Page 52 of Royally Romanov
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
He’d left. He’d dropped his grandmother’s charm bracelet in a little pile of gold, rhinestones, and trinkets, and he’d walked right out the door.
Finley took a shaky inhale. Her breath grew shallow. A customer walked into the bookstore, causing the bells on the doorknob to ring again. The jarring noise pulled Finley from her trance.
Thank goodness.
She had to go after Maxim. She couldn’t let him do this. If he didn’t want her help, so be it. But she couldn’t accept his grandmother’s things any more than Maxim could accept her assistance in trying to sort out his past.
Truth had been such a precious, elusive thing lately. Since the moment Finley had met Maxim, attempting to grasp the truth had been like struggling to catch air in her hands. Impossible. But things were beginning to come together in ways she never would have expected.
Finley stared at his grandmother’s bracelet, not wanting to believe what she was seeing.
You’re imagining things. It’s just an old charm bracelet.
But it wasn’t just an old charm bracelet any more than Maxim was an ordinary man.
Finley had been trained to spot items of historical and artistic significance. Years of studying had taught her to look beyond layers of dust and decades of wear and tear, to see the story beneath the surface. And the bracelet’s story was breathtaking, like nothing she’d ever seen before.
The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her—she’d forgotten she’d asked him to bring the bracelet along tonight. Asking him in the first place had been an act of pure desperation. She’d been grasping at straws.
Then it no longer seemed important. Not after the things she’d told him, and not after the way he’d looked at her. He’d stood right there in her beloved bookstore, and he’d looked at her as though the lingering pain of what she’d experienced cut him deeper than what he’d been through himself.
She’d never forget that look as long as she lived. It had stolen the air right out of her lungs. How was it that a man she’d known for less than a week was more affected by what had happened to her than her own boyfriend had been at the time it occurred?
Because he understands. He knows what it’s like.
Maxim felt her pain in the same way that she felt his. And when she’d told him her darkest secret, he’d accepted it with a graceful fury that was moving and bittersweet.
He wanted to protect her. She got that. It irritated her to no end, but she got it. That’s why she hadn’t argued with him. That’s why she’d been willing to return the photograph and let him walk away.
But then Maxim had told her to keep it. And he’d dropped the bracelet on the counter like it was a piece of costume jewelry anyone could find on a Saturday afternoon at the Les Puces de Montreuil flea market.
What had he said when he first mentioned his grandmother’s things?
There’s not much. No more photographs. Just an old charm bracelet...
He had no idea what he’d left behind.
“Did your man leave already?” Scott sauntered in from one of the shop’s other crowded rooms, looked around and shook his head. “I left you two alone on purpose. I thought maybe you’d seal the deal and leave together. But no.”
He let out a weary sigh, and Finley somehow resisted the urge to tell him to mind his own business for once.
“I’ve got to go.” Finley managed to get Gerard’s leash clipped to his collar despite the frantic trembling in her hands. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and her heart was beating hard against her rib cage.
She had to hurry, or she’d never find Maxim. This couldn’t wait until later. She had no idea when he’d be back at his apartment, and she didn’t exactly want to hang around there since someone had tried to break in the day before.
Where had Maxim gone, anyway? What was the mysterious appointment he’d mentioned?
This isn’t the time to try and figure it out. Just go after him. Now.
Scott frowned. “You’re leaving, too? It’s like a revolving door around here all of a sudden.”
She slung her bag over her shoulder and wrapped Gerard’s leash firmly around one of her wrists. Then she stared at the bracelet for a beat before relenting and fastening it around her other wrist. That seemed safer than dropping into her bag. Itwasa bracelet, after all.
“Au revoir.” She waved at Scott, and the charms on the dainty gold chain tinkled like bells.
