No Simple Sacrifice (Secrets of Stone Book 5) (32 page)

It was time to grow up the rest of the way.

Time to make the choice that now seemed so clear.

Be with two men who adored me, accepted me, and lifted me up no matter what, or maintain ties to the nonstop judgments of a world from hundreds of years ago?

No-brainer
.

But what if I was too late?

I rose from the soapy water, mind spinning on a viable plan. To regain their love, I had to put myself out there. I had to take a risk—a big, scary, perilous one—but I at least needed to
try
.

At the very least, I had to insist that Drake and Fletcher mend their friendship. I could live if they moved on from me, but I refused to accept the responsibility of destroying a precious friendship like theirs. They had something rare with each other, and they needed to find their way back to that—with or without me.

I dried off, tucked the towel around me, then padded back into the main room to retrieve my phone. I had to burn this courage while the fire was hot.

Quickly, I went to work on composing one text message. Then a second.

Here went positively nothing.

Or absolutely everything.

*

I’d left no
room for questions or debates in the texts. They were to meet me for dinner in the hotel restaurant, right at seven. If they showed up, my plan would move forward. If they didn’t—

I didn’t allow myself to entertain that option.

I’d taken extra care with my appearance. After blowing out my hair, I brushed it to a luxurious shine then let it fall loosely around my shoulders. My makeup was subtle but dramatic enough to emphasize my big eyes. The sales assistant at Bloomingdale’s had insisted I get a cocktail dress—
“just in case”
—and now I was thankful she had. I slid the navy blue strapless sheath over my hips and reached behind my back to pull up the zipper. Simple jewelry and strappy heels finished off the outfit.

I checked myself in the mirror one last time, took a deep and encouraging breath, then headed for the lobby. Mama and Papka were chronically early for everything, so I predicted they’d be waiting whenI stepped off the elevator. The entire interaction with Drake and Fletcher would take place in their presence.

Exactly what I hoped for.

My parents needed to see me for the woman I was, not the one they wanted to mold me into. Once they had the facts, they could accept me or turn me out. I was equally prepared for either choice.

Yep. As predicted.

They stood beside one another like strangers, stiff and stoic, impatient looks on their faces. Had I ever seen them hold hands? Even smile at each other? Had they ever really been happy or in love with each other?

“Hi.” It was all I could manage when I walked up. Another new revelation: without the chaos of the family all around, I had no idea what to talk about with them.

“That dress is so short, Natalia.”

That took care of the conversation dilemma.

“Thank you, Mother. You look lovely as well.” I used dulcet tones, almost oversweet—but her insults weren’t going to affect me anymore.

She sucked in a breath, having the decency to look a tad embarrassed—for a second. Quickly, she had the head snapped up, the shoulders popped back, and the regal air back in place.

I was tempted to giggle at her grandstanding—but that was the second my neck tingled.

The revolving door turned, revealing one of the most flawless men God had ever created. Fletcher was breathtaking, now without a crease where it shouldn’t be, wingtips gleaming as he took wide, confident steps. His light gray suit only accentuated his tall, lean build—and that piercing blue stare, sparkling even brighter as soon as it locked with mine.

“Well, do you want to eat here? You got all dressed up. Perhaps you’d like to go out, but I don’t know. The streets are so dangerous. Even in a nice neighborhood like this, there could be hoodlums and—”

“Mama.”

“What? Natalia,
what
are you looking at?”

“Excuse me for one moment, please.”

I walked over to where he stood, frozen in place as I approached.

“Tolly.” The way he said it, rough and warm and intimate, warmed my heart…sizzled into my veins.

“Hello, Fletcher.”

“I got your text.”

“I see that.” We grinned together at the obvious. “Thank you for coming.”

The door began another rotation—dumping Drake into the lobby as it passed by.

