Chapter 11

“Will you tell your brother about your grandmother?” Kate asked as they walked up the dark cobbled Montmartre streets towards the basilica.

“Yes, but I don’t know when,” Isaak said. “I don’t think the news would be welcome now.”

The streets were crowded and noisy, and his arm around her felt natural. They stopped and watched a family getting their portrait done.

“No way,” Isaak said as Kate opened her mouth, then he relented. “We’ll get one of you.”

It was a chance to shamelessly examine her face, and Isaak stood there, watching her smile, so much more relaxed now. He turned to a noise and watched a small bus that was often used by disabled folks and children to get to the top of the hill, and Isaak frowned as a child pressed his hands to the window and caught his eye.

He remembered this place.

“Isaak…” She had her portrait in her hand, and Isaak realised he had lost a few moments simply staring around. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” He looked at the portrait, and the artist had done an amazing job. There were her freckles, the slight upturn of her nose and this was no Mona Lisa, for she was smiling widely, her lips parted, and when he moved his gaze from the image to the real one, and he felt a stirring. His cock had been rearing for most of the night, reminding its owner it had been neglected of late. God, his mind was in a thousand places, and yet it kept returning to one.

They walked a little further, and as Kate stopped to look at an old faded theatre, he wanted to go back to the hotel, wanted her in a way he never had any other woman, but instead, they did all the touristy things and sat on the steps of the basilica eating a chocolate crepe. Kate turned and saw a slight look of bemusement on his features as he gazed at the magnificent view of Paris spread out beneath them.

“Gorgeous, isn’t it,” she said.

“It is, except…” He looked over at her. “I feel like I’ve seen this before.”

“You could never get tired of it.” Kate misinterpreted his words.

“I mean…” Isaak tried to better explain what he did not really understand himself. “I’ve never been here. I’ve been to Paris many times for business, but I don’t usually do the touristy things. I just fly in and out…” He stopped then, could not really explain the deja vu feeling he had had when he had seen the little child on the bus while Kate was getting her portrait done, nor the feeling that had hit him when he had first stepped into their suite.

It made no sense, Isaak thought as he sat there.

Even the antique silver crib he had seen in the elevator had unsettled him.

“Ready to go back?” Kate’s voice broke into his thoughts, and Isaak nodded.

It really had been the best day and back at the hotel, he poured them two large cognacs and heated them with his palm before handing her one.

“Tired?” Isaak said as Kate yawned.

“So tired,” she admitted.

“You can stretch out on the sofa soon,” Isaak said pulling her in and tasting the cognac on her lips as her mouth moved into a smile.

“I think…” She hesitated, not sure that if she said she wanted to sleep in the bed, he might take it to mean that sex was okay, because Kate truly didn’t know if she’d be able and was terrified of it all going wrong. “I think that I’m tired of sleeping on the sofa.”

“Then join me in the bed, not for anything,” Isaak added as his cock almost wept in frustration at his choice of words. “I’m not going to be chasing you around the bed, I just want you to sleep in my arms.” The nod of her head against his chest had his teeth grit at the prospect of a very long night, but there were so many rewards for his patience, for instead of darting to the bathroom to get changed, Kate put her glass by the bed and started to undress.

Isaak took himself to the bathroom and considered the shower option but decided against it and took ages trying to piss and will down his erection.

The ringing of his phone was actually a relief.

“What are you doing?” Roman asked, and they spoke in Russian.

“You don’t want to know,” Isaak said.

“Sorry to disturb you on your honeymoon.”

“You were not disturbing anything.” Isaak’s smile was wry as he pulled on hipsters, headed out, and carried on chatting as he climbed into bed. “How are you doing?”

“The nursing home called this evening,” Roman said.

Isaak’s jaw gritted. He did not want blow-by-blow updates on his father’s health, but Roman continued. “His condition is worse and so I am flying there tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“Is there anything you want me to say to him for you?”

Isaak thought for a long moment. “No.”

They chatted for a few more minutes and then Isaak turned off the phone, took a long sip of his drink, and then put his arm around Kate so that she lay on his chest.

“My brother is flying to Russia to visit our father. He is not very well.”

“Should you go?” Kate went to sit up but he held her down.

“No,” Isaak said. “There is nothing I wish to say to him.”

“You’re sure?” Kate asked him the same question he had asked Roman about leaving his house, and his answer to Kate was pretty much the same, too.

“Very sure, there are no good memories.”

Kate lay quiet as Isaak continued.

“He was a violent brute who has turned into a sweet old man, who now sits crying because he knows he’s going to hell. I don’t want to see that.” He took another belt of his drink. “It is far too late for forgiveness.”

Kate lay thinking for a moment. She could feel his tension and guessed it wasn’t her place to say anything, but then Isaak spoke freely about her issues, and so she took a deep breath.

“It’s never too late for forgiveness.”

“Ah, but you’re a much sweeter person than me,” Isaak said and then changed the subject. “Roman sends his regards.”

“No he doesn’t,” she said. “What did he really say in the church when you introduced me?”

Isaak smiled at her perception. “He asked if I had completely lost my mind, though not quite so politely.”

“Are you two close?”

“We’re brothers,” Isaak said by way of answer, and so she took it as a yes.

“Can I ask what happened with Roman and Ava?” she asked. “All I know is that, despite what the papers said, there was no baby. Ivor was too upset to elaborate, and I didn’t want to push.”

Isaak thought for a moment. It was rare that he shared family confidences, but he was glad that his uncle had been able to speak with Kate and so he explained things. “Roman is the same as me in that neither of us have any interest in ever settling down,” Isaak started, and Kate had to consciously not respond to the definiteness of his words though they actually hurt her, and she lay there silently as Isaak continued. “He and Ava had only been going out for a few weeks when he broke up with her. After he ended it, Ava came back and said she was pregnant. Roman married her and while he was away on business, she called and said she had lost the baby. He came straight back…” Isaak sighed at the painful memory. “Roman was devastated. He asked to see the ultrasound, not to check on her at that point, he just wanted to see something of the baby. She couldn’t find it apparently, and one question led to another. There never had been a baby. They had a terrible row, and Ava drove off in temper and was killed in a head-on…”

“Oh no.”

“Roman doesn’t want her parents to find out how badly she lied, and that there was a row just before she died. He blames himself for her death, and he is angry at her too.”

They lay there in silence, Isaak half asleep when he spoke next. “I told him at the time he was mad to marry her. I wish he had listened to me.”

Kate closed her eyes, not in sleep but at the sudden tears there.

Roman had said the very same thing to Isaak.

More and more she had to remind herself that the blissful haven of his arms was only hers for a year.