Heir to a Dark Inheritance (12 page)

“W
E NEED TO TAKE
L
EENA OUT,”
Alik said, the next morning at breakfast. “She hasn’t been anywhere except the back patio the whole time we’ve been in Paris.”

“I’ve barely been anywhere but the back patio,” Jada said, lifting her mug to her lips and leaning back in her chair, soaking in the early-morning window of sunshine that filtered through the trees, casting spots of light and shadow onto the brick floor.

“Liar, you walk to the Eiffel Tower every morning.”

“And I bring Leena with me.”

“Still, I think…It seems she hasn’t been out enough.”

For a moment, the strangeness of it all hit her full force. She was in Paris, had been for a few weeks, sleeping with a man she’d only just met. Married to the man. And the things she did with him…the things she wanted from him.

Just thinking of it made her hands shake.

She looked down at her hands, trying to orient her thoughts. And she realized she hadn’t put Sunil’s ring on her right hand that morning. She’d put on the rings Alik had given her, but nothing else.

She looked back up at him. “You want us all to go out together,” she said, realizing slowly that that’s what was happening. That he didn’t know how to articulate it, or didn’t want to. She wondered if he was having the same, surreal moment she was.

“That seems…normal.”

“It is.”

He nodded once, sharply, as though he’d known, the whole time, that his request was perfectly normal. The thing was, she imagined he didn’t. He had no reference for what families did. Nothing beyond what was in movies or TV. And Alik didn’t seem like the kind of man who curled up on his couch at night for prime-time sitcoms.

Even if he had, they were hardly scripted television. Nothing about their situation followed a logical path.

“Then, let’s go out. What would you like to do?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You must know, Alik.” It came out shorter than she’d intended, but she was feeling edgy. And her right hand felt bare. More exposed skin. Less to hide behind.

“I don’t.”

“You don’t have any ideas?” She didn’t believe him. But it was also obvious that he wasn’t willing to share his thoughts with her.

“We could just walk,” he said, “and see where we end up.”

She accepted his evasiveness. Mainly because she was too caught up in her own thoughts. In her own fears of exposure. “That sounds good to me.”

“She’s getting tired of the stroller,” Jada said, looking down at Leena, who was wiggling and pushing against her restraints.

They stopped and Alik looked down at her, frowning. “I suppose I could hold her. But she didn’t like it the last time I did that.”

“More than three weeks ago, Alik.”

That made his frown deepen. “Oh.” He bent then, swift and decisive, and freed Leena from her seat, pulling her up into his arms.

Leena’s fist curled around his shirt collar, her other hand
going to the hair on the back of his neck. He grimaced when she tugged, but he didn’t reprimand her.

“All right, let’s keep walking,” he said.

She didn’t say anything as they kept walking down the busy streets, she just kept watching Alik when she was sure he wasn’t looking at her. His hold on Leena was strong, but gentle. His eyes were on their surroundings, not on his daughter.

They went through a narrow alley with cobblestones and bistro tables. People were sitting and chatting, drinking coffee and eating pastries, both of which looked like a good idea to Jada, but Alik definitely had another agenda. One he still wasn’t sharing. Which left Jada alone with her thoughts. At the moment that wasn’t necessarily a good thing because her thoughts were edgy and confused.

They passed through the alley and back out onto a busy main street, walking in the opposite direction they had been now.

“Are we going back already?” she asked.

“Back to the tower.”

“Oh.”

They crossed back through the web of streets, in the direction of the town house, cutting through an open-air market filled with flowers, racks of books and fruit. Alik didn’t spare the sights a second glance. So very typical of him. He could be so focused on whatever his internal mission was, on getting from point A to point B, that he didn’t look at the beauty that surrounded him.

And you’ve been so different the past few years? You’ve had blinders on
.

Alik stopped then at a carousel, one she passed every morning, stationed out in front of the tower, enticing tourists to spend money with bright colors, glittering gems and music that sounded like it was coming from a jewelry box.