I straightened my stance, preparing for the angry demeanor I’d witnessed at lunch. It never came. Instead, he halted in much the same way Fletch had, rendered motionless except for his stunned blinks. His eyelashes were so dark and thick, they looked sooty. The angels had laughed the day they gave those to a man instead of a woman—though I was sure as hell never saying that to his face.

Besides, I had
other
things to say.

“Talia. Fletcher.” He nearly choked on the greeting.

“Hello.” I gave him a shy smile.
Please don’t be mad
.

“D.” Fletcher nodded toward him, taut and formal.

Drake all but ignored the greeting. “What’s this all about?” he asked me instead. “I got your text.”

“
He
got a text too?”

“Yes.” I was firm about that, but my poise wavered a second later. “Th-thank you both…for coming.” I swallowed hard. Doubt set in. I hadn’t planned anything past getting them here.
Why
hadn’t I planned anything? “I needed to see you. Both of you.”

Drake, jamming hands into his pockets, shrugged hard. “Well…here we are. You’ve seen us. Is that all?”

Crap.
Here
it was. The man did cold-hearted better than Mama.

“Please, Drake. Don’t.”

I reached for him, molding a hand around his thick bicep, but he instantly shirked me off. “Don’t what, exactly? Don’t feel like I’ve been set up? Don’t feel like my heart is being ripped from my chest all over again? Which part is the
don’t
?”

Of course, that was the moment Mama and Papka approached.

“Natalia? What is this all about?”

I pulled in a long breath. Folded my hands in front of me, a practiced move from my choir days, emulating a saint from any of our church’s stained glass windows. “Mama, Papka, I’d like to introduce you to a pair of people who are special to me This is Drake Newland and Fletcher Ford. They are the men I’m in love with. You said I could have anything I wished; my wish is that you all get acquainted. Drake and Fletcher will be a part of my life from now on—and it’s important to me that you accept them.”

“
They
?” Papka turned ashen.

“Yes.
They
. Both of them. I love them, and I intend on having a relationship with them.” Before my nerve decided to go have a drink without me, I barreled on. “Drake, Fletcher, these are my parents—Olga and Peter Perizkova.”

Fletcher stepped forward first—his grin wide and dazzling as a toothpaste commercial. “Well, color me happy as a clam at high tide. Nice to meet you, Mr. Perizkova.” He scooped up Mama’s hand and kissed the back. “And nice to see you again Mrs. Perizkova.”

Mama’s mouth opened. Closed. She swayed, clearly not sure whether to hug him or slap him.

Drake wasn’t so charming. If it were possible, his tension cinched tighter. With Fletcher handling Mama—if that was even the proper term—he focused his dark gaze totally on Papka.

“D-Drake?” I rasped.

“It’s okay, Natalia,” he ground out. “Your dad and I are just feeling nostalgic.”

“Nostalgic?”
What on Earth…
?

“Because we’ve met before.”

“Well, you’ve met Mama, of course—at Anya’s birthday party. But my father—” I ping-ponged a puzzled gaze between the two of them. Fletcher joined me. The tension rolling off them both made me visibly squirm. “Papka? What’s going—”

“We’ve met before,” Drake cut in. “Haven’t we, Peeetteeerrr?” He dragged my father’s name out in an almost childish way.

“What are you talking about?”

“Go ahead and tell her,
Dad
.” Now his tone was rude and condescending. I was tempted to smack him. If we were going to win my parents over, this
wasn’t
the way to begin—especially when Papka looked ready to pass out.

“Drake.” Fletcher shifted forward. “Want to fill the rest of us in, brother?”

Drake pulled in a defined breath. It worked to pull him down from whatever ledge he’d been mentally strolling—thank God. “Your father came to pay us a little visit the last time we were in San Diego.”

“What?” I blurted.

“What!” Fletcher snapped. “Why didn’t I—”

“It was the last morning,” Drake explained. “You’d already gone to the airport, to take those calls from the plane. While I was closing up the condo, daddy dearest came by for a little heart-to-heart.”

