After, we lay in each other’s arms, listening to the sounds of hammers meeting nails, summer music, and murmured conversation.
“This is good, is it not?” he said.
Agreeing might jinx it, yet I couldn’t deny what was happening. I had fallen for this man all over again—though, to be fair, the path back was short because I hadn’t recovered from the first time.
“It’s not terrible.” I traced circles over his pec and avoided looking at him.
“Lauren, I know the situation with my father is tough?—”
“This isn’t about your father, Alexei. I’ve just broken up with someone I thought I was going to marry. My life is, frankly, a mess. I’m not sure I have the bandwidth to deal with you on top of everything else.”
He tucked a finger under my chin and raised it so he could look into my eyes. “The point of a relationship is to make things easier for each other, not harder.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Resisting you is so much effort, and I’m not sure I have it in me anymore.”
He smirked. “Are you saying I have worn you down?”
“Possibly.”
“You can no longer fight this.”
I could not. And while I was pretending that his relentless pursuit of me had landed him the catch, the truth was I wanted to be caught.
Yet a part of me still clung to the past, to those old patterns and indescribable pain. “Let’s take it slow.”
He moved his body over mine. “But I think you like it fast, zhena.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes. My wife is a cautious woman.”
Not cautious enough, but was it possible everything happened for a reason? The heartbreak of fifteen years ago had put us on this twisty road back to each other with a few speedbumps along the way.
“I’d like my life to be more settled.”
“So we will hold off on the divorce?”
From a practical standpoint, it made sense. But marriage, a real marriage, was no laughing matter. “Perhaps. But no one can know except the chosen few we’ve already admitted to the inner circle.”
He cupped behind my neck and drew me close. “Yet I want to shout from the rooftops that I love you, my silver-eyed girl. Am I supposed to keep this to myself?”
He loves me. I wanted to believe it. Why else would he have come at me with the full court press? Yet my heart was stuck in that alley, watching him slip into the shadows on graduation day.
“I won’t object to private declarations of affection.”
“No? If I cannot tell the world that you are my wife, then I will have to convey my happiness some other way.” At which point he let loose a howl that would have drawn any wild dogs in the vicinity.
“Alexei,” I gasped through my laughter. “Keep it down.”
“Why?” He howled again. “I am a man in love.” More howls.
“Shush.” I listened for a different sound. “I think someone’s calling my name.”
I strained my ear. That was Summer’s voice, and it was getting closer.
“Hello?” I called back.
“Can you, uh, come outside for a sec?”
