Chapter Six - Fedor
This was exactly the reason why he stayed away from women, from starting a family, from all forms of liability. He couldn’t bear to hear someone nagging him about his lifestyle and his choices. And who was this? Will Stern’s daughter! How dare she question him about his work!
“What makes you think you know what kind of work I do?” he asked, stopping his chewing. He looked at her with a narrowed gaze, hoping that he could frighten her into silence. But Sylvia Stern didn’t seem to be so easily cowered. She just sat opposite him with the glass of wine in her hand, and an accomplished snarky smirk on her face. Fedor could feel his blood boiling.
“Because I know exactly what you and your pals do. Don’t forget, I’ve grown up with it,” Sylvia said, smiling more openly now. She was enjoying pissing him off.
Fedor wiped his mouth with the napkin and threw it to the floor in rage. He didn’t want to have to do something drastic, like send her away. But she was truly testing his patience.
“Sylvia, I owe it to my friendship with your father to keep you here. But you cannot behave like a spoiled brat around here, in my home,” Fedor growled, trying to keep his voice down but still get his point across at the same time.
Moreover, she looked devastatingly gorgeous and his head was swimming with contradictory feelings for her.
“So you just want me to subject and bow down to your male superior knowledge and power? Just like all these women do? Like my poor mother did?” Sylvia replied, gulping down the entire glass of wine. She started wolfing down her salad as well, and Fedor watched her eat in silence. Suddenly, he wasn’t so hungry anymore.
“Again, that is between you and your father. It’s your family’s problem,” Fedor said, finishing his own glass of whiskey.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot, you stay away from families. That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t do the same thing if you had one,” she said, pushing her empty plate of salad away from her.
“If I had a family, I would do everything in my power to protect them. Just like your father is doing,” he said, slowly and with less fury. He tried to calm himself by reminding himself that this was only temporary. One week, two weeks maximum and then she would be out of his hair. He owed it to Will.
“Fine. This isn’t about families. This is about your work, the nature of your work,” Sylvia snapped, pushing spoonfuls of the caviar into her mouth. The bottle of wine that Pyotr had left was standing between them on the table, and she poured some more into her glass.
Fedor watched her do it in silence and then cleared his throat.
“I don’t need to explain the nature of my work to you, all I can say is that you have the wrong impression,” he said, watching her drink her wine. It stained her luscious lips, and he was tempted to reach over and wipe it off her face. She looked so beautiful, with her nostrils flaring, her eyes glittering with rage. She was drinking and eating out of anger too, but in everything she did, there was a slender elegance that he couldn’t quite define. She walked, spoke and behaved like a Princess, like a Queen. And he was beginning to find it hard to control himself to not look at her breasts, right in front of him.
Sylvia laughed. “I have the wrong impression about your work? No, Fedor, I think you have the wrong impression of me. You think I’m a naive protected little girl. I know everything,” she said, placing her glass hard on the table. It nearly toppled over. She poured some more wine into her glass.
“You’re a naive little girl because you think you know everything,” he said and pushed back his chair. He saw the look of surprise in her eyes.
“Where are you going? We haven’t even had our main course yet,” she said, looking up at him with her eyes wide and glazed over. The glass of wine dangled from her hands as he stood up.
“I’m not hungry anymore. Enjoy your dinner, and I hope you have a good night,” he said, walking around the table and her. As he walked he could hear the scraping of her chair against the floor as she rushed to stand up.
“Don’t walk away from me. I am a guest at your dinner table.” Her voice was raised and Fedor slowly turned to look at her.
She had a wild look in her eyes. The glass of wine was back on the table. Her dress clung to her body, her breasts heaved with her fast breathing and her lips were slightly parted. Fedor was trying with all his might to keep his hands off her. That was why he was leaving her there, out of respect for his friend, so that he didn’t end up tearing the clothes off his daughter.
“You’re not being a polite guest in my house, Sylvia. I don’t want to have to be the one teaching you manners,” he said with a satisfied smile. He could see the rage rising in her cheeks, he was the one enjoying himself now. She had had a good run trying to get him to lose his cool, but she had had too much to drink and was losing her control. He was the one in control now.
“Being well mannered is so boring, don’t you think? Fedor?” she said, her voice suddenly dropping by several decibels. She had started to take a few steps in his direction and he sensed trouble.