TWELVE

Dale held her breath as she inched out of the bedroom and slowly pulled the door closed. She kept the sleeping occupant in her sights until the very last second because, who knew, it might be the last time she would ever see him.

She tried to ignore how that thought made her feel and winced at the muted snick that sounded when she released the knob. She waited. When she didn’t hear any commotion from Lukas, she let her breath out on a quiet sigh. And, again, she stood there, staring at the pretty design on the pewter doorknob.

She’d woken up an hour ago after a fitful night’s rest. Well, it was almost noon, so morning’s rest would be a more appropriate description…

She was stalling.

She looked up and down the empty hallway then back at the door. Maybe she should wake him. Or wait inside until he woke on his own.

“Or maybe you should find Farah and get gone,” she murmured, remembering her dreams.

She chewed on her lip and rubbed at her chest. Something between her breasts felt…wrong. Wrong and familiar. She could feel it deep inside, where she normally refused to allow company. A new presence. One that was protesting her escape. Protesting so vehemently, it was making her want to go back and sit near the pillows again, staring, smiling every little while, wanting to touch.

She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her hand. It was all in her head. Lukas’s talk of fate and shit had gotten to her. Those dreams. They’d been dumb and had centered around babies and white fucking dresses.

Screw it.

She went left, and by the time she reached the end of the hall, she was kind of trotting, and her breath was coming too fast considering she was in great shape. Fucking Mr. Murdery had screwed her up. Prick bastard and his sweet but psychotic ass. She wanted to go back to his bedroom for a piece of it. But not only that. She wanted to cuddle with the prick. Then she wanted him to breed her! To give her a dozen pups. She wanted to make him laugh. Maybe run down to the kitchen and bring back some stupid snacks that she would feed into his idiot mouth before crawling on him and doing some nasty things to his moron body that she’d eye-fucked for twenty solid minutes when she’d first woken up. She’d been happy to see him laying next to her! Happy! Excited, even! Content! Because it had felt right! What was right?

“Goddamn him,” she growled as she rounded the corner.

“I’m sure many have,” Farah said from her slouch on a brocade loveseat that sat beneath a massive mirror overlooking the curved staircase. She let her phone that she’d been tapping into fall to her lap. “But you’re the first I’ve seen try it from inside this house while doing a pretty pissed walk of shame. So he did kiss you last night. And…” She looked at the chunky silver watch on her thin wrist. “Probably did a hell of a lot more considering the time.”

Dale went over and tried to compose herself as she planted her feet in front of her boss. “I met his father, if that’s what you mean. Can you call me a taxi, please?”

The irreverent humor twisting Farah’s lips disappeared as she hopped to her feet. She and Dale were similarly dressed, Farah in white shorts and a black tee, and Dale in black shorts and a white tee that she’d found in the closet that was as big as the bedroom she’d had growing up. There hadn’t been a few things for her. The right side had been fully stocked! With clothes, shoes, boots, coats, pajamas, bathing suits, underthings…all in her size! All beautiful! All bought for her!

“What do you mean ‘you met his father?’” Farah demanded.

“Just that. He took me to the hospital at four in the morning, and I told his poor dad that Lukas and I weren’t going to talk when we got home because we were going to be too busy making babies! I said that, Farah! Oh, Gooood,” she moaned as she banged the palm of her hand on her forehead. “Am I even supposed to be talking to you? Is someone going to kill me for being disloyal? Or will he just deny me sex? Because that would do it. Ugh…I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me.”

Farah pulled her down to the loveseat. “Okay. Let’s back up. And, yeah, you can talk to me, you dunce. Why do you think someone’s going to kill you for that?”

“Because your in-laws are the fucking mob,” she mumbled as she rubbed her prickling eyes.

“What?”

She dropped her hands and looked at her boss’s shocked expression.

“What did you say?” Farah breathed.

“Uh…I…um…” Oh, no…

Farah dropped the expression and grinned as she punched Dale’s shoulder—her massive wedding ring nearly punctured the skin. “I’m just fucking with you. I know who my husband and his band of merry men are.”

Dale moaned and clutched at her stomach, not appreciating the warped humor. “You people are so messed up.”

“Guess you’ll fit right in. Now. Tell me what happened. Everything. And don’t worry about Lukas. He knows I’ll get the story out of you at some point so it might as well be this morning. Maybe I can help.”

Dale wasn’t sure about that, but she started talking anyway, telling Farah about bumping into Lukas, kissing him, the murder, waking in his bed, the dogs, the hospital visit. “Is he mentally unbalanced? Do I need to disappear because he’s going to come after me when you call me that taxi?”

“Uh, sorry, sweetie, but Mama ain’t risking that man’s wrath by calling you no yellow car.”

Dale gaped. “What? But I just explained to you how crazy he is! He said he wants to combine his DNA with mine! He talks about love and fate the way we talk about makeup and donuts! He thinks he loves me!” she hissed.

An excited light appeared in her boss’s eyes. “He does? Wait. You guys are going to have babies? In this house?” She jerked Dale against her in a spontaneous hug. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in forever. You don’t know how badly Kostya wants grandchildren. I wonder what he said to move Lukas along. He told us he was going to put a scare into…” She looked down toward the door, and a slow smile came over her face. “Ooooh. That’s what Sammy meant…wow. What a low blow,” she murmured. “Poor Lukas.” She focused on Dale again. “Sorry. I just realized my father-in-law isn’t above using a near death experience to his advantage. What I can’t believe is that Lukas fell for it. But our guys do love their papa.” She looked down the stairs again. “I can’t wait to get to the hospital so I can see what he thought of you.”

