Dmitry's Closet by Nelson, S. (read people like a book .txt) 📕

“I don’t know. Maybe you should tell her. She would probably appreciate it – this proves chivalry is not dead, eh?” Anatoly smirked.

“You don’t know anything about women. If I told her, she would go insane.”

Anatoly ignored his father’s concerns about Royal. “I know a thing or two about women.”

“Two things...hardly impressive.” Dmitry sat back in his seat.

“Do you think that she knows yet about the other thing?” Anatoly whispered.

“No,” Dmitry said, looking behind him again. “Enough talk about her. Let’s talk about you. Did you give any thought to what I said to you?”

Anatoly sighed. “I’m not meant for college, Papa. I have no desire for it. I enjoy what I do here.”

“You really enjoy it?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

Dmitry shrugged. “I’ve excelled in it, but if I could do it all over again, I would only have my shops.”

“You keep shops. I was born a Vor.”

Dmitry raised his brow at his son. “Such over exaggerated enthusiasm would be better used on your girlfriend not on your tired, retirement-bound father.”

“What is all this talk? Where are you going?” Anatoly sat up in his seat.

“No where, but everyone has to have plan B, dah? I have told you this many times.”

Anatoly looked at him suspiciously.

Royal walked to edge of the stairwell and smiled at the men. She was finished cooking her first Thanksgiving dinner for her first ever pseudo-family. She wore a large, proud grin and pink apron. Renée stood behind her, awaiting her announcement.

“Gentlemen, dinner is served,” Royal said, clapping her hands.

Dmitry and Anatoly turned around in their chairs. That was evidently their queue to head to the dinning room. Dmitry led by turning off the television and making his way with his box of Kleenex up the short stairway to her. He leaned down and kissed her head.

“Show me what you’ve been up to for half the after-noon,” he said, a little excited.

The walnut dining table covered in crystal sat under yet another beautiful Italian-inspired chandelier. Around an extraordinary bouquet of roseswas a full meal of dressing and gravy, ham, mixed greens, green beans, sweet potato pudding, warm biscuits, wine and champagne.

Dmitry stood at the head of the table, lost for words and extremely impressed.

Royal could not control her smiles by this point. She looked over at Renée proudly, glad that her new friend had gotten out of the bed and helped her on this very important occasion.

“Dmitry, do you wanna say grace?” she asked, standing beside him.

“Grace?” Dmitry asked, a little confused. No one had asked him that since he was a boy in school.

“Dah, grace?” Royal mimicked.

“I’m Catholic. Are you?” Dmitry realized at that very moment that they had never discussed their religion.

“I’m familiar,” Royal said, bowing her head. She made the sign on the cross and closed her eyes.

Dmitry looked over at Anatoly, who smirked and fol-lowed Royal’s lead. He had never heard his father pray aloud.

Dmitry felt a sudden serge of discomfort. Sure, he did it in the privacy of his home, where no one would see and mistake his religion for weakness, but he had not prayed in front of anyone since he was ten when his mother had been beaten badly by a john, who left her on their doorstep covered in blood. He prayed for her then, aloud, so God would hear him and protect him and Ivan, but not since then. She died on those steps.

“Very well,” Dmitry said, clearing his voice. He made the sign of the cross and began to pray. There was some-thing strangely normal and liberating about what Royal had asked him to do. He prayed aloud the words that he had whispered near his bed many nights before. He prayed for his son, for Royal, for himself.

“Amen,” they all said, a little shook up by his kind words, his soft tone, and his humble actions. Royal wiped her eyes and reached over to give him a kiss.

“Happy Thanksgiving, baby,” she said as she pulled the seat out for him.

Chapter 13

Later that evening, after the food had been eaten, the wine bottles emptied and the company had gone, Royal lay relaxed in her favorite tub. It was a classic creation – cast iron, gloss gold enamel on the outside and beautiful gloss white enamel on the inside with beautiful golden brass claw feet. It sat in the middle of the bathroom surrounded by twenty square feet of black marble flooring, accented by two beautiful, petite water basins and a very large shower in the corner, big enough to fit ten people in that doubled also as a steam room. When Dmitry purchased the house, the tub had come with it, but he was too large of a man to ever use it. So it had sat untouched until she moved it.

Dmitry had set candles around their large bathroom to give the area a little ambience. He left her there soaking while he went downstairs to meet with a few of his men, who had stressed on the phone with him the importance of an emergency meeting. As usual, he had apologized for the interruption and promised not to be too long. However, Royal was certain that he might be gone the rest of the night.

She finally got out and wrapped herself in the large terry cloth bathrobe. As she opened the door the bathroom, a peculiar feeling over took Royal. The room became blurry. She leaned against the post of the bed and looked over at the oversized fireplace that Dmitry had lit directly across from their bed. The wood crackled on the fire in the dark room. Silence was all around her. She felt as though she would faint. The heat from bathtub, the many glasses of wine and the heat from the fireplace were trying to overtake her.

Shaking, she lay down in the bed and turned on the plasma flat screen mounted above the fireplace. She crawled to the middle of