‘It’s beautiful,’ Hannah murmured, and Sergei smiled, seeming to relax a fraction. He’d been so tense for most of the ride, even though they’d chatted about nothing more taxing than the weather. Hannah knew she shouldn’t have pushed last night, shouldn’t have demanded a kind of emotional honesty Sergei wasn’t ready to give. He was right too, she knew. She’d been acting as if she meant to fix him, and she knew that wasn’t what she really wanted. She’d spent most of the night lying next to him, trying to figure out just what it was she did want, and as dawn sent pale pink fingers of light across the sky she’d finally realised. She wanted to love him … if he’d let her. She didn’t let herself think beyond that, or what it might mean for both of them. The realisation, for the moment, was enough. The car came around a bend and over a little stone bridge that spanned a gentle stream, and there in front of them stood a stately nineteenth-century country house, with two banks of diamond-paned windows and a tower at either end, the reddish stone gleaming in the spring sunlight.
What do You think about Kholodov's Last Mistress (2011)?
