I stare, and he laughs but then it fades away. “Jokes aside, it’s Alya. I couldn’t protect her before, so I’d be destroyed if something happened to her.”
“When we were in DC, you mentioned she’s disabled because of you.”
He purses his lips, obviously not wanting to talk about it, but I stroke his hand with my thumb, slowly coaxing him.
Finally, he lets out a sigh. “It’s… Mom told me to look out for her and I…well, ran away from home.”
“Ranaway?”
“Not permanently, just for a day. Mom got worse during that time, and she passed away while I wasn’t there.” His voice chokes on the last words, and I keep stroking his hand, squeezing a bit. “Alya was by her side until the very end. She was distraught and needed me, so she had the chauffeur drive her, but they had an accident, and well, the rest is history.”
“It’s not your fault she had an accident.”
“It is. She wouldn’t have had it if I’d been there.”
“She could’ve had it on her way to school or anywhere else. You can’t predict accidents.”
He remains silent, but his shoulders are crowded with tension. I contemplate hugging him, offering him support or just a shoulder to lean on.
Before I can do that, a car rolls in, killing any chance of that happening.
“We should go.” He slips his hand from mine and faces his bike, his grin gone, the light dimmed from his face. The conversation clipped his mood, soured it.
But I know how to make him feel better.
Sex. Lots of relentless, consuming sex.
We’ll fuck until the minute I have to go.
And I’ll convince myself it’s just a physical connection, even though the truth—the answer to what would destroy me most—is losing Yulian Dimitriev.
I know it, because I tasted a fragment of that pain four years ago. If it happens again now, I don’t think I’llsurvive it.
29
VAUGHN
“Are you serious right now?”
I push the sunglasses down my nose, staring at Yulian, who’s lining up empty cans by the far left side of the garden.
“Dead serious,” he says, bending down, and I get distracted because his ass looks really good in those shorts, his tattoos on full display, his tan skin gleaming under the rare British sun.
The breeze is chilling, but Yulian is pretending this is summer as he parades around shirtless, his bare feet sinking into the damp grass. Honestly, he must be doing it on purpose to seduce me.
It’s working, by the way, because I can’t take my gaze from him.
Not sure why I suggested we lounge in the garden after the disaster of a lunch Yulian tried to cook. He made such a mess of the kitchen that I had to clean—seriously, not sure how he could even bear to say that we should leave it to the housekeepers.
The food was not bad per se, but the mess was not worth it. Definitely won’t let him cook again.
But that’s what I said a couple of weeks ago when he nearly blew up the oven, but then he’d jump into thekitchen half naked and I sort of let him do whatever he wanted, even attempting to fix some failed recipes.
I know how to cook simple stuff, but Yulian is always going for new adventures just for the sake of it.
Honestly, every week is a journey with this guy.
It’s been about a month since I started coming here weekly, since the ride to the gas station that he repeats occasionally. Ever since that conversation we had in the middle of nowhere, something has shifted between us.
