And despite her vow to stay as far away from Nikolai as possible, to not be swayed by his romantic vacation tactic, her body burned with what might have been. How this night could have gone if she hadn’t decided she just had to confess to killing her stepfather in cold blood.
Sam tied up her twists, grabbed an extra cover from the closet’s top shelf, and dragged it over to the couch. She’d leave the lights to Nikolai. If he was still awake, the remote to turn them all off was on his nightstand. If he was already asleep, then she didn’t mind sleeping with a few lights on. Either way, there was no way she was going to extend the awkwardness by going around the room manually turning off the lights.
She settled across the couch, grabbing one of its throw pillows as she did. Its satiny finish made her feel a little guilty. It was so pretty, like a work of art not actually meant for anything other than decor, and definitely not meant for sleeping on. But that was too bad because she wouldn’t have been able to get in bed with Nikolai at this point anyway. The awkwardness of doing so would have been too damn excruciating.
As soon as she laid her head down, all the lights clicked off, sending the room into darkness. So Nikolai must not have been asleep. Yet.
Sam breathed into the foreign night, listening to the sound of waves crashing outside the window. She found no peace in either activity, and doubted she’d get much sleep tonight. The couch, with its fine finish, was slippery in a way that made her fear she’d slide off if she so much as turned over. And her thoughts—well they were racing and in full panic mode.
Maybe tomorrow morning she could arrange for another room, or even better, her own flight back to Indiana. She had a few dollars in savings. Why not use it for a last-minute intercontinental flight? How much would that cost? If it was in the hundreds, she could swing it. But if it was in the thousands… well, she just might have to call Josie and ask for a loan, which would be another bad conversation, two months after the one about her marrying a Russian hockey player she barely knew because he’d knocked her up—the one that had ended with, “sorry, Josie, but the wedding is today and you’re not invited.”
Sam cringed in the dark. No, maybe not Josie, especially considering her and Beau’s baby would be arriving any day now, but maybe—
“He hurt me.”
The three quiet words made Sam blink in the darkness, wondering if it had been Nikolai who said them, or if some other man with a thick Russian accent had come into the room.
But then his voice sounded again in the dark. “My father never hit my mother. But sometimes he hit me. Mostly me. To punish her or… he said he was training me. But I never want train Pavel this way. I will never train him or our baby this way.”
She believed him and wanted to interrupt with some stories of men from abusive backgrounds who’d gone on to become perfectly good parents. But she sensed there was more he had to say, so she stayed quiet and let him continue.
“With my mother—he never put hands on her. More abuse of… how you say abuse of mind?”
“Emotional abuse,” she supplied.
“Da.” His answer came back terse and thick. “He refused marry her, because of Fedya. He said she didn’t deserve marriage, even though she was mother of his child. He left her alone in apartment with us. For weeks, sometimes months. But if she tried to move on to another man…”
He grew quiet for a few seconds before finishing with, “He made it bad. Very bad. She learned not to take other man. She learned to wait for him always—at least I thought she learned this. But she was beautiful woman. Very beautiful woman, like you are beautiful woman. Men gave her attention, and I think she was lonely.”
Sam’s heart beat faster, sensing this story was not going to have a happy ending, but she gave him the respect of silence. Listening without comments, so he could get it all out, like he’d let her get it all out.
His Russian accent grew even thicker as he continued with his story. “One day she asked me go get pregnancy test from store. I do it and she went into bathroom to take… my mother was not weak woman. She had strong voice, strong will, even when my father tried make her submit. She never cried, but I can still remember her that day. Crying behind bathroom door.”
Tears sprang to Sam’s own eyes in that moment, thinking about the unfairness of the situation. A woman whose boyfriend refused to be a true partner to her, but also refused to let her move on.
“She died week later when she tried to get rid of it. She could not go to clinic, because my father—he was well connected. He would know if she went somewhere official. So she went to bad place to get rid of baby. I took her to this place. She went into back room and she didn’t make it out alive.”
Sam could no longer hold back her words. “I’m sorry!” she whispered in the dark. “I’m so sorry.”
“I do not tell you story so you feel sorry for me, zhena.” He answered, his voice one part stern, and another part annoyed. “I tell you so you understand. I did not protect her from my father. I should have killed him after she took test to keep her safe. She is dead because I did not do right thing.”
“No, she’s dead because she was in an abusive relationship,” Sam told him, sitting up on one arm, even though she couldn’t really see him in the dark. She had to let him know. “It’s never the child’s fault.”
“I was seventeen. Almost same age as you. And I was big. Larger than you are now.”
“Still a child,” she insisted, realizing for the first time as she said it that this was true in her situation as well. “Size has nothing to do with it. Nobody that age is emotionally equipped to deal with those kinds of circumstances. And it’s not like killing your father would have made your life any easier. Trust me on that one.”
A moment of silence… then, “I do. I do trust you, zhena.”
Her heart stop beating. He trusted her. For a victim of domestic violence, that was huge, almost the equivalent of saying “I love you” because it was harder for people who’d grown up like she and Nikolai had to trust. She’d been dealing with trust issues all her life. Was still dealing with them, in fact. Which was why throwing herself heart and soul into her two shelters was almost easy in comparison to having a normal, healthy relationship with someone.
But Nikolai was telling her right here in this hotel room that he trusted her.
She couldn’t have been more honored. “Thank you,” she whispered.