“Honey, talk to me. What’s wrong?” Evangeline took the chair Marzio had vacated. “I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I genuinely want to help.”
“You know Mitya far better than I do. He seems so all-powerful. He wants instant obedience without question. He’s scary, Evangeline, but his leopard is worse. I’m supposed to just trust everything he says and does. I’m my own person. I’m not in the least bit a ‘yes’ kind of woman. How can this be right if we’re not what the other needs? Is the relationship only about the leopard?”
“I’m very much in love with Fyodor, and he is with me.” She rubbed her hand over her pregnant belly. “I can barely stand being away from him, and luckily enough, he’s like that about me.”
“And that could be all it is—pure luck. Fyodor fell in love with you because you’re you, Evangeline. You’re sweet and accommodating. You don’t question every little thing. I do.” She did because someone was out to kill her family. She did because Mitya had admitted that the men in his family had always killed the women they chose to have their sons. A little shudder went through her.
Evangeline leaned forward. “Honey, why would you think Mitya doesn’t love you?”
“It would be impossible in such a short amount of time. Love doesn’t happen that way.”
“Love can happen in all sorts of ways. In any case, how do you feel about him?”
“I don’t know.” Ania tried to be honest with herself. “I think of him all the time. I worry that he does dangerous things. He told me about his father, and that’s just plain scary. But there’s this terrible fear that just won’t go away.”
“Fear of what?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell if it’s me or Jewel. I only know when I think too much, I can’t breathe.” She forced herself to be honest. “I know myself, Evangeline. I won’t stay if I don’t feel he loves me. It won’t be enough that our leopards are bonded. I’m trying to convince myself that it will be good, but only the sex feels good between us.”
“You need to sit that man down and tell him your fears, Ania.”
“I don’t want him to say the things he thinks I want to hear.”
“He isn’t a mind reader. None of them are. Mitya, Fyodor, Timur, Sevastyan and Gorya, actually all of them, lived extremely difficult lives as children. They don’t know the first thing about a relationship. I didn’t either, but Fyodor and I have sort of figured it out. We talk a lot. If you’re going to be with a man like these men, you have to communicate with them. They want a home and a family, but they don’t know how to get those things. They’re looking to you to show them the way.”
Ania sat back, stretching her legs out in front of her. She was so tired. Death was exhausting. Just thinking about her father and the loss of every family member was so emotionally draining that she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt raw and were burning. Her throat felt the same. Her eyes burned from shed and unshed tears.
“Mitya has been wonderful throughout all of this,” she admitted. He wasn’t in the best of shape, and neither was she, so they hadn’t had their crazy, wild sex. She had to admit, she needed that affirmation that he still wanted her, even though she appreciated him giving her space. “He took care of all the details.”
“As he should,” Evangeline said. “Talk to him, Ania. Tell him your fears. If you do, the two of you can figure out why Jewel is so frightened. Turning to another man won’t help you. That, for certain, will only scare you more. Mitya is committed to you. I know he is because Fyodor asked him straight out. He would never let another claim on you go unchallenged.”
“You mean another claim on my leopard,” Ania corrected. “How can you tell Fyodor loves you for you?”
Evangeline frowned. “I feel it every time he touches me. When he looks at me. It’s there in the things he does for me.”
Ania couldn’t help thinking that Mitya had been shot several times, and yet he’d planned her father’s service and stood at her side the entire time, not letting on in the least that he was hurt in any way. He stayed close to her, shielding her from scrutiny, from too many people crowding close when she could barely stand straight. He gave her strength through the entire service. Was that a show of love? Maybe his actions spoke when he couldn’t with words.
“I don’t know why I’m so afraid to talk to him about this. I think it’s because if he doesn’t react well, he’d crush me.”
“When a problem crops up, does he crush you?”