“This is where you wanted to go the whole time, isn’t it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I had thought she might like it.”

“She’s a little small to go by herself,” she said. “But I—” she looked at Alik, at Leena, grinning in his arms “—you could take her.”

“I could?”

“Yes. You could. She’ll be fine. Look, she’s happy with you.”

He looked down at Leena and swallowed. “All right.”

He approached the man who was running the carousel and spoke to him in French, explaining the situation, Jada assumed. That was one thing about Alik, he might seem out of his element with a baby in his arms, but as a traveler, he was the man you wanted with you. He knew customs, and languages, knew where to go and what to order at restaurants. He knew opera.

There was no end to the general knowledge the man possessed. Not only that, but he’d been shot, had crossed enemy lines, had broken into a horrible prison to rescue his friend.

But put a baby in his arms and he looked like a man scared for his very life.

A curious man, her Alik.

She blinked. When had she started thinking of him that way? When had he become hers? She looked away from him, looked at tourists, the families walking on the green in front of the tower, laughing, holding each other.

No Alik wasn’t hers. He couldn’t be. Not ever. She repeated it over and over in her mind and tried not to give in to the ache that was climbing her throat. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold the pieces of herself in, so she wouldn’t go and surrender any more of herself to Alik.

Alik held Leena tightly against him and climbed up onto one of the white carousel horses, fastening them both in tightly.

He could still remember the first carousel he’d seen, in the
square in Moscow. A game for children, and he’d never been a child. Not truly. So he’d never gone on it.

Leena clapped her hands and looked back up at him, her eyes, the same shade as his own, sparkled. With excitement. With trust.

Then she lifted her hand and put it on his cheek. “Da!”

And the carousel started to turn. He held tight to his daughter, held her steady on the horse. The world was turning around him, too fast to make out Jada or any other distinct shapes. Leena was all he could see.

She laughed, deep and happy as the ride turned, slapping the horses head, slapping his leg. Happiness, so pure, so unspoiled pouring out of her with ease. And the trust. That trust that Jada had spoken of.

It’s yours to lose
.

He didn’t want to lose it. More than anything he didn’t want to lose it.

Right now, at least, he had it. So he held on tight to Leena and kept his focus on her. Not on the world around them, not on the future. And he tried to grapple with the feeling of exposure, the feeling of tenderness, that was taking him over.

He didn’t know himself right now. He very much doubted if he knew anything at all.

“Leena’s asleep. I think we wore her out.” Jada sat down next to Alik on the couch, a cup of coffee warming her palm. Alik had some sort of alcohol in his glass, and a very stoic expression on his face.

“She has a lot of energy,” he said, looking down.

“She does. She liked the carousel.”

“I am glad.”

So, Alik wasn’t going to give anything tonight. At least, nothing in terms of conversation.

“It was a good idea you had,” she pushed, “taking her on it.”

“Thank you.”

Infuriating Russian. The man had a tendency to go Sibe-ria cold on her whenever it suited him. “You didn’t think of it last minute, though. It’s what you were thinking from the beginning but you didn’t want to tell me. Why?”

He looked at her, one dark brow raised. “I wasn’t certain it was a good idea. I didn’t know if she would like it.” He said it so casually, but she had a feeling there was nothing casual in the admission. But when Alik put on his armor, that I-don’t-give-a-crap facade of his, it was almost impossible to see through.

“You could have asked me.”

“I didn’t know if you would like it,” he said.

And then she understood. That there was something personal. Something that had made him feel exposed. And he hadn’t wanted her to reject it. To reject
him
.

It struck her then, that Alik felt as out of place and different in this situation as she did.

“Even if I didn’t like it, I don’t make all the decisions concerning Leena. You’re her father—you make them too.”

“I know. I understand that, but I don’t know anything about children or what they’re supposed to like at what age I only…”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She set her coffee mug down on the table by the sofa and put her hands in her lap, angling her body toward Alik. “You only what, Alik? Don’t play stupid games with me.”

