SIX
GWYNETH
“There’s my beautiful daughter.”
My father’s voice was loud and deep as he addressed me before I reached the table. He stood, his large hulking frame blocking out the light behind him as he held his arms out wide for me.
“Hi, Daddy.” I smiled at him, slipping into his arms and feeling a sudden sense of safety.
No one could ever make me feel the way my father made me feel.
Love.
Security.
Home.
Avel Petrova, my father, was a large man, and as his massive arms wrapped around my small frame, blocking the rest of the restaurant from my view completely, I was reminded of that.
He smelled like my favorite memories, and when I closed my eyes, my life seemed to crash into me, reminding me of all the bad and all the good.
Of my mother and my sister, Alexis.
Of laughter and pain.
All of it slammed into me, making me latch onto him and sigh.
He gave me a tight squeeze, humming happily before letting me go.
“How are you today, moy tsvetok?” he asked, his Russian accent faint but distinct.
A smile tugged at my lips when he used my special nickname.
His flower.
He had called me that since I was a little girl. It was a special name that somehow meant more to me than the name scrawled on my birth certificate.
I looked up at him, my eyes scanned the thinning hair on top of his head and the gray in his perfectly sculpted beard. The Russian in us was apparent in our skin and features. I wished I looked more like my father, but truthfully, I knew my mother’s genes ran stronger through my veins than my father’s did. I knew it was hard for him to be around me sometimes—probably all the time—but he never punished me for it.
“I’m good,” I said, slipping into the chair he was holding out for me. “I stopped at the hospital today and dropped off a bunch of books for the kids. They were so happy, Daddy. I wish you could have seen their faces.”
His smile was sad as he listened to me go on about the children, and I knew he was thinking of her … my baby sister.
My father rarely went to the hospital with me even though his name was etched in a few of the buildings, thanks to his donations, but when he did, it was because I begged him. While I wished he went more, I understood why he didn’t.
My sister’s illness and untimely death had broken my father. There was no repairing the damage to his heart. I had no idea what it was like to lose a child, but I knew what it was like to lose part of my soul. If there was any comparison, I knew he would never be the same no matter what.
After my sister’s death, I feared I would never be enough to make him happy. I knew nothing could fill the void of my sister’s absence, but I hoped I was enough to keep him from letting go of life.
Thankfully, I worried for nothing. His love for me grew, and he showered me with attention. He worked less and spent more time with me. We went to dinner together, keeping each other sane while the grief of losing Alexis and my mother settled deeply in our hearts. We held each other together at a time when we were both close to falling apart.
“You’re an angel sent to those kids, tsvetok.” His hand covered mine on the table top, and he squeezed firmly.
I shook my head. “I think it’s the exact opposite.” I smiled, blinking away the sting of tears. “How is your day? Is everything okay at work?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Everything is running smoothly,” he said without going into much detail.
Taking his napkin from the table, he unfolded it and draped it across his lap before picking up the menu.
“And Mitchell?” I asked, mirroring his movements and avoiding the sudden suspicious side-eye he was giving me.
“What do you mean? You do not know how your fiancé is?”
I braved his questioning stare with a wide smile. “Of course, I know how he is. I was only asking how things are going on your end with his new promotion.”
My explanation seemed to appease him. His shoulders relaxed, and he went back to scanning the menu.
“Mitchell is Mitchell.” He shrugged. “He’s a hard worker. He gets the job done.”
His short and nondescript answers gave me nothing to build off, and I sighed, picking up my own menu.
I let the subject drop as it was obvious I wasn’t going to get anything out of my father without causing any more suspicion.
While I normally enjoyed my weekly luncheons with my father, I was too distracted to keep myself engaged in the here and now. I had hoped to get a feel for Mitchell’s behavior at work, but I should have guessed he was all business when he was at the office. Without any clues from my father, my mind was left to wander, and it wandered straight to the unnerving stranger at the bookstore.
I didn’t know why I was letting myself dwell on a random encounter, but I replayed the entire incident in my head, and each time, I wondered why he’d gotten so angry.
“Gwyneth? Are you listening to me?” my father asked, his dark brows once again tilted in confusion.
