Page 37 of Forgotten Vows
But she took the initiative to break the ice, albeit with a wry, dull tone that suggested she hated to have to speak to me at all.
“He fell asleep before I could explain anything to him. Gabriella showed us to a guest room, and while she gave me a slight tour so I’d find the attached bathroom, he fell asleep on the bed.”
I nodded. “What explanation does he need first?” It seemed that she was too good at keeping the truth from not just me but also our son.
She gave me a slow, withering stare. “That you are his father.”
“You never told him?” That hurt even more. That I wasn’t worth a mention, like I didn’t matter at all in her eyes.
“No. I told him that his father valued his job andhisfamily too much to start a new one with us.”
I glared at her. Bitterness was one thing, but this hatred was already getting old.
“Don’t you dare try to suggest that’s not true. You and I both knew that our families would never approve of us together. That was why I wanted to run away—withyou—to raise our child, away from the reach of the violence and politics.” She stood, setting her hands on the edge of the stone half-wall. “But you showed no interest in sticking with me for long.”
I gritted my teeth, holding in my explanation about why I’d left. It was to keep her safe. To spare her more pain. I didn’t expect her to understand that at all. Not now.
“This morning, he woke me up and asked a million questions. And I explained that you are his father. That Luka is a… distant relative. That we’re here for the time being while I speak with you some more.”
“Good.”
She furrowed her brow, looking sexier somehow with that attitude. This woman never failed to keep me on my toes. I’d missed that. I’d missedher.
“Good?”
“Yes. It is good that he knows I’m his father now.” That helped my mood about being dismissed like this. “And it is good that you are well aware that you owe me more answers.”
She pressed her lips together and faced forward, watching Lev laugh with Misha.
Merely seeing my son filled me with a foreign sense of joy. Hearing his laughter pulled a smile out of me. And I knew this was only the beginning.
It was.
While the understanding remained between me and Raisa, the expectation that she would need to speak with me about the past and especially about what brought her here, I spent the next few days focusing on Lev.
He wasn’t shy to talk to me. He wasn’t overly nosy, either. Like Raisa, he was observant and smart, quick-witted but patient. Compared to Misha, he seemed mature, but I wondered if that was a by-product of how Raisa had raised him so far.
Instead of going home, I remained here with them. Every day, I woke up eager to see Lev and learn more about him, and when I went to bed, it was with a lingering smile at all I was experiencing in this newfound parenthood. Raisa didn’t go far. She was always near, watching over us, but she didn’t stop me from spending time with our son.
We walked around the house. We hung out with Alexsei and Misha. We saw baby Andre. Slowly, I introduced him to the important people in my family here. We played games. He colored with me. Swimming in the pool that Luka had put in for Gabriella was fun too.
All the while, he refrained from being overly nosy. He didn’t ask too many questions, at least not ones I wouldn’t be able to answer, but I knew he was cataloguing all that he was learning here. Just like I was learning about him.
Still,time was ticking by and I had to understand what prompted Raisa to come here. What had changed. Even though I didn’t want to put a pause on befriending Lev and getting him to gradually trust me, I couldn’t escape this push to speak with Raisa.
Too many questions remained unanswered.
The following night, I asked Alexsei to preoccupy Lev and Misha together so the boy wouldn’t be a distraction. Raisa seemed to realize that I had something on my mind, because when I asked her to take a walk with me after dinner, she gave me a look but didn’t protest.
I intended to bring her outside to the garden, so we could have privacy but not be stuck in a room where she might feel trapped. With the rain pouring outside, though, we ended up walking toward my room.
“I’ve been meaning to find a chance to speak with you,” I said after I let her enter ahead of me.
“Yeah. I bet.” She rolled her eyes as she walked past me.
I closed the door, almost falling for her sassy act to demand that she lose the attitude. I wasn’t surprised that she was hostile, but I refused to be persuaded into letting her off the hook. I wanted answers, and it was time for her to fill in some gaps about her story.
“Why did you leave me like that?” she asked. Whirling around to face me, she kept her expression cool, her arms folded over her chest in a defensive pose. “Why? Why did you just get up and go right when I needed you the most?”
