A/N: Again I can only thank you for your reviews. I loved every single one of them. So here is the next chapter, please enjoy :)

Chapter 7

The next few days all went the same. I got to Dimitri's, we worked side by side, but I refused to talk to him. Still beyond angry I answered work related questions with one-word responses and refused to say anything more.

During these days I barely talked to anyone. When I got up in the morning, my family was always asleep, Lissa spent all her time God knows where and after I got home I usually just showered and laid in bed until I fell asleep.

"Rose, could you please stop this." Dimitri stood beside me, but I concentrated on what I was doing. I succeeded, until he took my hands in his to turn me around. This was the first time in days he actually tried to have conversation with me. "Could you please talk to me?" his voice was pleading and I really had to fight the urge to give in and talk to him again. The memory of his reaction after our kiss however made me stay strong.

"Then at least listen to me." When I still stayed quiet he sighed and rubbed his face. "Look, I can't tell you how sorry I am for what happened. I know I already apologized for my behavior after the text and how I reacted the other day. However, we could have talked everything out by now, if someone would have answered her phone, at least once. But you're just being unreasonable now."

Interrupting him I tried to keep my voice down. "You, Dimitri Belikov, don't get to call me unreasonable."

"Then why haven't you talked to me for the last six days, if not out of your 'Rose logic'?" he taunted me.

"First of all, there is nothing wrong with Rose logic, just because you don't understand it, doesn't mean it's not true." That made him smirk, which in return only made me more furious." And second of all, Mr. I'm flirting with you, then be a dick about it, only to apologize and then doing something equally as unfriendly right after it, don't get to tell me how to behave. And you really need to learn how to apologize properly. Cause that's not the way to do it." With that I turned away, but he wouldn't stop.

"You're right! Okay? I don't know how to do this, how to manage this kind of situation. It's not like I've been in this position before."

Huffing I couldn't hold back my snide comment. "Do you expect me to believe that you've never been wrong in your life? That you never had to apologize before? Because if that's the case, I have to break something to you."

Again, he had the audacity to laugh at me. "Stop laughing at me!"

"Do you intentionally don't want to understand me, Roza?" This question stunned me. "What do you mean? I understood that you don't want me in that way Dimitri. Believe me, I got it. You made that noticeably clear." My voice wasn't as strong as I would have wanted it to be.

"Oh, really? For me it seems like you don't get what I really want to tell you."

"Why don't you say it in the simplest way then, since all your previous words only seem to make me even more confused than before." Irritation clear in my voice I continued working on the soon to be door frame. "I'm sorry. Honestly and deeply sorry." He answered from right behind me. "But you really misunderstood what situation I've been talking about. Of course, I've been wrong before and I had to apologize a lot of times in my life. But never like this."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean now? You know what, I don't care. You've been hot and cold repeatedly. Unfortunately, you know how I feel about you, that I really like you, I even initiated a kiss and then you made it more than clear that you don't feel about me the same way." Facing the wall made it easier to say all of this. Letting out a breath to calm down I continued. "That's alright, I don't expect you to apologize for not wanting me the same way that I want you. We can be friendly and maybe even be some sort of friends, but I won't let you drop me every five minutes when you feel like it. So, if you could please excuse me, I need to get this work done." Closing my eyes to stop tears from forming, I thanked God he stood behind me and therefor wasn't able to see my face.

Not for long though, when he turned me around. Studying me for some seconds, I was glad there were no sign of tears for him to notice, then he started explaining. "You really believe that don't you? Why can't you understand that I wanted to kiss you for some while now. God." He chuckled softly, looked at the ceiling and then looked me deep in the eyes as he carried on. "God only knows for how many months I thought about doing this." Months? "When I said I've never been in a situation like this, I meant it. Never have I, a 26 year old, ever started having feelings for a seventeen-year-old, who also happened to be my business partner's daughter. A kind of scary and intimidating business partner, may I add." That made me smirk a little bit, even though I was confused and still pissed.

When I haven't answered a minute later, he sighed. "How can I prove it, when I'm not in a position to show you how I really feel and prove it to you?" Unsure whether he asked me or himself I answered anyway.

"You want me to believe that you indeed feel the same way but for some unclear reason can't act upon it?" I almost dared him.

"Why do you think I was flirting with you?" he challenged.

"I don't know. Alcohol makes people do all kind of dumb stuff. Some people even wake up in Vegas, married to a stranger."

"Believe me, the alcohol had nothing to do with my flirting. Well, okay, maybe a little bit." He admitted which only confirmed my suspicions. "I don't know if I would have had the courage to act upon my feelings." Stunning me again, I questioned if this could be true, if I indeed hadn't just imagined his interest in me. "My reasons for keeping away from you aren't unclear, and they are undeniably valid. I'm not just talking about our age difference and the fact that you are still underaged. I'm also talking about the fact that your father would kill me and make it look like an accident if he'd ever find out about this." This explanation actually made sense. Kind of.