“Huh?” I blinked, sitting up straighter in the plush high-back chair. I felt like I’d just been caught daydreaming in the middle of class. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I was lost in thought for a second. What did you say?”
He was giving me another suspicious look. “Are you sure everything is going okay? You’re not having problems with Mitchell, are you? Because if you are, I can have a talk with him.”
I chuckled, shaking my head at his protective streak.
Growing up, my friends had always joked that my father was a Russian spy. They said if anyone ever crossed me, they would go missing and never be found again. Needless to say, my father was a scary man to everyone else—a big, burly man with enough money to make anyone go away—but to me, he was a snuggly teddy bear with a heart full of love and not a mean bone in his body.
“Everything between Mitchell and me is fine. I was just thinking about my to-do list for the wedding. I need to call Mitchell’s mother to go over the details of the engagement party.”
The wedding was the last thing on my mind, but I couldn’t very well tell my father I was daydreaming about a gorgeous stranger at the bookstore and how he had turned my body inside out.
My father gave a look of disdain. “That sounds like an unpleasant phone call.”
Avel Petrova was not one to pussyfoot around his feelings, even when they were a dislike for someone else. Mitchell’s mother wasn’t all that bad, but my father held a certain degree of ill will toward women like Silvia Summerton. They reminded him too much of my mother, and he hated reminders of her.
My mother, Victoria Petrova, hadn’t handled my sister’s sickness very well. Honestly, she hadn’t handled it at all. Instead, she lost herself in another man while my father cried each night for her return.
With her daughter dying in the hospital, she disappeared from the face of Earth, leaving only a letter explaining her love for another man and how she couldn’t handle watching her baby girl suffer.
What kind of person did such a thing?
She was out there somewhere without a clue about her children or the man she left behind to grieve her loss alongside the death of his daughter.
I swore then and there I would never be like my mother. It didn’t matter that Mitchell didn’t technically light my body on fire. Until recently, he’d always been sweet and good to me, and that was what mattered. The kind of desire I craved would come later. Things were tense now, but I truly believed things would settle down after the wedding. It didn’t matter if somedays I felt like we weren’t a match made in heaven. We would grow closer as we grew old together.
If Mitchell and I made it to our wedding day, I had every intention of taking my vows seriously. I would never find pleasure in another man’s arms while he sat at home alone loving me and missing me. It didn’t matter the circumstances; I would be faithful to Mitchell, to our marriage vows.
After lunch, my father walked me to my car and hugged me before making his way over to his driver to head back to work.
Instead of starting my engine and pulling away, I sat in my car and watched as tiny droplets of rain started plopping against my windshield. They slid sadly down the glass and disappeared into the hood of my car.
My cell lit and began ringing, stealing my attention from the rain. Mitchell’s name danced across the screen. I should be happy he was calling me, but I wasn’t. Mostly, I felt guilty for thinking of another man for the better part of lunch. I knew when I answered, he wouldn’t ask anything about me. If he was calling, it was because he was looking for my father, and he knew we usually had lunch together on Thursdays.
I tried not to think about what that said of our engagement.
My fiancé was more worried about how my father’s day was going than he was about mine. I ignored his call, setting my cell in the passenger seat and laying my head back against the headrest. My eyes slid closed as pressure pushed against my chest, and when my lids blocked out the rest of the world, the only thing I saw was the stranger from the bookstore and his alarming blue eyes.
That afternoon when I got home, the chocolates and flowers started. All the notes said the same thing…
From your secret admirer.
I knew they were from Mitchell. He was the only man in the world, other than my father, who would even consider doing such a thing.
It was sweet, but there was a strange undertone to each package delivered to me. It wasn’t Mitchell’s usual form of communication, and strangely, I could feel his insecurity through the single message scratched on the cards.
Of course, the fact he never mentioned sending the things didn’t help. All of it felt false. Like he was only doing it because he was supposed to.
There was no romance.
No lust.
No desire.
There was only us.
And as the days passed, I wasn’t so sure only us was enough.
Needless to say, the children received my candy and flowers. It didn’t feel right to keep them, and it made me feel a little better somehow. Like Mitchell was finally doing something nice for the children at the hospital. Even if I was giving them the things, the money came from Mitchell’s pocket.