I sigh in sympathy and join him, leaning against his shoulder. “I need to ask you another seemingly pointless question.”
He grunts. “Oh?”
“How did you explain the bear?” It’s a weird question on the surface, but not so weird when her attitude toward him is taken into context. I know firsthand that she has other stuffed animals she has yet to mutilate. But that one she vandalized. That one she carries with her everywhere. The only one she sleeps with at night and panics if she’s without.
“I’m sure they told her it was donated by a nurse,” he says offhandedly.
But what if she already knew that it hadn’t been? What if that one bear mattered to her so much because she knew its original source. And through that very same bear, she loved tormenting said source.
“We should get some sleep.” I crawl up the mattress and slip beneath the covers. “I need you well rested for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Vadim wonders as he follows me, snatching me into his arms.
“Yes,” I say, arching into his touch. “Magda needs some toys. You’re taking us shopping.”
Chapter Thirteen
Put a shopaholic and a shopper-lite into any Boutique in the fashion district with an unlimited credit card, and chaos will ensue. Put a man desperate to buy his daughter’s affections into a toy store—a man with no concept of money or boundaries—and watch as they fall into a silent power struggle that I’ll be lucky to survive without getting slung across a cash register myself.
By the time Magda makes her way toward the store’s extensive doll section, I feel compelled to put my foot down.
“She doesn’t need one of every doll, Vadim,” I scold.
Following dutifully in her wake, he eyes me the way I figure a kicked puppy might, and I march forward, prepared to put him out of his misery.
“Magda.” I crouch down beside her and meet her calculating gaze. She’s wearing a burgundy ensemble that enhances her eyes to an almost painful degree. With her curls held at bay by a matching headband, she looks every bit the little princess she must think she is. The only flaw in the façade is that battered, deflated teddy bear clutched to her chest. “I want you to get something you really want. Something you’ll play with every day.”
She frowns, mulling over the request. But as I hoped, she seems to take it as a challenge rather than a demand.
“That one.” She points to a particular doll high up on a shelf. Behind me, I sense Vadim already scrambling to find a salesclerk to retrieve it. It’s one of those porcelain frilly dolls decorated in an ivory Victorian-style costume with a straw bonnet and huge reddish curls.
Vadim pays for it on the spot and removes it from the box, handing it to her. I watch in awe as her lips part into one of those rare, incredible grins. Meeting my gaze, she says sweetly, “I’m going to call her Biphany.” She pats the doll’s head lovingly, shoving her bonnet down her face in the process. “She’s an orphan, poisoned by the queen. And everyone hates her.”
“Magda…” Vadim sounds horrified.
I, however, raise an eyebrow. “Is that the best you can do when it comes to a backstory?” I feign a yawn and rise to my full height. “Boring. I bet you can come up with something better.”
She pouts, the gears in her brain ever whirling.
When we finally leave the store—with about only half of it in tow—Vadim takes us out for lunch, where Magda makes a show of refusing anything from the menu he suggests to her. In the end, she winds up drinking only a milkshake, and pointedly ignores him for the rest of the trip.
It’s taking its toll. His usual enduring patience wears thin. His eyes turn hollow and distant. When we return to the house, he lingers in the garage to carry the bags while Magda marches inside, It slung under one arm and Biphany under the other.
I follow her into the foyer and watch her dump her toys on the lid of the piano before climbing onto the bench.
“Why are you needling him?” I do my best to sound as nonjudgmental as possible. I’m not angry with her. Just curious.
She taps a piano key, letting the note play out. “Because,” she says, just as heavy footsteps approach from the direction of the garage. Her head cocked, she whirls around and meets my gaze directly. “I hate him.”
A heavy thud draws my attention to the corner of the foyer, where Vadim stands amid a pile of fallen shopping bags. As I watch, his wall comes up too quickly to stop. His eyes darken, his expression rigid. Without a word, he gathers up the bags and carries them upstairs.
I watch him, my heart aching. I almost start after him, but tiny arms go around my waist, keeping me in place.
“I like you,” Magda says, her face in my hip. “You don’t lie like other grown-ups.” She draws back and snatches my hand, tugging me after her. “Can we go see my pony?”
“Okay.” I follow her, my heart in my throat. We venture out to the stable and spend time brushing down Zzazza and the other horses under the watchful eye of Ena, who appears from nowhere to stare from the shadows—on his master’s orders, I suspect.
“Can I ride?” Magda asks as we approach Dasha’s stall.
“You could ask Mr. Vadim to teach you?” I suggest, hopefully.
She gives me a look that sums up her thoughts even before she utters a terse, “Never mind.”
We settle for cooing over Dasha from afar. When we return to the house, an incredible smell reaches my nostrils the second we step inside.
“Don’t tell me you’ve decided to add chef to your list of accomplishments,” I exclaim in response