Even though he just told me why he couldn't be with me, in this moment, I could see his feelings in his eyes. They were all over his face, like an open book and I couldn't help myself but kiss him, again. Only this time he simply pulled me closer. After the most amazing moments of my life, he broke the kiss and leaned away a little.

"I'm sorry. Really. I shouldn't have pushed you away, but you know why we can't do something about our feelings." He sounded so regretful, stroking my face with both of his hands.

It was just then that I accepted how much his behavior hurt me and tears dwelled in my eyes. His warm, big hands on my face made them fall quickly.

"Oh Roza, I'm sorry." Taking me into his arms I let him wrap his arms around me.

His scent made me calm down further and eventually my tears stopped.

"I'm sorry as well. I shouldn't have been this childish. I was just hurt, I guess." Letting go of me, he looked into my face and smiled slightly.

"I know. It really hurts not to be able to let myself give into how I feel. Just so you know for sure and there won't be any misunderstandings in the future, I really like you too, Roza." Smiling at me, he gave me small kiss. We talked some more and got back to work on his cabin.

"Can I ask you something, comrade?" I asked hesitantly. When he gave me a nod I continued before I could chicken out. "You said you wanted to kiss me for months."

"You picked up on that. That's not actually a question though." He teased.

"For how long?" was all I got out.

Spinning towards the wall, his neck turned redder with every second. "I don't know exactly. I remember thinking about you as the little 10-year-old your father introduced me to when I took over the business. Then suddenly you turned seventeen and one day when you and Lissa visited Abe in our office… I don't know, it changed. I remember you wore these amazing, fitting jeans, brown boots and this loose olive green, kind of shirt under your jacket. It hit me then and I was gone." He chuckled.

"Thank you." It was so sweet that he even remembered what I wore that day.

"You're welcome." We were quiet for some time. "You?" He didn't need to elaborate; I knew what he meant. Glad he was still facing the wall I took some time. "I guess I always had a little thing for you. But it definitely got worse the more time we spent together, even it was just every once in a while and solely in presence of others. Though, seeing the amazing personality behind this good looking façade made it hard to resist. When you drove me home after we decorated for that weekend, I saw how you looked when you talked about your family and when you had that phone call with Paul, I was gone for good." Smiling while remembering this, I again couldn't believe this had happened just a little over a week ago, well almost two weeks to be precise.

After that he changed topics. "When you guys drove around in this shopping card, my day got better by the second. It had already been good, but then it got amazing. Maybe I should try something like this as well." He pondered.

Laughing I agreed. "Most definitely you should. I would volunteer to help you with this. You for sure could need some more fun like this in your life."

Pretending to be mad, he threw a bigger wood chip at me.

Next moment he turned sober again. "Though the saddest thing about this is, that all of it does not change a single thing." This statement of his, however absolutely true, made me feel sad and uneasy.

My good mood was over and we silently worked until he declared us done for the day.

Tomorrow would be Wednesday and it would be the ninth day of renovating his garden house. However today was the first, almost pleasant day we had.

"Guess we should finish for today. We've got a lot of work done; we can be proud." He smiled at our achievement of today.

Some hours ago there was a complete wall and now there was a breach in it, but this also meant that it got petty cold in here, considering it was already extremely late. From where we were standing, you could see the stars.

"Hey, comrade, you have a whole in your exterior wall." I informed him as if this haven't been created by several hours of our hard work.

"Oh God, Rose, why haven't you told me before." He mocked.

Bumping into his shoulder I walked to the side where my stuff was. "Shit." Escape my mouth when I saw what time it was on my phone.

"What's wrong?" Dimitri asked as he covered the breach to protect the inside from the nature.

"Nothing, sorry. I just haven't realized how late it got and now the last bus drove without me four minutes ago. Great, now I have to ask my parents to come and pick me up." Something I wasn't too keen on doing.

"That's no problem. I can drive you." Dimitri offered. Without a second thought I agreed. We might have more or less agreed that we couldn't do anything about how we felt and would have to pretend that nothing was going on, but I was thrilled at the thought of spending even more time with him today. The thought made me cheerful.

Driving with Dimitri was sweet and the silence was comfortable. We were both very tired from todays work.

"Thank you for driving me home. But you should really head home fast to get to bed. You look terrible." My words made him smile when he parked his car in front of our house.

"No problem, Roza. But if you keep describing me as terrible looking, I'm not sure I would do this again." Leaning over he hugged me before I left the car to head inside. Since my parents could might see us from inside I didn't even dare to try to kiss him goodbye. It also would have been the opposite of the plan not to act upon our feelings.

It was strange. Our behavior changed today. The talk we had made it different. We both knew how the other felt, it was a pleasant surprise that we both felt the same way, at least it had been a surprise for me. Even though there was no way we could be together, we seemingly became more relaxed. Joking around, flirting, we had fun while renovating. Nothing like the other day before, when I had been so mad at him.

Thinking about these things put a smile on my face as I fell asleep.