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“I’m intimidating you?” Leo says, with genuine hurt in his voice, looking at Rosa with love.
This getsreallywild, but I distantly have thoughts like Leo looking at our son or daughter with that same love and immediate understanding.
I miss that. I miss Mom.
No.
“No, not me. Don’t be silly, Dad.”
Leo sits in the chair Rosa was just in, folding one leg over the other, his fingers drumming the arm of the chair.
“It depends on you, Emma.”
A tingle dances up my back when he says my name. I’m not sure if it’s fear or want or maybe both. Those sensations shouldn’t mix, should they, like a bad cocktail?
“What did you see?”
“N-nothing,” I say, struggling to talk.
Rosa’s wrong. He’s more thansort ofintimidating.
“Dad, she means it,” Rosa says.
“I believe you, but…” His eyes refocus when he looks at me. He stares for a long time like he’s calculating something again. Finally, he goes on. “The war. The Russians. Emma, you should stay here for a while. Things are happening, and you may be a target.”
“What?” Rosa gasps.
“Almost two years,” Leo says, “and you haven’t had any visitors here. Suddenly, Emma shows up. The Russians will take notice. They might target her.”
“This is why you couldn’t visit me,” I whisper, “and why you didn’t want me to come here.”
Rosa squeezes my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t stay here.” I sit forward. “I’ve got an apartment waiting for me. I’ve already paid for the first month. I’m starting a job tomorrow, a waitressing job.”
“Is that what you want to be, a waitress?” Leo says.
If I let myself dream, I’d read a lot into how he asks the question, with genuine curiosity and belief in his voice, as if he thinks I’m capable of so much more.
“No,” I reply defiantly. “I’m going to be an accountant, but I’ve got to earn money somehow.”
“Not for the immediate future, you don’t. You’ll have everything you need here.”
“Dad, you can’tkeepher here.”
Leo stands with an air of finality. He puts his hands behind his back, emphasizing his shoulders, his thick arms pushing through the sleek dark blue suit.
“I’m doing this for her safety,” he says gruffly.
“Dad—”
It’s like the monster beneath the veneer emerges. He grips the back of the chair, glaring down at us, his voice getting savage and somehow violent like he’d happily hurt something, anybody, right now. The veins in his neck bulge.
“How would you feel if some Russian thug found her? Hurt her? What then? What would we do then?”
He says this almost desperately. It’s as though it would somehow hurt him as much as Rosa, which shouldn’t be the case.
“She stays,” he says, then marches for the stairs.
