The Master

How exactly did Vasili expect me to “fix Christmas” when Sevastyan wouldn’t talk to me? “Fine. Forget it.” I rose to clear the table.

“And you clean as well?” His tone was half-cutting, as if he intended to be rude but didn’t quite commit.

“Oh, I’m a real pro at cleaning.” When I’d finished with the dishes and had stored a mountain of leftovers, I returned.

He remained in the dining room, peering into his drink. Had he polished off the first bottle and started on another one?

I sat beside him. “You’re hurting. I don’t like it.”

“Ah, the escort with a heart of gold.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. Was insulting me his way of putting distance between us? Like the boundaries I was failing to maintain? “Por Dios, it’s all pumpkins and carriages with you.”

“You think me moody?”

I’d just told Ivanna about his hot and cold moods. “Yes, I do.”

My answer surprised him? “All the world considers me a silver-tongued charmer—except for my Katya.”

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Ruso.”

It took him a while to reply. “Ghosts of the past. You don’t want to hear my drunken ramblings.”

“Try me.”

He pushed my vodka shot toward me. “How old were you when you had that memory of making paella?”

Random question. “I was almost four.” I downed the glass, wincing less.

“What time of year was it?” Another pour for each of us.

Where was he going with this? “Right after Christmas. I remember because it was before the ‘red scarf war.’ ”

“What was that?”

Between the mojitos and the vodka, I found my tongue loosening. Or maybe the candlelit room and the sound of the ocean influenced me. Maybe this man did. “Mima, my grandmother, knitted a red scarf for me, and I loved it to death, smugly wore it everywhere. I even slept in it. My mother wanted to take it away, believing it was a symbol of my pride. She often assigned meaning to things, said nothing happened by chance.” In that, I might agree with her.

“Go on.”

“Though I was so young, I somehow knew I was fighting for more than the scarf. I could not lose that battle.” I sighed, glancing up. “I’m boring you. Your life is far too exciting for my silly story to be of interest.”

He met my gaze, all intensity. “You will tell me the rest, Katya. Now.”

Well. I cleared my throat. “I ran from her, threatening to sail away and never come home. I hid outside past dark. Mima was terrified. I only weighed about thirty pounds, and it was cold that night. She intervened with mi madre. When she called out that I could keep it, I came home and slept in it that night. Years later, my mother told me she regretted not taking it from me—she was convinced she could’ve curbed my pride right in that moment. She could’ve made me meek and dutiful.”

“Then if you’d lost the war, I never would have met you.”

If not for my pride and rebelliousness, I never would’ve latched onto Edward. Though I do believe my mother had suffered from a degenerative disease—she’d presented symptoms before Edward and Julia had descended upon us—I didn’t know how much longer she could’ve survived. “True. My life would’ve turned out very differently.”

“Do you wish you’d lost the war?”

“I don’t think I’ll know that until my entire life has played out.” I just hoped that wouldn’t be in my early twenties.

He rotated his glass on the table. “I would’ve been thirteen at that time.”

“What were you doing? Riding horses and chasing girls?”

It was like a pall fell over him. “Not at all.”

“Then what?” He didn’t answer. “Sevastyan, I’ve told you something. It’s your turn to talk.”

He finished his drink, pouring us another round. “My older brother is marrying an American girl. Roman—excuse me, he goes by Aleksandr now—hasn’t known her that long. Their wedding is very rushed.”

I let Sevastyan get away with the change of subject. “How do you feel about that?”

“I understood his motivations to secure her for his own. Natalie’s lovely and kind, speaks Russian fluently, and was a PhD student. Also, she’s wealthier than I am.”

While Máxim was screwing around with the broke-ass, fugitive hooker.

Oh, to be rolling again. Though my family had never come close to having a billion dollars, the worth of Martinez Beach continued to skyrocket.

“Aleksandr has changed for her. For the better.” Máxim sounded contemplative, like his words only skimmed the surface of what was going on in his head. “I didn’t think it was possible for men our age to change. What do you think? It’s your job to know men.”

“If the incentive is strong enough, I think some can change.” Just not a sociopath like Edward.

“You make it sound so simple. Aleksandr wanted her more than he wanted his old ways, so he cast them aside?” He drank his shot.

I joined him. “Maybe it is that simple.”

“He told me that he’d revealed everything of himself to her. The good and the bad. He unburdened himself, is now free of secrets.” Máxim poured yet again. “I envied him bitterly. He also told me he knew—within a day of seeing Natalie—that he would love no other woman. That she was it for him. Do you think it’s possible for a man to know such a thing so early?”