Page 56 of Dance with Me
If he wasn’t careful, his mother would ask enough questions to guess Natasha’s identity. She watchedThe Dance Off.Lori Kim and Danny Johnson were her favorites, but she certainly knew who Natasha was, and would likely have opinions about her. “Um, yes.”
“Do I know her?”
Chert.“Mama . . .”
She held up her hands. “Fine. You tell me when you’re ready. Continue.”
“Right. So, she sprained her ankle, and I’m taking care of her.”
His mother’s expression softened. “That’s sweet of you.”
“I’m trying to show her she doesn’t have to be alone. But she thinks she does. She doesn’t want my help.”
“Women want to be independent, Mitya. She’s not going to want you because she needs you to make her life good, but because her life is already good and you make it better.”
He sat back in his seat and mulled that over. “You’re saying I shouldn’t want her to need my help?”
“I’m saying, if she wants to prove she can do it on her own, she doesn’t want you to prove that shecan’t.”
Frustrated, he swirled the wine in his glass and scowled at the soft light reflecting through it. “So, what do I do? Nothing? Don’t help her? She’s in a bad situation. She needs help.”
“Are you sure?”
When he blinked at her, she looked away and sipped her wine.
“Am I sure about what? That she needs help?” When his mother didn’t answer, he leaned in. “She does need help. She’s broke, her apartment is under construction, and she’s injured. I’m doing everything I can to help her, short of giving her money, and that’s only because I know she won’t accept it. She needs help.”
His mother was immune to his stubbornness. After all, she was ten times more stubborn than he was. She only shrugged and said again, “Are you surethat’swhat sheneeds?”
He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. “I’m . . .” He had been sure. But now that his mother had pointed it out, his brain started poking at the problem from different angles.
An uneasy feeling spread through his gut. What if he were going about this all wrong? Trying to anticipate and meet all of Natasha’s needs. She needed a home, he gave it. She needed a ride, he drove her. He was trying to show her he cared, but she wasn’t buying it. What could he do differently? What did shereallyneed?”
I don’t want your help,she’d said.I have to prove I can do it.
What else had she said?
You’re going to let me care about you.
You shouldn’t.
Why?
Because I don’t deserve it.
Those words had haunted him. And now they gave him his answer.
“I have to show her . . . that she deserves to be loved.”
“Ah.” His mother smiled and reached for his hand across the table. He clasped her small fingers in his big ones, stunned as always that his larger-than-life mother was, in reality, a small woman. Her eyes glistened, and she smiled like she was proud of him. “And how do you do that?”
“I guess it’s not by bullying her into physical therapy exercises.”
Once again, Oksana looked to the ceiling for patience. It was something she did a lot around him. “Figure it out, Mitya. I believe in you. Now, drop me off at my hotel and go back to your woman.”
As they left the restaurant and waited for Raul to bring the car around, Dimitri gave his mother a sidelong glance. “Did you really fly all the way to California to ask me about this?”
She shrugged. “I had the miles. And besides, you’ve been ignoring your cousin, so why should I think you’d have this conversation unless I forced you into it?”
