Page 96 of Scarlet Secrets

I bet Demyan doesn’t talk about him to her. He’ll be like most men and want to fix things when all she wants is to talk. To meander. To dissect and go around in circles because it feels like Max is there.

She wants, like most of us, to have the conversation drawn out. But Demyan… I can see him taking her, saying I don’t want to talk at face value.

And I think he loves her so much he’s as lost as she is.

“Max would be so angry,” I say, “that he isn’t here, that youhave to do this alone. I mean, you have people, but that part of you that’s part of him. He’d be furious with that alone.”

She wipes her eyes. “I know. His heart was too big.”

“No. It was the perfect size for you.”

We sit and drink and she keeps topping hers off until it’s pretty much coffee-flavored booze, but I don’t say a thing about it. “I thought he was the most perfect man when I saw him and I got so nervous he thought I hated him.”

“Max might tell you that, but he knew. The night you both met, he called and told me he’d just met the woman he was going to marry, whether she knew it or not.”

And the look on her face is priceless. The love that shines is something she’ll cling to, because I can see the light flare in her as a missing piece falls into place and she now holds something precious.

“Now,” I say, “do you want to know about the Max before you met him?”

“Please…”

“Well…” And we talk about Max, swapping stories and there’s a healing air in the room. For her and for me, too. Since I lost Max, too. And it hits me that I have.

We both laugh and cry and finally she squeezes my hand. “I loved him so much and I always will.”

“And he’ll want you to be happy.”

“What about you? Are you? Demyan… he can be difficult. He shouldn’t have gone about things the way he did, but our father…”

“He’s explained some. I’m just… confused. He basically forced me into this, and Sasha deserves a dad and I’m racked with guilt, but I thought I was doing the right thing.” I run a hand over my face, trying to make sense of the word salad I’m speaking. “But then I see him with Sasha and I can see his heart. I guess… I guess I’m holding back? We’re getting closer, and he’s demanded I move into his room, that we get married.”

“And?”

“I think I want to give it a go. But I also feel he’s keeping secrets. Like, where’s he going right now?”

“Trust me, I know how difficult he is, how closed off. But he’s not the type who lets someone in very easily. Actually…” She takes a breath. “I’m seeing sides of him around you I’ve never seen before. He’s actually softer, more open. And the demand? He doesn’t have women here. The penthouse? Probably, or somewhere else he owns, but here? This is the heart of the family. You in his room? That means something.”

“He told me your father was a hard man.”

A muscle works in her jaw. “Demyan thinks I never saw, but I did. My father was so good to me and a monster to him, and I hated it. So he learned to be hard and cold and never let anything touch him. He looks at you and there are times I don’t see the mask. He looks at you like you’re special.”

“I gave birth to his child.”

“That’s the excuse. He doesn’t look at you like a mother. He looks at you like you’re the woman he wants in his life. And I think that scares him.”

Her words fill me with a strange sense of hope that borders on confidence.

Chapter Twenty-Four

DEMYAN

“Fuck!”

“You’re in a good mood,” Alina says as I wander into the kitchen early the next morning.

My gaze goes to the two mugs in the sink, the bottle of bourbon almost empty on the counter, and her bloodshot eyes as she makes coffee.

Clearly, Magda or Olga haven’t hit the kitchen yet. Which doesn’t surprise me, my breakfasting depends on my day. And it isn’t time for Sasha yet.

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