With Dmitri’s backing, Jasmine realized, the pieces falling into place. He had helped the woman get on her feet, but she knew he wouldn’t mention that.
Just like he wouldn’t mention anything that betrayed the man he was beneath the facade. She understood now why he had reacted so violently, saw the shadows of the past fill his eyes.
“I saw that flicker of interest in his eyes when he looked at you. If he so much as comes anywhere near you again, I will...” The barely restrained violence in him would have scared her if she hadn’t known him once.
If he could do so much for an ex, Jas wasn’t surprised at what he had done for her. After all, he had admitted that he owed Andrew. For all his playboy persona, Dmitri seemed to have a white-knight complex.
And she had been nothing but a literal damsel.
“Promise me that you will stay away from such men in the future.”
“Isn’t seeing him a long way from falling into an abusive relationship, Dmitri?”
“It is, but I...”
She gasped as realization sunk in.
He thought she was ripe for picking for a man like Gaspard, that she had no sense of self-preservation at all. Or maybe he thought she was like her mother.
But then, ever since she had come into his life, all she had done was act like a pushover. It didn’t help to know that it was only he who made her act so out of character. “You think I’m more prone to it?”
“Theos, Jas, I don’t want to argue with you. Just give me your word.”
“I won’t see him,” Jasmine said first, wanting more than anything to reassure him. As to what the man’s actual offer had been, she had no idea, but she didn’t mention that to Dmitri. She sighed. “Believe it or not, I wouldn’t have blithely gone off with Gaspard tonight or any other night. You give me far less credit. I made hard, gut-wrenching choices, but I did survive on my own, Dmitri.”
“You have no idea how sorry I am about that.”
“Why?” She shook her head. “It is not your fault.”
And just like that she accepted it wasn’t. When she had asked for help, he had come, guns blazing. What more could she ask for?
That they had grown apart was nothing but a circumstance of their lives. That she had held on to the memory of him all these years... It was an affliction she needed to grow out of.
“Partly it is. I...should have taken on your responsibility at Andrew’s funeral, should have made some kind of arrangement for your future.”
“Stop saying that. I never wanted you to fix my life, Dmitri. I just...needed a friend. Andrew needed a friend.”
A growl fell from his mouth, a jagged sound of frustration and regret. “I should have known what Andrew would do. I should have...never trusted him. I should have...”
What did he mean? Fear fisted tight in her gut.
“Tell me to walk away, Jas,” he said in that controlled voice that she was beginning to hate. “Tell me to leave the past where it should be. Tell me to hang on to the little honor I have.”
He looked so painfully handsome, so achingly real. And she was terrified of asking but equally of not knowing... She felt as though she was standing at a precipice that she had been trying to reach all her life, as though the real Dmitri was finally within her reach.
“What did you mean by that?”
He knelt in front of her and a flutter began in Jasmine’s belly. Tilted upward toward her, he reached for her and Jasmine started shivering. Warm, rough hands clasped her bare shoulders. “You’re cold?”
“No. It’s you,” she whispered, knowing that there was nothing to hide from his gaze.
Fragile, she felt so fragile when he touched her like that...
His fingers lifted her pendant off her skin, the tips brushing against the curve of her breast. She closed her eyes, sharp tingles taking over her body. “I should have got the matching earrings, too.”
A storm unleashed in her gut as the words fell over her.
Snatching away the pendant from his fingers, she looked up. “Wait...you were the one who had it delivered for my eighteenth birthday? But that’s impossible. Why would Andrew say he had ordered it?”
The truth slammed into her from every which way, shaking the very axis of her life.
“Because he lied to you and to me. He told me you were better off without me in your life and I believed him. And I didn’t care who you thought it was from as long as you had it.”
It was all there in his eyes—the guilt, the pain, the lies he had allowed her to believe. He didn’t have to say a word. And in that minute, she saw what she had been too blind to see.