The times I wasn’t there for her.
And what makes it hurt even more and isknowingthat I’m no innocent bystander to the darkness her life spiraled into.
I’mthe one who pointed her in that direction. I’m the motherfucker who cornered a grieving girl, still trying to process her own trauma, at her best friends funeral, and told her “this is your fault. You did this.”
I’m not actually sure how I’ll ever atone for that. But I do know I’ll die loving her with every single part of me, even if it barely scratches that debt.
“At her father’s,” I grunt. “She…”
She wants to find out if he knows that half her life she's been living a lie.
I smile. “She’s just picking something up.”
Oksana gives me a look, wagging her brows before she turns away.
“Oksana.”
“Da?”
“What… What was that look?”
She smiles to herself, glancing back at me and waving me off with a hand. “Nothing,” she chuckles. “Just…nothing.”
I stiffen. “Is thisnothingabout Cesare?”
She tips her head side to side, looking at the ceiling.
“Oksana…”
“It is unprofessional to gossip,zaychik.”
I roll my eyes. “It’s also rude to hint at big secrets and then not deliver.”
She laughs, sighing. “Fine. There’s a WhatsApp group I’m in?—”
“You know how to use a smartphone?”
Oksana whirls and whacks me on the wrist with her wooden spoon.
“I’m only seventy-nine, not two hundred,” she mutters darkly.
“I'm sorry. Who’s in your WhatsApp group?”
She shrugs. “Mostly otherbabushkas. Housekeepers, cooks, maids.”
I smirk to myself, and I’m suddenly more glad than ever that I hired Alfred when I bought the penthouse, and not somebabushkawho’d be gossiping about me to Oksana on WhatsApp.
“And what do thebabushkassay about Cesare Marchetti?”
She grins impishly. “Did you know he has a second woman come in every other week to help his housekeeper clean?”
“I did not.”
“Well, he does,” she cackles. “And she’s from Moscow.” Oksana grins. “There’s a bit of gossip at the Marchetti house!”
I look at her expectantly. “Which is?”
She waggles her brows salaciously. “It would appear Don Marchetti isshlyat'sya po babam.”
