his arms. Hannah resisted at first, because Sergei had never hugged her before. Not as gently as this. An embrace of comfort, of compassion. Her throat closed up and her eyes welled yet again with tears and this time she did not blink them away. She let them slide down her face as she laid her cheek against Sergei’s shoulder and breathed in the scent of his aftershave, the scent that was just him. She wept for all the loss she had felt over the years: the loss of her parents, and the loss of herself, or at least the self she had been. Standing there in the circle of his arms, she felt both safe and cared for, and it made her realise she hadn’t felt like that in a long, long time.
‘It can’t have been easy,’ Sergei said after a moment, his hands stroking her back, ‘to have carried all that alone.’
‘I wasn’t completely alone,’ Hannah protested, her voice muffled against his shoulder. ‘I do have some friends, you know—’
‘But you didn’t want to burden them with your problems, because they had enough of their own.’
She thought of Ashley, still struggling to make a new life for herself in California, and Lisa, so anxious about her husband’s job situation. ‘Sort of, I suppose. How did you—?’
‘I know you,’ Sergei told her.
She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, because the thought that Sergei knew her at all sent hope spinning dizzily through her once more and she was afraid of hope, afraid of the following disappointment. This was Sergei. Sergei Kholodov, the coldest, most cynical man she’d ever encountered. The man who was now holding her so gently.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, sniffing and stepping away from him. He let her go. ‘I’ve probably ruined your jacket.’
‘Dry-cleaning does wonders.’
‘Right.’ She tried to smile, but it wobbled and threatened to slide right off her face. She didn’t know what to do with what she’d revealed, what Sergei now knew. She hadn’t meant to say all that; she’d been trying not even to think it for years.
Sergei sighed and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry you went through all this. If I hadn’t—’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Sergei,’ she said, sniffing. ‘Honestly, people have dealt with far worse. And it’s all part of growing up, isn’t it?’ She tried to inject a lightness into her voice, a lightness she didn’t feel. ‘And at least now I’m no longer annoyingly optimistic.’
‘Well, actually,’ he told her with a tiny smile, ‘your annoying optimism is what changed me. Made me hope—for better things. Believe that not all people are as selfish and disappointing as I thought they were.’
Hannah stared at him in disbelief. This she had not expected. ‘And did it work?’
His smile turned wry, maybe even sad. ‘I’m trying, Hannah.’
‘Trying to do what?’
‘To believe.’ He took a step towards her, closing the space she’d just created between them. ‘That’s why I was so angry tonight. I didn’t—I don’t want you just to be my mistress. I’ll admit that’s how I’ve treated women. Dolls to keep at a distance, to enjoy and even use and then—discard.’ Hannah flinched at the stark brutality of his words. He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘I know. It’s not pretty, is it?’
‘At least you’re admitting it now.’
‘But you’re different. At least, I’m different when I’m with you. I can be … when I let myself.’
He was speaking words she had, on some level, longed to hear, yet Hannah still stayed sceptical. Suspicious. Maybe she had become too cynical, or maybe she just wanted to protect herself. ‘So I’m the first woman you’ve met that you didn’t want to treat like a whore?’
Now Sergei flinched. ‘That’s not completely fair.’
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