My reaction took Máxim aback, but I needed to make him understand. “Sometimes people aren’t courageous enough to do what is necessary—adults aren’t.” In my position, Máxim would’ve met Edward head on, fighting. “All they can do is dream about being brave. You did what had to be done when you were just a boy. So yes, I see you differently!”
“I didn’t expect you to be so . . . vehement.” Máxim’s gaze flicked over my face, then slid to his right shoulder.
I was squeezing him? Self-conscious, I dropped my hands and cleared my throat. “What did you do afterward?”
He frowned at my reaction, but continued, “Dmitri didn’t want anyone to know what Orloff had done to him, so I got rid of the body in the woods. He was never found. We said he got drunk, went out before a storm, and didn’t return. No one particularly cared. Years later, I learned he’d been suspected of abusing girls and boys from his own town. Afterward, an elderly woman arrived as guardian. She didn’t hurt us, nor did she help us.”
“How is Dmitri now?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “He was displeased to hear of my relationship with you.”
Máxim had said he wasn’t ready for his brothers to learn of me. “And I pretty much announced myself.”
“He would have heard by the time of this wedding.”
“So some of the angry phone calls have been about me?”
“It can’t be helped.” He exhaled. “Dmitri could not be more damaged. Every move he makes to get better seems to entrap him more deeply in the past.”
“Does he have anyone in his life? A partner? Friends?”
“He’s incapable of a relationship. We were alike in that, commiserating over it. While I had my script, he’d developed what he calls protocols. They are more far-reaching, even . . . absolute.” He opened his mouth to say more, then paused. “You will meet him. I don’t want to color your perception any more.”
What more could there be? But I said, “I understand.”
“He blames Aleksandr for abandoning us. As eldest, Aleksandr had been a father to Dmitri. Then he was gone.”
“Is that why you said you resented him?”
“I used to hate him, imagining his carefree life under the protection of a good man like Kovalev. Yet I learned recently that Aleksandr lived on the streets before Kovalev adopted him. Among so many homeless children, he was an outsider. He’d been raised with privilege—abused, yes, but wealthy—and he talked little by nature. Being alone meant he also had . . . trials, was in no way freed when he left us. In fact, he used to believe he’d been singled out for torment. After finding Natalie, he believes he was tested so he would become strong enough to protect her—that the purpose of his life was always to safeguard hers and ensure her happiness. What do you think of that?”
I softly asked, “How do we know that isn’t true? If you believe everything happens for a reason . . .”
He seemed to mull this over. “For decades, I could see no reason for my own trials as a boy. Insomnia plagued me. My appetite was deadened; I could take or leave food, deriving no enjoyment from it. My hypersensitive skin made touch unbearable. For years, I had to grit my teeth just to wear a shirt. Even when I improved physically, my mind wasn’t ready to let go. If anyone got close to touching my skin, I’d feel as if my chest was caving in.”
Just like mine did when I practiced revealing my past. “But things are different with you now. You have a sweet tooth. You sleep soundly.” I whispered, “I touch you.”
“I told Aleks of these developments, seeking his opinion.”
How odd to hear a man as self-reliant as Máxim getting another’s take. But then, Aleks was his big brother, newly reunited with him. “What did he say?”
“He believes a man knows his woman because he begins to evolve for her, to become what she needs. You told me if the incentive was strong enough, some men could change. Aleksandr wanted Natalie more than he wanted his old ways, so he cast them aside. Isn’t that what you believe?”
“Yes.”
“I sensed something was different about you before we touched, solnyshko. When you grinned over your wineglass and told me the view from the Seltane penthouse was ‘adequate,’ I got a chill—because I had the impulse to grin. I responded to you as I never have to another, and it unnerved me.” Máxim grazed his fingers along my cheekbone. “All those years ago, when I was down in that basement, I wish I had known that on the other side of the world, there was a bold little girl fighting for her pride. And that she would come into my life one day to make it brighter.”
With a press of my lips to his forehead, I said, “Now I know that in the snowy north of Siberia, a boy was becoming a man under the harshest possible conditions.” How could Máxim have grown so confident? So at ease with power? So remarkable in every way?
He said, “You told me it happened, it hurt, and better things await me. Do they? Am I becoming what you need, Katya?”
I drew a shaky breath. “Maybe you can move on now that you’re different? Maybe you want to move on?”
He was silent for long moments, seeming to make a decision. Finally he asked, “Was this too much for you to hear?”
“No. But I hurt with you.” For the scared boy he’d been. For the man dealing with his brother’s anguish. And his own.