“I am not playing a game,” he said, standing. “I only knew that when I was a child, there was a carousel I used to walk by. After I left the orphanage. It cost money, and I would never have spent money on such a thing. I had to use what I had to buy food, or shelter if I ended up with enough. But never for something like that. Well, now I have money. Leena, by extension, has money and she can go on a carousel if she likes,” he finished, his voice rough, fierce.

“Of course she can.” She wasn’t used to seeing Alik overcome by emotion. More and more though, it was starting to come through. More and more, he was connecting with Leena, but it was challenging him. She could see it.

And the more it came through for him, the more she felt drawn to him. And it scared her to death. Challenged her just as much as it challenged him. She didn’t like the feeling she had when she was with him, and yet she craved it. So strong and compelling, so utterly frightening.

She didn’t know what to call it, but she knew that Alik Vasin had a hold on her. One she couldn’t shake free of. One she wanted to break away from and cling to all at the same time.

“There were no parents to care for me. To make sure I had what I needed, much less anything I wanted. I was a burden to my mother. So much so she had to give me up.”

“I’m sure she wanted to keep you, Alik.”

“It doesn’t change anything. How she felt about it doesn’t change what happened to me after. It doesn’t replace what I lost.” He looked down, dark eyes unfocused. “Leena deserves to have everything,” he said, his voice lower now. “How will I know what to give her? I don’t know what to give her.”

“Just keep giving her you, Alik. She’s so happy with that. Did you see her today? When you held her? She loves just being with you. She loves you.”

“But what about when she realizes just what a pitiful excuse for a father I am?” he asked, his words sounding torn, broken. “When she realizes I don’t know what I’m doing?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing, either, Alik, I just hope that I can love her enough to cover all the mistakes I make.”

“What if I can’t do that, either?”

She swallowed hard, tried to speak with confidence she just didn’t have. “You will.”

“What if I don’t?” He set his glass down hard on the mantel.

“What would you have wanted from your parents?”

“There’s no point wishing for what you don’t have.”

“You never thought about them? Never wondered about your mother.”

He shook his head once. “No.”

She bit her lip, trying to keep from crying. From shouting. “But what would you have wanted? Would you have needed them to be perfect? Or would you have just needed them to be there? Just be here, Alik. Be here for her.”

He paused, turning the tumbler in his hand. “I will,” he said. “That I promise. I swear it.”

“Then she has nothing to worry about.”

Alik looked back at his glass, then back at her. His expression was raw, open, revealing the depth of his pain, his insecurity, his need. And it was so vast she was afraid that it could never, ever be filled.

Alik wasn’t emotionless. Alik was hiding everything, because there was simply too much to deal with. She saw it plainly in that moment. Saw the wounds inflicted on him, over and over, during his life, and the high cost of them.

And then it was gone, replaced by the stone wall he had spent his life perfecting. “Let’s go to bed,” he said.

“You don’t want to talk?”

“I’m done talking,” he said. “I want you. Now.”

“Alik…”

He stalked to the couch and bent down, bracing his hand on the back of it, his lips crashing down on hers. His kiss was rough and desperate. She was almost used to the edge of utter abandon that came with their attraction. Almost. But this was different. This wasn’t about his need for her.

She didn’t doubt he wanted her, after their time together she couldn’t doubt that, but the need to escape that flavored his kiss wasn’t about her. It was about him.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her up against him, made her stand. And she clung to him, answering
his need, because there was never anything else she could do with Alik.

She should resist. She shouldn’t let him use her. And yet, she couldn’t. She
needed
him. The moment he touched her she was lost. She had been from the moment she’d met him. She didn’t know what that said about her, didn’t know what it might mean. And in that moment, she honestly didn’t care.

He made her want, a deep, aching want that she had yet to find satisfaction for, no matter how many times they made love. Could it even be called making love? She didn’t know. She knew Alik would never call it that.

Sex isn’t intimate
.