Page 70 of Vitaly

Vitaly follows my gaze. “Hungry?”

Hungry? No, not really. But curious.

I shrug. “Sure.”

He grabs a bowl from the cabinet and pours some of the soup in. When I take the first bite of cabbage, I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s good. Well-flavored. It hints at a skilled cook.

But it’s still cabbage soup.

“Yum,” I say, raising my spoonful of soup in a toast before bringing it to my lips. Vitaly follows my lead.

When I set the spoon back in the bowl, I wipe my mouth. “Hey, Vitaly?”

“Hmm?” he asks around a bite of cabbage.

“Why are you making peasant food at eleven at night?”

He leans his lower back against the counter while scraping his bowl with the spoon. “I like the freedom of eating when I choose.”

“Ah, so that’s why you refuse to come to dinner.” I chuckle, my brow raised as I watch him.

He shakes his head. “I don’t like what the king serves.”

“What?” My lips spread. “Are you saying you prefer cabbage to steak?”

He lifts a shoulder. “I’m a simple man.”

“You arenota simple man.”

He smiles into the bowl before bringing the whole thing to his mouth. After draining the bowl, he walks to the sink and rinses it out. I watch him with curiosity far too intense for a man doing such simple things.

When he shuts off the sink, he walks back over to me and cocks his hip against the counter. “Did you know I was spoiled growing up?”

“No,really?” I press my hands to my cheeks in mock disbelief, making Vitaly smile.

“Well, that did not fare well for me when I became an adult. I was vulnerable to pain, hunger, sleep deprivation, all things outside of the life of a kid who grew up…” He motions to our surroundings as he glances around. “Here… I find strength inliving with little. Sometimes I even like to feel pain just to make sure my mind hasn’t softened.”

“Really?” I ask, my voice sounding playfully disbelieving, though I really do believe it. I find my smile slipping as he nods, his eyes so serious they push mine away.

I fight to stay still as his intensity wraps around me and tries to tug me toward him. I don’t know if it would even make sense for me to kiss him now. He isn’t trying to be sexy. I’m not even certain he’sbeingsexy.

But he has the look of a god and the mind of a warrior. He’s everything I once thought a Pakhan should be. Everything his grandfather wasn’t, that his uncle isn’t.

He’s the type of man I’ve worked so hard to fit myself with, even when he didn’t exist here. The type I’d swim a lake with in winter, just to make sure my body knew what it was like not to be comfortable.

I get it. Ireallyget it.

He’s keeping his mind strong. He’s training for battles that haven’t been started.

He’s…

He might be perfect.

I swallow. “Good thing you had your mother to teach you to cook, then.” I force myself to smile through my confusion and gesture to the pot on the stove. “It’s simple but tasty.”

“I’d be a much better cook if my mother had been the one to teach me.” He returns my smile, but it seems just as forced. Maybe even sad. “I worked in the kitchen for a couple years when I was in prison.”

“Oh.” I rub my arm. “Right, that makes sense.”

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