Serenity (Inevitable #5)(49)

He dropped a kiss on the top of her curly head. "Tell you what. I'll go fix you a cup of tea while you call her back. Should I bring you a protein bar, or just some fruit?"

Sasha beamed at him, her green-gold eyes shining. "Hey, aren't you the CEO of some multi-billion dollar company? You're not supposed to be waiting on me. In fact, I've always wondered why you didn't have live-in help, someone who's always ready to wait on you at the drop of a hat."

Matthew rolled his eyes. "Please. I might be rich but I've never been pretentious. Plus, I like my privacy so no live-in help ever. I'll go get your tea. And since you couldn't decide, I'll bring you a bar and a bowl of fruit."

She blew him a kiss and then frowned as she began to call her mother back. When he returned a few minutes later, she was speaking in rapid, fluent Russian, and looking more than a little irritated - something he'd never seen her do before.

Sasha took the steaming mug of tea from him with a grateful smile, and then took a deep, appreciative sip of her favorite herbal brew. Matthew could hear her mother speaking quite clearly on the other end of the line, and without having any clue what the woman was saying, he winced at the mere sound of her angry, increasingly loud voice.

Sasha merely gave a little shrug and rolled her eyes, as though this was a regular occurrence with her mother. She replied in Russian, though her tone was far calmer and quieter than her mother's.

He'd already known, of course, that she spoke several languages, not just her mother's native Russian and the Portuguese she'd learned from infancy from her father. She was also fluent in both French and Spanish, the former from the times she'd lived with her aunt and uncle in Paris, and the latter from traveling extensively through South and Central America with her father. Matthew had joked that the only languages he knew besides English were Java, PHP, and CSS - all of which, of course, were computer programming languages - but he had been incredibly impressed by Sasha's own foreign language skills. For someone who had never attended college, except for an eighteen month stint when she had taken courses at a holistic medical school, she continued to amaze him with how intelligent and well read she was, as well as her ability to converse on a wide and diverse number of topics.

Sasha ended the call looking both exhausted and dazed, and peered into her mug of tea before taking a long drink.

"Why is it that every time I get a call from my mother I feel in need of a good stiff drink afterwards?" she mused. "And definitely something stronger than oolong."

Matthew grinned. "I could mix you up a killer tequila sunrise, if you'd like."

She returned his smile. "Don't tempt me. But if anyone could drive a person to drink, it would be my mother. Or, on occasion, my father. And when the two of them are in the same room - even the same city - for too long, it's a wonder I don't spend the entire visit drunk."

Over the past few weeks, he'd coaxed little bits and pieces of information from her about her parents, and what it had been like growing up while following one or the other of them around the globe.



       
         
       
        

"I guess most people, and children in particular, would think it was fun and exciting," she had told him. "Never staying in one place very long, seeing different cities and countries and cultures, basically living in hotel rooms or tour buses or trains. I switched schools several times a year, or occasionally had tutors. I didn't have a regular bedtime, pretty much got to eat whatever I wanted, and life was basically one ongoing adventure. Until I grew up and realized how much I hated living that way, how all I really wanted was a normal family, and to sleep in the same bed every night. That's when I set my foot down and went to live with Tia Linda."

It had been her aunt who'd first introduced Sasha to yoga, and she had known immediately after that first class that this was what she had always been meant to do. During high school, she'd worked part-time jobs after school and on weekends, mostly waiting tables or being a receptionist at a couple of different yoga studios, and had saved as much money as possible. After graduation, she'd immediately enrolled in a yoga teacher training program, and had then begun the slow, often frustrating process of getting classes assigned to her and growing her student base. At one point in those early years, she had taught classes at five different studios and substituted for other teachers whenever possible.

Becoming a massage therapist had quickly become her next ambition, and she'd scrimped and saved even more diligently to afford the fees involved. But now, a full ten years after she'd begun the journey, Sasha was one of the most popular, well liked yoga teachers in San Francisco, and her classes were always filled to capacity. And getting a massage appointment with her often took weeks. Matthew had secretly read reviews from both her yoga students and massage clients on Yelp, and had been immensely proud to learn how highly each and every one of them regarded her.