Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 473(@250wpm)___ 394(@300wpm)
Zoya props herself onto her elbows, her expression unreadable. “You remember what happened last night?”
I wish I could nod, but unfortunately, I can’t. “No. I just have a feeling it centers around that.” This kills me to say, but I’m hopeful a purge will chip through some of the confusion muddling in my head. “I mentioned his mother when we were about to…” I make a gesture someone as deviant as Zoya should be able to understand. However, she acts clueless. “When we were about to… fuck.”
“Sweetie, I didn’t think we needed to have this talk, but clearly we do.” Zoya gathers my hands in hers, then looks me straight in the eyes. “You never bring up a man’s momma during sexual activities. It lets the air straight out of the balloon.” She holds her arm in the air, straight and rigid like a flagpole, before she drops it to represent a floppy elephant’s trunk. “Penetration is hard when his manhood isn’t.”
“That wasn’t the issue.” When she soundlessly mocks me like she doesn’t believe me, denials tumble from my mouth. “It wasn’t. He was hard. And veiny. And long. So very long.” I mentally slap myself before getting back on track. “He said things to me he should have said to his mother’s medical team. Things Myasnikov Private should pay careful attention to if they want to avoid multiple malpractice claims. But he said it as if I was as much to blame for his mother’s misdiagnosis as Dr. Abdulov.”
“That’s what she meant,” Zoya murmurs to herself, her words whispers. She takes a moment to sort through the facts before she halves the load by sharing them with me. “Aleena mentioned last night that Maksim didn’t know the truth because they were placing all the blame on you. She said something about them telling him you knew he was there and that you were acting.”
Bewilderment colors my tone. “Acting? The only acting I did that night was pretend I didn’t want to slap Dr. Abdulov across the face.”
Zoya laughs. “I wish you would have. That creep needs to be taught a lesson.” She flattens her back to the sunlounge and covers her eyes with sunglasses like she’s about to catch as many z’s as she is rays. “But Maksim knows the truth now, and that’s all that matters. He can live out his insta-love fantasy full throttle without a damn thing in the way.” When I choke on my spit during the middle of her last sentence, she rips off her sunglasses with the dramatics of a small-screen actress. “You, of all people, are dissing insta-love? What would your momma say?” She shoves her hand in my face before I can respond. “You can’t use the dead mom ruse for this. Not when she was the biggest advocator for falling in love at first sight. She loved your daddy from the moment she laid eyes on him. And he loved her so much—”
“He went to jail for killing the men who took her from him.”
“No, Keet,” Zoya denies, shaking her head. “He went to jail for killing the men who took her from you.” Tears prick in my eyes so hard and fast it stings when she says, “Because he knew from the moment he laid eyes on you that your momma’s claims of insta-love were true.” I wipe a tear from my cheek fast enough that she shouldn’t be able to see it, but she does. “Don’t…” Her voice cracks with emotions. “If you start, I’ll start.”
“I’m not… I won’t.” I exhale quickly before staring up at the cabana’s ceiling and fluttering my lashes, hopeful it will dry my tears. “I just miss him.”
I haven’t seen my dad in over seven years. When he was convicted to life behind bars, he made me promise I’d never visit him. He said the Russian prison system was no place for a woman, that it is more corrupt than a foreigner trying to defend himself during an unjust trial.
I tried a handful of times to see him, but he forever refused my requests. I want to believe he is doing it to protect me, but part of me wonders if it is because I look too much like my mother. We have the same pale porcelain skin and opposing almost-raven hair. She just had green eyes, whereas mine are hazel.
I stop recalling the pain in my father’s eyes the last time I saw him, when Zoya says, “Scoot.” She is no longer on her sunlounge; she’s hovering over mine, shadowing me from the sun I’ve been protected from all morning.
When I move as requested, she slips onto the sunlounge with me and pulls me into her chest. My heart melts, but since I’m still fighting not to cry, I’ll never let her know that.