Dmitri rose to pace. “And he is better now?”

“It’s taken years. But, yeah.” I didn’t get the sense Dmitri truly wanted to talk, more like he was checking off something unpleasant in order to solidify our marriage. “Don’t talk to me just to tick a box.”

“Perhaps if I shared my past, you would tell me more about yours. I want you to. I want us . . .” He eased his pacing to face me. “Are we getting closer?”

“Do you want to know if we’re bonding?”

“Precisely.”

“I think so. Do you?”

He nodded. “Each minute I spend with you, I crave a thousand more. I wake and see your head on my chest, and I feel as if I live within a fantasy.”

Heart thud. “My toes curl whenever you say things like that. But then I wonder how you can feel so strongly when we still don’t know a lot about each other.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then must’ve rethought it. “When I suspected you might be pregnant, part of me welcomed the idea, because a child would bond us.”

It hadn’t with Walker and Karin. “Dmitri, there are other ways for us to get closer.”

Gazing away again, he said, “I will . . . I’m ready to talk about my past.” He settled onto the bed and drew back against the headboard once more. “What do you think happened to me?”

I wouldn’t flinch from this. “After your father died, you were sent to live with someone who sexually abused you.”

He blew out a breath. “You are very perceptive. But actually, he was sent to us.”

CHAPTER 32

“I . . . it was very long ago.” Dmitri seemed to be losing his nerve.

“How old were you when it started?”

He cleared his throat. “Seven years old. From seven to nine.”

So young, an innocent little boy. My protectiveness for Dmitri burned like an inferno. “Was the man supposed to be a guardian?” Someone in a position of trust.

“Yes. His name was . . . Orloff.” Dmitri’s fists clenched. “He . . . molested me, and many other children before me. Both boys and girls. He physically abused Maksim, beating him and locking him in a dark cellar for months.”

I eased closer to him. “I’m so sorry, Dmitri.”

“I don’t know if I want to tell you these things yet. I cannot tolerate pity.”

“You don’t have to talk to me before you’re ready, but you should know I could never pity the man you’ve become.”

Placated, he said, “Orloff wasn’t the first to abuse us. My father was a violent drunk. My earliest memories are of him beating me and my brothers and my mother. Especially at night. In the winter, night was unending.”

My God. No wonder he and his brothers rarely drank.

“When I was almost six, I woke to a horrific argument. My father had taken issue with something trivial Aleks and Maksim had done, was bent on punishing them. He sounded more enraged than I’d ever heard him. Desperate to protect them, my mother fought back. He shoved her down the stairs.” Voice gone thick, Dmitri said, “I will never forget the sudden quiet. I sensed she was gone, but terror of my father kept me from going to her. He left my mother for me to find the next morning.”

I would give anything to have spared him that! When I thought of Dmitri as a terrified boy, I wanted to hold him, but he looked like he might bolt at any second.

In a lower tone, he said, “I only recently told my brothers she died to protect us.”

Dmitri’s words: provide infinite patience, love unconditionally, and safeguard with your life. His mother had given her life to safeguard her sons. “You must have missed her so much.”

His expression turned fierce. “I need you to understand: there was nothing she could do. There were no shelters. If she’d run with us, my powerful father would have found her. Even if she somehow managed to escape him in the winter with three young sons, she had nowhere to go.”

He thought I would judge his beloved mother. “Dmitri, it was a different time and place, a world away from what I know. I would never question her actions.” But I would judge her abuser.

Seeming satisfied with my vehement answer, Dmitri continued, “When Aleks was only thirteen, our father would’ve done the same to him. Aleks defended himself, accidentally killing the man instead. Fearing he’d go to jail, my brother fled, leaving me and Maksim behind. Orloff arrived shortly after.”

So much violence and horror. “That’s why you hadn’t spoken to Aleks in so long.” Because he hadn’t been there when Dmitri had very badly needed him to be. At seven, Dmitri had needed a protector.

He nodded. “Aleks was like a father to me. And then he was . . . gone. In my young mind, I viewed it as abandonment. He left us behind and got to shed all our painful history, and then was adopted by a very wealthy and decent man, Natalie’s biological father, Kovalev.”

That was how Natalie and Aleks had met?

“He’d been blessed with a new father, while Maksim and I had been cursed with a monster. I blamed Aleks for all that befell us. Maksim did as well to a lesser extent. Rationally, I knew Aleks wasn’t at fault, but the anger wouldn’t subside.”

“Did he believe you two were okay?”

“Da. And much better off without our father. He couldn’t have guessed what happened to us. He only learned of it a few years ago.”

He must’ve felt so guilty. “Will you tell me what happened when Orloff arrived?”