‘Not for me,’ Demyan said. ‘But what if it changes things for Roman? I can’t stand to lose him.’
‘But you are already,’ Alina said. ‘In his eyes, you’re doing nothing and so this way you are.’
Demyan could not stand it, there was no solution that he could see and his mind always sought a solution. He always controlled situations but now, when it mattered the most, he was shackled by the ghosts in the closet. Perhaps he hadn’t chosen so wisely, for Alina was suggesting that he let those ghosts of the past out.
‘I think you have to speak with him,’ Alina said. ‘I think he has to know the truth.’
‘You think, do you?’ Demyan was at his derisive best but she refused to be deterred.
‘Do you want my thoughts or not?’
He did.
‘Not here,’ Demyan said. He was sick of hotels, they all looked the same, they all felt the same.
He wanted home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DEMYAN HAD NEVER taken advice on parenting.
He did it at gut level.
It was the reason he had never consulted lawyers during his divorce. Amazingly, neither had Nadia—she had known she was getting an incredibly good deal.
He had never paid much attention to the magazine articles written about him either, for Demyan had known, despite their suggestions otherwise, that he would be home for Christmas and all the things that mattered.
That he listened to Alina was more of a compliment than she could possibly know.
Even though he refuted the words that came from her lips, the fact that a discussion was taking place was a miracle in itself.
They sent out for food, they drank wine, they argued and paced rooms and split hairs about the most precious detail.
His son.
And she found out that when Demyan loved, he loved for ever.
‘He leaves tomorrow, I can’t just walk up and say to him that he might not even be mine.’
‘I get that!’ Alina said. ‘I get that it’s going to hurt him...’ They’d come from Roman’s shrine of a bedroom and were upstairs in the master bedroom, Demyan staring out of the window, trying to wrestle his mind from resistance, and then he flinched as Alina told him her shame.
He flinched for her, although he already knew.
‘It was my dad that I was trying to contact when I was on your computer. I sent him a friend request,’ Alina said. ‘He should have jumped to respond to me, he should have spent the last twenty-one years trying to be a part, even a small part of my life. You’re blocking Roman.’
‘I’m not.’
‘That’s how he sees it. To him, you simply don’t care enough to fight.’
Perhaps, Demyan conceded, but only in his mind.
He needed to think, or rather not think for a while and let the thought simmer. The very idea that he might tell Roman the truth had felt like annihilation. Now, though...