A Prize Beyond Jewels

A spasm of pain passed over his already strained features. ‘You were only five years old, and far too young to understand, let alone accept that truth.’

‘But later, you should have tried to explain it to me when I was older,’ she came back emotionally.

‘I thought of it, of course I did. But it was not pleasant, maya doch.’ Her father looked haggard. ‘Better, I decided, that you had the good memories of your mama and not the bad.’

Rafe had no idea what the two of them were talking about, but that didn’t prevent him from feeling as if he was intruding on something very personal to the two of them. ‘Perhaps you would like me to leave so the two of you can talk privately?’

‘No.’

‘No!’

Rafe nodded as both Palitovs spoke at the same time, Dmitri with resignation, Nina with an edge of desperation. And if Nina needed him to be here, then that was exactly where Rafe was going to be.

‘Let’s sit down, shall we, Nina?’ Rafe encouraged gently, sitting down beside her as she perched on the edge of the sofa.

Nina gave Rafe a quick glance as he lifted one of her trembling hands to lace his fingers with hers, a wave of gratitude sweeping over her at this tacit show of his support. Overwhelming love for him bubbled up, swelled to overflowing inside her, for the gentleness Rafe showed towards her.

Because Nina now knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she did love Rafe, that she was in love with him.

Which was why, much as she might have protested at the thought of Rafe leaving a few minutes ago, she now had to be fair to him and give him a chance to do exactly that.

‘I’m aware this is your office, Rafe, and I’m sorry for the way we’ve intruded.’ She spoke quietly. ‘But you really don’t have to be here to listen to this if you would rather not.’ She looked up, appealing to her father.

He understood her silent plea as he gave a slight nod before turning to the younger man. ‘You may prefer not to be here, Rafe.’

‘I want whatever Nina wants.’ Rafe’s expression gentled as he turned to look at her, once again noting the tension she was under, how the shadows seemed to have deepened in those deep green eyes. ‘I want to be here for you,’ he told her huskily. ‘If it’s what you want too?’

‘Yes, please,’ she breathed.

He nodded before turning back to Dmitri. ‘Then I’m staying right here,’ he told the older man firmly.

Nina’s fingers tightened about his in gratitude before she turned to look at her father with tear-wet eyes. ‘It was cruel of you to keep the truth about Mama from me all these years, Papa. Surely I had a right to know? A right to choose for myself?’

‘I did what I thought was best at the time.’ He sighed heavily. ‘And this conversation must be very confusing for Rafe,’ he added. ‘Which, as we are in his office, seems a little unfair.’

The tears were falling silently down Nina’s cheeks as she turned to Rafe. ‘It’s not too late, you can still leave.’

‘I’m staying,’ he stated grimly, wanting, needing, to know exactly what had reduced his Nina to this emotional state.

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Then you should know that nineteen years ago my mother was kidnapped.’ She nodded abruptly at Rafe’s harshly indrawn breath. ‘The kidnappers contacted my father immediately, demanding that he keep the police out of it, but that if he paid their ransom within one week my mother would be safely returned to us.’

Now Rafe understood the reason Dmitri Palitov had been, and still was, so protective of his daughter; his wife had been taken from him nineteen years ago, and he had no intention of the same thing ever happening with his young daughter.

Rafe felt a hard jolt in his chest just imagining how Dmitri must have suffered all those years ago. The pain and agony of having his wife taken from him followed by days of wondering if he would ever see her again.

Imagining how he himself would feel if it had been Nina!

The knuckles on Nina’s hands showed white as she held on tightly, painfully, to Rafe’s hand. ‘My father obeyed their instructions, paid the men their ransom, but—but—’

‘This is where our stories start to diverge,’ Dmitri put in softly, heavily, as Nina faltered. ‘At the time I told Nina nothing about the kidnapping, only that Anna had died. And then when Nina was ten years old I told her of the kidnapping, as a way of helping her to understand why I was so protective of her, but not— Until Saturday evening I was still not completely truthful about her mother’s fate.’

Rafe looked at the older man searchingly, eyes widening in shock as he read the truth in Dmitri’s agonised expression. ‘Anna didn’t die when Nina was five,’ he breathed, remembering how he hadn’t been able to find any record of Anna’s death when he did an Internet search on Dmitri Palitov.