Chapter 2 - THE LIE THAT CROSSED AN OCEAN
“Why would your father do that?”
Vadim’s question hung between them.
Elara looked at the fire.
She had spent most of her life answering questions about Taras Fagan with smaller answers than the truth.
Because the truth embarrassed people.
“My father has always thought there was something wrong with me.”
Vadim’s expression did not change.
“Because of your weight?”
The bluntness should have hurt.
Instead, Elara appreciated that he did not pretend not to understand.
“Partly.”
“What else?”
“I don’t perform well.”
His brow tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“My sisters know how to enter a room.”
Elara gave a humorless smile.
“They know what to wear. What to say. Which man needs to be impressed. When to laugh.”
“And you?”
“I usually find the library.”
Vadim looked at her for several seconds.
“That makes you damaged?”
“To my father, being difficult to display is almost the same thing.”
Vadim picked up one cuff link from the dresser.
Then set it down again.
“Your father told me you wanted this marriage.”
Elara’s head snapped toward him.
“What?”
“He said you understood the arrangement.”
“I was told six days before the wedding.”
Something cold entered Vadim’s face.
“He said you volunteered.”
“No.”
“He said you preferred leaving Chicago.”
“I preferred not being sold.”
Vadim turned away.
For the first time since she had met him, Elara saw anger reach him before he had decided what to do with it.
It did not explode.
It settled.
Heavy.
Precise.
“Did you agree at any point?”
“No.”
“Did anyone ask you?”
“No.”
He looked at her wedding ring.
Then his own.
When he spoke again, his voice was lower.
“I would not have married you if I knew you had been forced.”
Elara folded her arms.
“But you would marry a woman you thought had slept with half my father’s men.”
“I told you. I did not care.”
“Why?”
“Because a woman having a past is not an offense against me.”
The answer startled her.
Vadim continued.
“What mattered was that I believed you had chosen the arrangement.”
“You believed everything my father told you?”
“No.”
A slight pause.
“I believed enough.”
That admission carried no excuse with it.
Elara respected him more for that than she wanted to.
She crossed the room and picked up the scarf he had given her earlier.
Dark charcoal wool.
Warm.
Expensive without trying to look expensive.
“My father wanted you to think I was cheap.”
Vadim’s eyes sharpened.
“Why?”
“Maybe because then you wouldn’t look closely.”
“At what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is the second lie.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“Your father did not offer me one of his daughters.”
Vadim stepped closer.
“He offered me you.”
The room seemed to narrow.
Elara stared at him.
“My sisters are both unmarried.”
“I know.”
“Beautiful.”
“I have eyes.”
“Thin.”
One corner of Vadim’s mouth moved.
“I also have eyes.”
Despite herself, Elara almost smiled.
It disappeared quickly.
“He chose me by name?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ask why?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
Vadim’s expression hardened.
“He said you were the only daughter with no real attachments.”
Elara looked down.
There it was.
A sentence only Taras could make sound like an inventory.
“No husband. No children. No career he respected.”
Vadim continued.
“He also said you were accustomed to disappointment.”
Elara swallowed.
“That sounds like him.”
“There was one other thing.”
“What?”
“He said you knew how to keep family secrets.”
She looked at him.
“I don’t know any family secrets.”
“I believe you.”
“You barely know me.”
“I know your father lied about your consent.”
He glanced toward the bed.
“And about every man who supposedly occupied it.”
Heat touched Elara’s cheeks.
Vadim noticed.
His expression changed slightly.
Not amusement.
Understanding.
“You truly have never—”
“No.”
He stopped the question himself.
“I’m sorry.”
That surprised her more than if he had finished it.
“For what?”
“For making you say something personal because your father turned it into a weapon.”
Elara looked at him differently after that.
Then Vadim walked to the writing desk.
Her passport lay there.
Beside it was a small leather wallet.
He placed both in her hands.
“This is yours.”
Elara stared down.
“There is money inside.”
“Why?”
“Because you are not a prisoner.”
“My father said—”
“I am not your father.”
His voice was quiet.
“If you want another room, you have it. If you want to return to Chicago, I will arrange it.”
“What happens to the debt?”
“That is between Taras and me.”
“He gave me to you for four million dollars.”
“No.”
Vadim’s eyes met hers.
“He tried.”
Something in her chest shifted.
Small.
Dangerous.
Hope usually was.
A maid knocked softly before entering with Elara’s luggage.
Two suitcases.
One trunk.
And an old dark green wool coat draped across the top.
Elara went still.
“That isn’t mine.”
The maid paused.
Elara touched the sleeve.
Actually, it had been hers once.
Or more accurately, it had belonged to her mother.
Evelyn Fagan wore it every Chicago winter until the year she died.
“I haven’t seen this in fourteen years.”
Vadim came closer.
“You did not pack it?”
“No.”
“My father kept my mother’s clothes locked away.”
She lifted the coat.
Something crackled inside the lining.
Elara frowned.
There was a small tear near the inner pocket.
She slipped two fingers inside.
Paper.
She pulled out a faded photograph.
Two women stood outside a brick building under a Chicago snowfall.
One was Evelyn.
The other had dark hair pinned beneath a red scarf.
Both women were laughing.
Elara had almost forgotten what her mother looked like when she laughed.
Then she noticed the woman beside her.
Vadim had stopped breathing.
“You know her?”
He took the photograph carefully.
His thumb moved over the woman in the red scarf.
“Yes.”
His voice changed.
“That is my mother.”
Elara stared at him.
“Your mother knew mine?”
Vadim turned the photograph over.
Nothing was written on the back.
But another object slipped from the damaged lining.
A faded train ticket.
Chicago to New York.
December 12, 2009.
In blue child’s crayon, someone had drawn a crooked snowflake across the corner.
Elara’s stomach dropped.
She recognized that snowflake.
She used to draw them everywhere when she was nine.
Vadim looked from the ticket to her face.
“You were with her.”
“I don’t remember.”
He stared at the old photograph again.
Then at Elara.
“My mother has this same picture.”
Elara’s fingers tightened around the train ticket.
Vadim’s next words were almost a whisper.
May you like
“And she has kept it hidden for seventeen years.”
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