“A little—” I stopped, struggling to find my breath. Fletcher wrapped a strong hand around my shoulder but I refused to lean into him. I was tempted—so damn tempted—but I had to face this on my own two feet. As the woman they’d helped me become. “Papka? Is this true? Why did you go to see them? And what did you talk about?”

Papka’s mouth twisted. His skin mottled in fury beneath his graying mustache. “I did what a man needed to do, Natalia. What your
father
needed to do.” The words spewed from his mouth but I heard Mama in every wrathful syllable. A glance in her direction confirmed it. She’d plied him into going. “If they cared for you at all, they had to leave you alone while you still had a decent reputation.”

My mouth fell open. My eyes couldn’t even blink. I forced movement into my jaw, hoping words would come. They didn’t. Some dim fragment of my mind connected the dots. If I spoke about it, I’d have to believe it. Would have to accept that my own parents had torpedoed the greatest happiness I’d ever known.

Fletcher backhanded Drake’s shoulder. “Is this the reason you wrote that fucked-up letter?”

“In a nutshell? Yes.”

“Why?” I managed at least that. “
Why
would y—” Then no more came. The pain rushed in, too hot and terrible to bear, from the night I’d relived a thousand times in the last four weeks.

Drake’s proud posture dissolved. His midnight eyes locked onto me, filled with anguish and heartbreak. “Because I love you, Talia. I love you more than anyone or anything else I’ve ever known. I want you to be happy, even if that means I’m miserable.” His face crumpled deeper. “I knew how much your family meant to you. Fletcher does too. When your father came and laid it all out, I pulled the trigger. I felt like I was doing the right thing.”

I shook my head. Or at least thought I did. Everything was a sudden haze, red-ribboned rage and white ice fury, clouding my vision…taking over my words, as I spun on my parents. “You don’t even get what you’ve done, do you?
Do you
?”

Mama glowered, pinch-lipped and silent, but Papka was worse, his demeanor all but neutral now. After all their years together, he’d been conditioned to stand and listen to a woman yelling at him. He didn’t even flinch.

“Don’t you get it? I love them. I love them
both
. They make me happy. They care about me. They want the best for me. You,”—I arced a finger, including them both—“just want what makes
you
look good.”

“Natalia. Watch your words!”

“Oh, I’m watching them just fine,
Mother
. And for the first time in my life, I’m proud of them—of every single word I’m saying right now. And now,
you’ll
listen to them too. For one goddamn time in your life, you’ll think about someone other than yourself.”

“
Well.
I never—”

“No. You really
have
never, have you? But these men,”—I grabbed Fletcher on one side and Drake on the other—“they listen to me all the time. They like my words, even if they don’t agree. They love me for who I am, with all my insecurities and imperfections and despite all our differences. Unlike you, they think I’m worthy of their love
already
…just the way I am.”

Mama’s shoulders twitched. Her nostrils flared. Then suddenly, it all stopped. She went eerily still—except for the rage roiling in her glare. “So…that is the way of it?”

Quite possibly, I’d never seen her so angry.

I’d never felt more serene. “That’s the way of it.”

“You—you will be the talk of the town, Natalia. A disgrace.” She hissed the last of it. Her biggest fear.

“So be it,” I returned. “If being happy and being loved makes people talk about me, those are people I don’t want in my life in the first place.”

“Including your own parents?” My mother’s bitter tone was usually the knife that cut to the quick. Tonight, it simply bounced off of me.

“That’s a choice you’ll have to make for yourselves.” I tilted my head. “It’s not my intention to hurt you—but I also can’t keep living for your happiness, Mama.” Something in her gaze—the shimmer of tears?—softened my tone. “Maybe it’s time for you to find it again for yourselves. Do you remember the story you told me, when I was a little girl, about when you and Dad fell in love? You were from different stations in society, but you wouldn’t let anyone stop you. What happened, Mama? How did you two forget that over the years? The power of love…
your
love?”