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Such foreign sounds to me. This place was magical.

Being here with Maxim made me feel things so deeply. Apparently he did as well. I recalled his jealousy from last night with a dark thrill. . . .

Over the last few days, I'd realized that the reason I hadn't yearned for another relationship wasn't just because of my circumstances.

I hadn't yearned because I hadn't met Maksimilian Sevastyan. He was the yearning. I was in love with the Russian.

Done. Finished. Terminado.

And now that I loved Maxim, I recognized that what I'd felt for Edward had been pale and puny, informed by everything except my heart.

But Maxim was still a player. His longest relationship had lasted for fourteen days--and counting. If a man like him actually settled down with one woman, he'd want her completely in return. He'd expect her to be his. Legally, I still belonged to another.

Oh, me jodi. I was so screwed.

What I wouldn't give for a do-over. For Edward never even to have counted.

The winds picked up even more, buckets of snow coming down. A real live snowstorm. A gust rattled the windows, the lodge creaking as if we were in a hurricane.

Maxim woke moments later, blinking at me, then slowly smiling--so handsome my heart twisted. In a rumble, he said, "Hey, baby." He patted his chest for me to return to bed. I rose, dropping my blanket on the way and crawled in naked beside him.

When I laid my head over his heart, he grazed his fingers up and down my spine. "How long have you been up?"

"A bit. I've been watching the snowstorm."

He reached down to lightly cup a cheek. "How are you?"

"I definitely feel what we did. And I regret nothing."

He resumed stroking my back. "You never do."

"That's not true," I said. "I just don't with you."

"Maybe you don't remember everything."

"My takeaway from the shower: Is there anything Maxim can't do? It was wonderful. You were."

"You, solnyshko, boggled my mind."

"Me? I just held on for the ride."

"You're passionate, and when you do something you leap with both feet." He curled a finger under my chin, tugging till I faced him. "You're brave."

I could make no claim on that. If I was brave, I'd fight for my birthright. I'd put a murderer behind bars. I cast my gaze down. Maxim deserved a brave woman. Wouldn't a man like him expect one?

"Are you miserable from drink?"

"Not at all. Natalie made me and Jess take her hangover preventative before she sent us off to paint the limo." We'd guzzled a bottle of Gatorade each, then took a few over-the-counter pills. It'd totally worked, but . . . "I have a sinking suspicion our shoe polish art wasn't as brilliant as I thought."

"I got up at dawn and checked it out, in case you two had written 'eat a dick' over and over."

I laughed.

"Luckily, the poem is in place, and it's passable. Definitely gives the wedding flavor. Did you forget you wrote 'yo' at the end?"

"You lie."

"No, it's there."

Nota personal: no tequila with Jess ever again. I made circles with my forefinger over his chest. "Did you enjoy spending time with your brother?"

"He still holds himself back. But I think I do too. I suppose it will take time."

"As long as it's happening. Will you please tell me why you two were separated?"

"You didn't learn anything from Natalie?"

"She was very closemouthed. I had to glean a lot. Will you tell me more?" I leaned up to lay my hands on his face. "I want to know you."

He gave me a brows-drawn look. "You ask me today, showing the interest I've craved--just when Aleksandr advised me last night to tell you my sordid secrets. I can't understand what this would accomplish. And I can't believe you would view me the same way."

"I will."

"How can you be so certain?" He sat up against the headboard, and I did too.

I drew the cover closer over us. "Because the only way I'd view you differently is if you were pitiless to another, hurting someone who wasn't as strong as you are." Edward, Edward, Edward. "And I know you would never do that."

"It's an ugly story. My father was . . . abusive. He was part coldblooded schemer, part drunken thug. He used to beat me and my brothers, break bones."

I just kept my eyes from going wide. "Go on, please."

"He was always worse in the winter. When I was nine, he killed my mother in a rage."

Oh, my God. "I'm so sorry, Maxim. Were you there? Did you see?" Witnessing Julia's death had done a number on me--all that blood everywhere--and I'd hated the woman.

"Dmitri found her body at the foot of the stairs."

"That's what's been haunting him?"

"I wish that were all. It gets worse. Are you sure you want to hear?"

"I'm sure. Please."

