his parents exactly once after that — on the day he’d graduated.
Even his mother had grown used to the distance between them.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
The question surprised him. He didn’t think of himself as someone who might have children. “No,” he said. “No children. No wife.”
He added the last part just to be clear.
“Do you like children?” she asked.
He laughed at the suspicion in her voice. “It sounds like you think you know the answer to that question.”
She looked at the interior of the car, then turned her gaze on him. It was like falling into the Bering Sea, and he felt himself sinking into the depths of her eyes, a shade somewhere between cerulean and turquoise.
“I mean, can you blame me?” Her voice was teasing rather than judgmental and he found himself smiling.
“You think because I have money I don’t like children?”
She winced. “I’m sorry. That was rude of me, and also presumptuous.”
He laughed. “No apology necessary. You’re not as far off the mark as you may think. I haven’t been around many children, so I suppose I don’t really know how I feel about them.”
A line formed on the bridge of her nose. “That’s a very… honest answer.”
“Why do you sound surprised?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know many people who are honest with themselves, about themselves. Do you?”
“Now that you mention it, no,” he said. “How old is your daughter?”
“She’s five.” Her face lit up and she laughed. “She’s funny and sweet. She’s… strong. Already.”
“Like her mother,” he said.
A flush rose to Ruby’s beautiful face, shadows darkening her eyes as she shook her head. “I’m not strong.”
“The situation in the alley this afternoon would say otherwise.”
A burst of sarcastic laughter puffed from her mouth. “That was all you. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I’d have been screwed.”
“Saying you’re not strong because someone hurts you is like saying the person who hurt you is.” He couldn’t help the bitterness that laced through his voice. Thinking about that asshole with his hands on Ruby — shoving her, hurting her — made him want to punch something. “We both know that’s not true, don’t we? That anyone who hurts someone smaller or weaker is just a coward in disguise?”
