“Kirill left, Stella,” she repeats, a sad frown stitched across her lips. “I did whatMammàasked and took him to the woods so he could watch your induction—”
“Wait…Mammà did what?!”I blurt again, this time a little louder, equal parts astonished and grateful that my mother would think to do something like that.
“Will you let me finish?” she reprimands.
Her scolding throws me off a bit, because that’s not like Annamaria at all. Usually, she has a wealth of patience to spare, enough to sell and give away if she had to.
Now that I think about it, Annahasbeen acting strange for the last few weeks. But right now, my priority is figuring out why Kirill left my party, so I shove that concern to the back of my mind, to revisit later.
And Iwillbe revisiting it later.
“Go on.”
“Well, he watched the induction,” she begins chewing her bottom lip.
“And?”
“And I’m not sure if I should tell you this next part or not.”
“Anna!” Now it’s my turn to lose my patience with her.
She lets out a sigh and proceeds to tell me the rest. “You should have seen his face, Stella. He was so proud of you. I think he even cried a little. I know we’re not supposed to talk about it. That we should respect your need for privacy, but Stella,” she says, her blue eyes sparkling, “He loves you. The man I sawtoday, watching you being inducted, loves you with every fiber of his being.”
My heart swells at her words… but then doubt starts to creep in.
If he loved me that much, then why leave?
When Anna realizes I’m not going to add anything to her observation, she continues on. “But then, right at the end, something changed in him,” she continues. “It was like a dark cloud came over his face, and he just… left.”
“And he didn’t say anything to you?”
She shakes her head.
“Not one word?”
“Not one, Stella. I would tell you if he had.”
That… that…that asshole!
“Where are you going?!” Annamaria whisper-yells when I start storming out of the room, every member of my family now staring at me.
“I’m going to find Kirill-fucking-Petrov and give him a piece of my mind! That’s where I’m going! And I dare anyone to stop me!”
I snatch my coat off the hook and charge out the door before anyone even has the chance to try.
It takes me four hours to find out where the cocky bastard could be hiding.
He wasn’t at his club.
He wasn’t at the casino.
He wasn’t at the lake house or even by the lake where we first danced together.
I finally had to call Frankie and beg—okay, maybe more demanded than begged—for his address in the city. She was reluctant to give it to me, but eventually I wore her down.
And now here I am, pounding on his door like a madwoman, yelling for him to let me in.
But it isn’t Kirill who answers the door.