His chest rose and fell on a breath. "Two winters later, my father would've killed Aleksandr as well, but my brother defended himself, accidentally ending the old bastard. Certain he'd be sent to prison in Siberia, Aleksandr ran off into the night, leaving Dmitri and myself behind. We were eleven and seven, and believed he'd abandoned us. Only recently I learned that he thought we would be taken in by distant relatives, a thousand times better off."

"What happened instead?"

"Orloff, a middle-aged 'guardian' from the nearest town, was appointed. The way he looked at Dmitri gave me chills, but I didn't know why. I had no idea there were adults who preyed on children like that."

Oh, no, no.

"I didn't like how much time they spent alone. Dmitri never complained, told me Orloff was a good man. And Orloff was different from my father. The man didn't drink, never struck us, never even raised his voice. He never spoke inappropriately."

Just like Edward. Sometimes monsters pretended to be gentlemen.

"There was no reason to doubt his decency, but I couldn't shake the feeling. So I went to Orloff and asked him why he was so focused on Dmitri." Maxim hesitated. . . .

"What did the man say? Please."

"He told me that he only wanted to be a father to the boy, that Dmitri needed to lean on him to recover from the recent loss of both his father and his eldest brother. He wondered aloud, 'Why would you not want Dmitri to be happy? Are you that jealous?' The man lied so believably. I can't express how skillful he was. He made me doubt myself. I walked away, convinced I was petty and selfish."

Gaslighting. No wonder Maxim didn't trust.

"Over the years, Orloff slowly replaced all the servants, those who might help us, those who'd also raised their brows. By the time I was thirteen, we were without friends, trapped in our secluded home."

Sometimes, friendless was another way of saying defenseless. "Go on, please."

"Orloff continued to spin his tales. And again, Dmitri was his staunchest advocate. I later learned that he'd told Dmitri he'd kill me--the last of his family still with him--if anyone found out."

"How did you discover Orloff's lies?"

"On Christmas Eve, I sneaked into Dmitri's room to assemble a train set I'd ordered for him. He wasn't there. I found him in

Orloff's bed, with this chillingly blank look on his face. The man had made my brother spend the night with him, because even a sick fiend believed he should be close to his victim--over the fucking holidays."

That was why Dmitri had been blowing up the phone that particular day. And why Maxim hated the holiday.

"I attacked Orloff, but he was so much bigger than I was. When I regained consciousness, I was locked in the basement, my back flayed."

His back. His scars. He'd carried them since he was a boy.

Maxim gazed past me. "Orloff wanted to break me, to silence me. The position was heaven for him--living in a mansion with so many luxuries--and Dmitri there for his . . . use. The man would've done anything to remain. So he kept me down there. I didn't see the sun for . . . some time."

"Wh-what? How long?"

"Half a year."

My lips moved wordlessly. This nightmare only grew more twisted.

Eyes gone distant, Maxim said, "He provided me little food or water, keeping me without light of any kind. When I wouldn't break, he revealed his buried rage, whipping me till his arm tired, reopening all my wounds. In that dark place, filth and blood caked my skin." He shuddered. "It burned, itched, tormenting me. I was starved for sunlight. The longer I went without it, the worse the affliction grew, spreading over my body. It got so severe, I would dream about not having skin at all."

My eyes watered as I imagined his pain. So many things made sense now. His words: Thirty-one years of misery is lifted. Abused by his father first, then by Orloff. For decades later, Maxim had been haunted by those memories.

"I sickened in that dank, freezing basement, and knew I'd die down there. So I attempted to behave as if he'd broken me, but I couldn't deceive as well as Orloff. I'd been sentenced to death at thirteen. As each day passed, my execution neared."

I barely kept my tears in check. "That's why you asked me those questions about my memories."

He nodded. He'd wondered what I'd been doing--while he'd been dying.

That was why he hated winter. That was why he always wanted the windows and doors opened.

And this man called me . . . his sun?

"Worse than anything was knowing that Orloff still abused my little brother. Everyone was gone. Protecting Dmitri was my responsibility. And I'd failed."

"There was nothing you could do. You were a boy."

"Aleksandr said the same, though I believe he could've come up with some way to escape and save his brother. In fact, it was Dmitri who saved me. The night of a bitter freeze, he woke from his haze long enough to comprehend I was about to die. He knocked the man out with a shovel. My brother knelt beside me, crying . . . as I strangled Orloff. I killed him before he could ever wake."


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