Every Day is Silent and Gray - Complete

Chapter 3

A date. What you would not have given for a date with Dimitri. Time together, with no pressing commitments, your only concern enjoying one another. Yet here you were in the kitchen, washing and drying dishes while your best friend was upstairs listening as Tasha dressed in her frippery, loudly boasting about her date, knowing it would echo down the staircase to calculatedly lacerate your already bruised sentiments.

It wasn't Lissa's fault. She wasn't certain how things stood between you and Dimitri. Hell—sometimes you were uncertain yourself. He'd promised you he'd go slow to evince his endearment, but after your passion on the sofa, slow now felt more like stagnant. With the prospect of romance for Guardian Belikov emerging again from a different quarter, you worried his love for you might fade into oblivescence.

You could hear them from here; Tasha trilling in excitement as she trialed her tallest heels, Lissa commenting politely on every pair. Christian's Aunt had left nothing to chance, equipped with a seemingly endless selection of dresses and shoes to tempt.

"She's not sure how you feel about Dimitri," Christian said about Lissa, surveying you as he leaned against the doorframe in the entryway to the kitchen. "She hoped something might develop, but she thinks the two of you decided to stay friends."

"We are friends," you murmured.

Christian raised a single eyebrow, calling bullshit on your affirmation.

"We are," you grumbled.

"You both want more."

You shrugged. What you wanted was irrelevant. If your desires held any dominion, Tasha would be subjected to an evening watching Dimitri introduce you as the love of his life to his friends. Instead, you were in the scullery while the wicked Aunt primped and preened, plotting her seduction of your beloved.

"It's an evening with friends," you asserted, willing your words to silence your disconsolate thoughts.

"It is," Christian agreed with a sardonic wink, leaving you to the whispering, susurrous fears rancorously coasting around your consciousness.

The front door opened, Dimitri's signature scent wafting into the kitchen before the man appeared before you. Dressed in dark jeans and a V-neck sweater, his hair was wet, and he'd worn it out. And more than anything you wished you were the woman he'd be taking out tonight; that you'd be the one teetering in impossibly high heels, grasping onto his sexy, toned arm to steady yourself.

"Roza?" One word, yet so very potent—it hung in the air between you—a greeting, yet also an entreat. "It's just a night out with friends," Dimitri explained, his words mirroring your own as Christian disappeared, amiably providing his absence. Your Russian God's tension was palpable. He was expecting an explosion, and that stung, too. That Dimitri thought you so petty to begrudge him seeing old companions—especially when you knew he had so few, and chances to see them were infrequent.

"I know," you said, feigning a sanguinity you were far from feeling. "You never get to see your friends. Enjoy yourself. Have a good time."

You turned away lest Dimitri see the telltale signs of obscuration on your face and recognize your half-truths. You trusted him. Tasha was the one who'd earned your misgivings. How could you explain to Dimitri that the whole thing reeked of a set-up, a trap carefully crafted to snare him rather than an adventitious get together of old friends? That Tasha was using the bait of fellowship to lure him into an evening out, and perhaps a relationship, with her.

Dimitri knew Tasha liked him. Her persistent attempts to foist an amorous liaison on him had earned his disapprobation. So you could only hope that Dimitri recognized tonight for what it was. He was carrying your heart in his hands; you weren't sure you could recover a second time if he dropped it.