“I thought about coming home from Israel to find out you and my brother had run off together,” Nikolai continued. “I was such an asshole about it . . .”
She looked at him, wishing she could tell him how devastated she’d been when he left. Wishing she could tell him that one of the reasons she’d turned to Ilya was that he was the only one there. “Were you wrong?”
“I was wrong to be such a prick. It was obvious you believed you were doing the right thing. You’d bought the quarry. You were both talking about making this happen.” He waved his hand around the office. “It was a great goal.”
“We didn’t need to get married to start the dive shop.” Alicia sighed. This time, she was the one who reached for his hands. She moved around her desk so she could stand in front of him. Close. Touching. Their fingers linked.
Nikolai turned his face toward hers. “But you did.”
“Yes. It happened. And you weren’t wrong to tell me it was a mistake, even though I didn’t want to hear it.” She let herself press against him. Her face tucked perfectly against his neck beneath his chin. She took a chance. “You weren’t here, Nikolai. You ran off, not a word, nothing . . .”
His arms went around her. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did,” Alicia said on a grating cough, words from a razor-shredded throat. “You left without saying good-bye, like I didn’t matter to you at all. You made me feel like I meant nothing.”
And there it was.
Alicia had been in her sister’s shadow her entire life, and Jennilynn’s death had not brought her into the sunshine. She’d never been able to capture her parents’ attention, or Ilya’s heart, and none of that had mattered much, really, but this did. Nikolai had gone away and left her as though he’d never even known her. He’d made her into nothing, and she’d never been able to convince herself she’d ever been more than that to him.
She wasn’t sure she could ever believe it now.
A hitching, throbbing rasp seared her throat and boiled out of her in scalding tears. She shook, fighting them for only a moment before it became too much to hold back. She sobbed.
Nikolai stroked her hair, which at some point during their escapades had come out of the loose ponytail she wore for work and now lay tangled over her shoulders. He didn’t say anything. He offered the comfort of his embrace and his silence, which was what she needed. He fixed everything else, but he wasn’t trying to fix her, Alicia thought as she pressed her face to the soft flannel of Nikolai’s shirt and wept for the past, for the present—still a mess—and for the future she could not begin to even think about.
It was exactly what she needed, and in a minute or so the tears tapered off. He grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and tipped her face up to dry her cheeks. She laughed at that and squirmed away from him when he jokingly tried to wipe her nose.
“I got this.” She took the tissue from him. After she’d gotten herself under control, she hugged him again. She did not point out that his brother never would have known how to handle her sudden burst of grief, not wanting to once again remind them both that she and Ilya had been married. But she noticed it. “Thanks.”
“Any time.”
Alicia cleared her throat. “So. What happens now?”
“What do you want to happen?”
“That’s a good question,” she answered honestly. “I don’t know.”
“I meant what I said about these random ‘things.’ I don’t want that anymore. If we’re going to be together, even if we both agree it has to be a secret, I don’t want it to be like this.”
Alicia wasn’t sure she did agree it had to be a secret, even if she knew that made the best sense. “So what’s the solution?”
“I’ll think about that,” Nikolai said.
She chewed the inside of her cheek for a second. “Nobody will blink an eye if you and I hang out together.”
“They’ll do a lot more than blink if they know we’re a couple,” he said.
“Are we a couple? Or are we just screwing?” Alicia asked bluntly.
Nikolai didn’t smile. He did reach to twirl a strand of her hair around his fingers and tug it to get her to move closer. “I don’t know.”
Frustrated, she wasn’t going to push him for more. Besides, it wasn’t like she knew what the hell they were really doing, either, she told herself as she pushed up on her toes to press her mouth to his. The kiss deepened. His hands roamed across her back to settle on her ass, pulling her closer to him.
“You should go,” she said against his mouth. “I have work to do.”
“Right. Sure. Of course.” He looked at her, but if there was something else he meant to say, he was keeping it to himself. “I’ll . . . so, I’ll see you? Later?”
She sat in her chair to study him. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
He didn’t say anything after that. He gave her one of those slow, smoldering smiles tinged with just the right amount of smugness to make her want to pinch him someplace tender. Kiss him first, then pinch him, she thought as Nikolai gave her a little wave on the way out the door.
This was going to hurt like hell, she thought, but she was going to keep doing it anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Then
All Ilya wanted to do was see her, one last time.
He thought he’d have the chance. Everything he’d ever seen about funerals on TV or in the movies showed a satin-lined casket, the deceased with hands folded on the chest. Like they were sleeping. That was what he expected to see today, but they went and closed the lid on the coffin. They trapped her inside.
He was never going to see Jennilynn again.
From his place toward the back of the room, Ilya had a clear view of the black casket up at the front, but his vision was anything but clear. He’d been drinking vodka since nine in the morning. First from the bottle. Then from the water bottle he filled before they left the house. Niko had to help him with his tie.
Now the room threatened to spin, but screw that, he wasn’t going to let it. He was going to stand up. He was going to walk up there. He was going to open up that lid. He was going to see her so he could say good-bye. So he could say he was sorry.
“Sorry.” The word muttered out of him aloud.
Too loud by the nasty look he got from one of the old ladies sitting near him. Slowly, deliberately, Ilya took another long pull from the bottle while making eye contact. She looked away first.
His mother sat closer to the front. Theresa beside her. Barry next to Theresa. Niko, however, was in the back with Ilya.
“I wanna tell her I’m sorry,” Ilya said.
Niko frowned. Good little brother. Always thinking of the right thing to do, right? Except he wasn’t so good; he was no better than Ilya. Niko had done his share of shit. He just never seemed to get caught.
“We should go outside. C’mon.” Niko grabbed Ilya by the sleeve of his dress shirt. “Be quiet.”