‘I think it would be gentlemanly for you to wear a pair of shorts,’ she said, the words coming from a throat that felt ragged.
‘Your wish is my command.’ Turning his back to her, thus giving her an excellent view of his lean torso from behind and endless muscular legs, he stepped briefly into the dressing room, returning with a pair of black undershorts in his hand. ‘Will these suffice?’
She swallowed. ‘They’ll do.’
Rosa realised she had been gawping at him like a hormone-filled teenager and hurriedly climbed back under the silk bedsheets, nestling into them like a cocoon, pretending not to be aware of Nico dropping his towel and stepping into the undershorts. She would not peek. No way. She would keep her eyes tightly closed.
The bed dipped.
She squeezed her eyes even tighter. Blocking her senses made a whole heap of sense.
The bed was huge, but she could still feel the heat from his body permeating through the sheets. It dipped again as Nico reached for the row of switches on the wall behind them and turned the lights off.
Rosa shivered as they were plunged into darkness. ‘Could you keep the bathroom light on, please?’
After he’d fiddled with the switches, the suite was filled with a muted glow from the en suite bathroom.
‘Thank you.’
‘I didn’t know you were afraid of the dark.’ Nico said.
‘I’m not,’ she lied, keeping her back firmly to him, ‘I just prefer to sleep with a light on. Goodnight.’
‘Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?’
‘No. Go to sleep.’
* * *
Nico listened to Rosa’s breathing—a deep, rhythmic sound that was strangely comforting. Such a different sound from the noisy snore that would reverberate throughout the small wooden house he had shared with his father. At times Nico had been quite certain the house would collapse from the drunken sound. Despite the noise being reminiscent of a pneumatic drill, he had taken comfort from it. It had meant his father was alive.
Self-sufficiency was not something he had been born with. It was a trait he had learned through necessity. Until he had left home for university in Moscow it had been just him and his father. In his dreams he still felt the terror he had known as a small child, when he would lie in bed night after night, praying to whoever was looking out for his father that he’d be brought home safely. And he did come home. Every night. No matter how deep his stupor, his father had never forgotten he had a son at home, waiting for him. Waiting for him with the light on.
Why did Rosa need a light on?
He rubbed his fingers into his temples, trying to eradicate the question, the answer to which he had no business knowing. The only intimacy he wanted from Rosa was physical. Nothing more. The fact he had already revealed a little of himself earlier was cause for alarm. He could have answered her questions without going into detail. Which begged the question: why hadn’t he?
The past was aptly named. Learn from history and move on, taking those lessons into the future but not dwelling on them.
Nico had learned that lesson well.
Naturally he had tried every trick in the book to get his father to straighten out, even going as far as to book him into an alcohol treatment facility in America that was reputed to be one of the toughest in the world. That was the day his father had taken him to one side.
‘Nicolai, I cannot allow you to spend any more money on me. These people will not cure me.’
‘How do you know that?’ he had demanded. ‘These people are the best at dealing with chronic alcoholics.’
‘But, Nicolai, I do not want to be cured.’ He had fixed remarkably clear, sober eyes onto him. ‘If it were not for you I would have died a long time ago. Please, my son, stop trying. I do not want to meet reality.’
That was when he had realised it was pointless trying to save a man who did not want to be saved. All he could do was try and provide as safe an environment as possible for his father to pickle himself in.
Now Nico had the peace of mind knowing his father was in a warm home, with assistance at the press of a button. No more staggering over a mile every night in knee-deep snow and blizzards; his father lived in a ground floor apartment in Moscow, with a choice of bars within a short walk and a small army of unobtrusive carers ready to scoop him up if he should fall. He also had the comfort of knowing his father was a sociable drunk. He might not want to talk to anyone, but at least he preferred to drink with other humans around him.
His mind drifted to the picture of his mother he kept in his wallet. One of only a handful of pictures of Katerina Baranski left, it resided in the back of his wallet, rarely looked at, rarely thought about. But it was always there, always with him. How different would his life have been if she had lived beyond his second birthday?