Firebird (The Firebird Trilogy #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

pushed back from the table. “Really? That is what this is about? We were kids, Aleksandr. And even so, you knew how I felt. You know I…”
    He laid his right hand on the table. “I never took it off.”
    “Oh my God,” she whispered.
     
    “ʻHow lucky I am to have something that makes saying good-bye so hard.’“
    Stephanie giggled through her tears. “That’s from Winnie-the-Pooh .”
    Alex smiled and, cupping her face, brushed her tears away with his thumbs. “He is very wise bear.” He bowed his head to hers. “We are together again someday. Maybe not so soon as we want, but someday. Until then, I am right here.” He laid his palm over her heart. “Good-bye for now, but not forever.”
     
    His gaze fell to her hand, to the understated yet unambiguous engagement ring. For a split second, his face crumpled in anguish. Then he regained his stony composure and toughened the stare he leveled at her. “When’s the big day?”
    “Valentine’s Day. Aleksandr, why didn’t you ever email me when you were drafted?”
    “Why do you think? I was sure you didn’t give a shit at that point. Besides, we were still twenty-five hundred miles apart, and apparently you don’t do long-distance.”
    “Let’s not do this. Please.”
    “You’re right. Let’s not.” Aleksandr gathered the plates and carried them to the sink. “It’s been a pleasure, Stephanie, but I don’t want to keep you. I need to work out, anyway.”
    “But the story—”
    “I have to think about it a little longer. I’ll let you know.”
    “How can you still be angry at me?”
    “You know goddamned well why!” He banged his glass on the counter, and Stephanie flinched. “And now you have the fucking nerve to show up in my life again…forget it.” He pointed at the door. “I wish I could shut it off as easily as you did. Do svidaniya , Stephanie.”
    “You don’t understand, Aleksandr. You have absolutely no idea.”
    “Yeah? You’ve been perfectly happy without me all these years.”
    The words hung in the air like flesh stripped from a wound, raw, oozing the unresolved emotions of nearly a decade. “ Happy? ”
    “I’m not the one getting married, am I? You know what? Just stop talking. Otvyazhis. ”
    “You are unbelievable.” She shook her head and slung her bag over her shoulder. “You’re a millionaire. One of the best hockey players in the world.”
    “Leave.”
    She had already laid her hand on the doorknob when a photo in a black frame, placed on a side table so the door would conceal it whenever it opened, drew her attention.
    “What’s that?”
    “Nothing.” Aleksandr slapped the frame facedown. “You were leaving, remember?”
    “What are you hiding?”
    He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You have no idea.”
    “Let me see it.”
    “You don’t get to order me around in my own house, dorogaya . If you want to go, go. If you want to stay…” Retreating into character, he flicked his gaze up and down again, mentally undressing her. She knew a defense mechanism when she saw one.
    She hip-checked him enough to disrupt his balance and snatched the photo.
    “You little—”
    Stephanie lifted the frame. Two teenagers cheesing for the camera. A girl in a purple spaghetti-strap dress, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail to reveal a face bearing the minimum amount of makeup socially sanctioned by the event. A sweep of eye shadow, of blush over her cheekbones, a thin sheen of light pink lip gloss. A tomboy’s vision of prom night.
    Next to her, a striking boy tall for seventeen, six feet three. He would grow another two inches and gain forty pounds of muscle, but his body had already changed during the school year. Lean, strong, his tuxedo tailored to him. His host parents had prepared him for the time of his life. Nearly a man, and girls had leveled envious stares at her as she and Alex walked the school halls hand in hand, kissed at his locker. She wasn’t worthy of someone like him.
    An