“You do realize I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dale said as she tried to control her temper, which was coming to a nice simmer. “But back to my problem; if you want babies in this house, why don’t you have them?”

“How I wish.”

The wistful note in Farah’s voice popped Dale’s all-about-me bubble. “You wish? What does that…does Samuel not want kids yet?”

“He does, but I can’t. Well, I could, but…” She shrugged. “I have a clotting disorder that my doctor says contributed to the three miscarriages we’ve suffered. My worry-wart hubby won’t try again because when he asked my doc about possible harm that could come to me, she told him if a clot forms there’s a chance it could travel up to my lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism. He heard that and snipped our chances of getting pregnant again. Didn’t even talk to me about it first. After, he said I should understand, and he tried to turn the tables and all that crap, but still…”

Dale sat there in total shock. “I’m…I’m so sorry, Farah. I had no idea.” What would she do if she couldn’t have the babies she so badly needed in her life?

Gawd. Here she was bitching about not wanting to have Lukas’s child—even though she could already feel the little beauty ghost kicking in her belly, and she’d dreamed about it and had been overjoyed giving birth all by herself and handing the baby to her father; stupid dream had given her a tiny girl with grey eyes and dark curly hair—and Farah wanted Samuel’s but couldn’t have it.

“I feel like such a bitch.” An immature bitch. She didn’t fall apart under pressure. She usually rose to the occasion and tackled her shit without fear.

But she wasn’t without fear this time because there was so much at stake. She was terrified she was doing the one thing she’d promised herself she would never do.

Care about someone other than a child who couldn’t walk away from her.

What if she nurtured these feelings, and Lukas got bored and cheated on her or broke up with her without cheating, she couldn’t imagine what she’d go through before making it out on the other side, an empty, broken person missing…

No. He wasn’t her soulmate. He wasn’t. It didn’t matter that the label had whispered through her dreams all morning, and had been so prevalent in her mind when she’d woken in his arms, feeling like she was home. She would never be so stupid and gullible to believe in that shit.

“So you don’t want kids then?” Farah said, sounding disappointed. “I kind of get that. You’re still young. But maybe—”

“I never said I didn’t want kids,” Dale interrupted, almost growling as the pressure building in her chest got worse.

Her boss’s eyebrow pulled down over one eye. “Then what’s the issue?”

Dale almost laughed. Issue? She wanted to talk issues? How long did she have? “The issue is I don’t know your brother-in-law any better than I know any other mobster!”

“So get to know him. Are you attracted to him?”

Warning! Possible talk of feelings ahead! “What does that have to do with anything?” she demanded as the pressure became almost unbearable.

“It helps to want the man you’re gonna combine DNA with,” Farah patiently explained.

“I know that!”

“Then why’d you ask?”

Boom.

“Because I’m stalling and trying to center on anything but what’s happening to me, Farah!” She jumped up and threw her arm out to point at the window in the downstairs foyer. “It’s almost noon, but instead of going to my dad’s to get my shit out of his house before his wife sees it because she doesn’t want me there the way they want her son there, I’m being held prisoner by a man I want to run and hide from as desperately as I want to stay and cuddle the fuck out of. He’s patient and sexy and nice! A murderer is not supposed to be nice! He has dogs! And they love him! He left me a toothbrush on the side of the sink, Farah! He fed me last night, and even wanted to know how I like my sex!” Her voice broke. “He didn’t get mad at me when I embarrassed him in front of his father. A father he loves like crazy and isn’t afraid to admit it.” She sucked in some air. “He killed a guy for me!” she wailed, throwing her hands up. “And the way he looked at me before he did it? Oh my God. That look did something to me! He’s done something to me! And nothing I say to myself is fixing it! I wasn’t supposed to feel this shit for anyone. I swore to myself I wouldn’t! Especially not after only knowing the fucking guy less than a day. One day, Farah! What will he do to me after a week? A month? If I have to stay with him, he’s going to make me…he’s going to make me…” Farah’s sympathetic expression disappeared when Dale wrapped her arms around her head and tucked her chin to her chest to hide her tears. “I don’t want to do this with anyone. I don’t get over being hurt. It stays with me forever, and I hate it.”

It wasn’t Farah’s arms that came around her in the next second. The scent of mountain streams and pine trees preceded a deep voice speaking quietly in Russian as she was gathered to a hard chest by arms she knew were Lukas’s. She went willingly, unable to fight the warmth. The strength. The fucking comfort she was too stressed to deny herself.

“Wow,” Farah whispered. “I didn’t think this one had it in her to lose it like that. She’s always so together. It’s okay, sweetie.”

Dale wanted to lose it all over again when she felt her boss pat her back. “Come oooon,” she moaned around a sob that got lost in Lukas’s robe, “don’t give me sympathy!” She’d never been more embarrassed in her fucking life.

Lukas tightened his arms. “Shh. Yagodka,” he murmured, “let me make it better.”

She cried harder.