be gone. I thought to myself, I should just leave it alone, she’d be better off with someone who she didn’t have to constantly worry about. Someone who would be there every day for her, not a soldier who was gone for months on end sometimes.”
“But?”
“But I asked myself a question. What would it feel like to never hear her voice or see the joy sparkling in those beautiful blue eyes of hers? To never see her dancing without a care in the world or to hear her laugh? It gutted me, and that’s when I knew I couldn’t live without her. I had to have her even if it was wrong. She’d wormed herself under my skin, and I loved her.”
It was something his father would do, list the pros and cons and then make a decision.
“This girl, you’ve known her for a long time. Gotten to know her really well. She’s the one person you never go a day without speaking to. Hell, you jumped on an airplane to go after her when she wouldn’t return your calls after only a day. I think there’s more there than you want to admit, son.”
“I don’t know, Papa. I don’t do relationships…”
His father’s snort cut him off. “Don’t know where I went wrong with you boys. None of you have a healthy respect for women, except Viktor. That boy understands finding a woman and earning her love and respect is worth more than anything else in this world. You can amass a fortune, surround yourself in all the trappings of happiness, but if you have no one to share it with, to grow old with, who will still laugh at your very unfunny jokes? What’s the point if not that?”
“I do have a healthy respect for women,” he denied, only to be cut off by his father again.
“Don’t forget who you’re speaking to, Dimitri. I know my own son. You don’t respect women, not the way you go through them like your mother does shoes. They’re like toys to you, and once the newness wears off, you toss them and look for the shinier, newer toy. You don’t give them a chance to be anything more.”
True enough. He’d never looked at it like that. Once he’d gotten a bit of money and his name started to mean something in the author world, he’d accepted all the women who’d vied for his attention. He hadn’t always been an asshole, but they’d worn him down. He’d seen them arguing not over him, but his money and his claim to fame, small that it was. It disheartened him. He said as much to his father.
“Son, people are people, good and bad, man or woman. You seem to latch on to the ones who want what they can get. Have you looked for one who doesn’t see your money? Only looks at you?”
“Looked for one? No.”
“Have you ever met someone like that?”
“Becca.” His answer tumbled off his lips unbidden. “She’s been here from the beginning. She wouldn’t care if I was penniless. She’d still be my friend.”
“And what does that tell you?”
“That she’s worth more than a casual booty call.”
Ronin laughed. “Were you the one to teach your Babby that word?”
“Hell, no. I learned it from her!”
“I swear, it’s her favorite word. She used it yesterday in line at the grocery store. Embarrassed the fool out of your mother.”
“That sounds like our babushka.” Dimitri laughed. He really needed to make time to go over and visit his family. It’d been a few years, at least.
“I’m not going to tell you to go out and start something with this girl.” Dimitri sobered up when his father turned serious. “You’re right in that taking it to a sexual relationship might ruin everything. She loves you, and if you think you can never return those feelings, then put the brakes on. Control your dick. If you love her as much as you say you do, then don’t hurt her.” He cleared his throat. “But ask yourself that same question I did. Think long and hard on the answer, before you walk away from the one woman who you make a point to speak to every day. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I will, Papa, thank you.”
Ronin coughed again, reminding Dimitri of his mother’s worries. Maybe he’d make that trip to Russia sooner rather than later.
“Your mama’s calling me. If I keep that woman waiting, she’ll never…”
“Don’t say it!” Dimitri interrupted him. That was an image he did not need