Unforgiven - Complete

Chapter Five

After Thursday's study meetup, Dimitri all but floated home. He couldn't believe Roza had smiled at him. Even called him Comrade! He wasn't an idiot – he knew she was still angry with him; that she might not ever forgive him. But now he had something that he hadn't had yesterday. Hope.

"How was your study session?" Abe asked when Rose got home.

"Yeah, it was good. The project is huge, but we've divided it into equal parts. Although we have to build a project to do experiments with. I've looked at a few plans on the Internet, but we'll need a workshop. Do you think you could help us, Tata?"

As Rose had anticipated, her father lit up like a Christmas tree. Abe was very much a hands-on sort of guy, and the prospect of getting to help his little girl with some sort of school project was particularly appealing. Watching on from the kitchen, Janine had to laugh at her husband's excited expression. Abe had always been like that with their daughter. He was probably the only parent who was genuinely disappointed that the school's 'working bee' days were only twice a year!

In her younger years, Abe had helped with many of her school projects, but the older Rose got, the less help she needed. Abe couldn't help but feel the time was coming when his little girl wouldn't need him for anything, anymore. Hell – the time probably wasn't too far off when there'd be another man in her life she'd turn to instead. Another man she'd give her love and trust.

"I'd love to help, Rozalia!" he beamed. "Now what is it you and Lissa are working on?"

"The project is looking at Faraday and Lenz's laws, and we have to design an experiment about them. I found these on the Internet," Rose said, sidestepping the issue of her project partner for a moment. Abe studied the diagrams quickly, asking questions about the precise nature of their experiments and observations.

"That's for physics, isn't it?" Janine asked, not fooled by her daughter's attempts to avoid correcting her father's incorrect assumption. "I didn't think Lissa did physics?"

"Yeah, it is," Rose said evasively. She looked up and caught her mother's expression, realizing there was no way of getting around this. "The topics and groups were assigned by Mr. Alto. I'm working with Dimitri on this project."

"The Russian?" her father snapped, earning himself a swift rebuke from Janine. "Why isn't his father helping then?"

"His father deserted his family," Rose snapped, annoyed both at what her father said as well as making such a big deal out of this. "He lives with his mother, grandmother, and sisters and doesn't have access to a workshop like yours. But if you don't want to help us, I'm sure we can figure it out," she said, starting to gather up her papers in a huff.

"Of course I want to help. I just don't want to see you lumped doing the whole project," Abe said quickly, trying to smooth the situation over.

"I won't be," Rose replied. "We're meeting up every Thursday after school to work on the project together, and I thought we could meet here every second Saturday to build the project and do the experiments?"

"And that's what you want me to help you with?" Abe clarified.

"Only if you want to..." Rose said giving her father a look, knowing full well that wild horses would not stop him from being involved – especially if it gave him the chance to meet Dimitri.

"Well, of course, I'll help," Abe said. "Does this Saturday suit, Rozalia? We could spend the afternoon finalizing the plans and maybe even start construction?"

"That would be perfect, thank you, Tata," Rose smiled sweetly.

"Why don't you invite Dimitri to join us for lunch, darling?" Janine asked, not missing the slight flush on her daughter's cheeks. She was darned if Abe was going to get to meet this Dimitri without her getting a look in. "The two of you can discuss your ideas with your father over lunch and then get straight into it afterward?"