THIRTEEN

 

 

Thirty minutes later, Lukas silently mouthed thanks to Farah before closing the bedroom door and bringing the tray to the bed. He put it down on the nightstand and, leaving the fresh croissants and fruit, picked up the cup that had a string with a small label hanging off the end of it.

He settled on the edge of the bed and handed it to Dale who was sitting quietly where he’d left her amid the pillows. She hadn’t fussed when he’d settled against the headboard earlier with her in his lap, her face in his neck. She’d just held onto him as she cried tears that had sounded more angry than sad. Maybe he was self-centered, but the anger seemed to be directed at him. Not that he’d gotten that impression when he’d come around the corner and seen Farah wide-eyed and Dale mid-melt-down. Anger hadn’t filled the air between them so much as fear. Fear and a palpable sense of defeat.

He was ashamed to say the defeat had been attractive to him.

With a hoarse thank you that made him want to hold her again, she accepted the tea.

“Farah said you prefer this to coffee.”

She nodded, her head downcast. “Bet you wish you’d heard that from me, huh?”

Again, little darts of ire stung his skin. “Yes.”

“Control issues much? Told you I’d be high-maintenance.”

How was he not bothered by this impudent side of her? If anyone else spoke to him the way she did, he’d have put a stop to it after the first snarky word. With her? He was amused, and appreciated that she wouldn’t be a submissive little mouse awaiting her next command. Though, once they got to a certain point in their relationship, that might be nice, too. In bed, at least.

“If this is the worst I can expect from you, I think we’ll manage,” he said dryly.

She didn’t acknowledge that. “Do you always wear boxers to bed?”

He frowned and looked down at his robe. Couldn’t see the boxers now, but he knew they were there because when he’d woken to find Dale gone, the fucking things had been twisted around his balls. “No.”

Her expression went sour. “That’s what I thought.”

In other words, she appreciated the gesture he’d made for her sake. “Look at me, Magdalena.”

She tilted her head and gave him a perfect view of swollen eyes that were now so green they appeared otherworldly. Her nose was pink, and she looked beat, but she was still so fucking beautiful it almost hurt to look at her.

“Tell me what it is you’re fighting so hard. Tell me why you tossed and turned beside me all morning, muttering about hating white and wanting to be left alone.” At one point, he’d watched her face crumple in her sleep as she’d begged someone not to take her baby. Not her, too, she’d said. It better not have been him in that fucking dream.

“I dreamed I was playing in the fountain outside the kitchen. I was wearing a wedding dress.” Her delivery was as empty as her expression. “When you came out and saw me, you didn’t get mad. You joined me in the water, and we had sex against the statue’s ass. It was broad daylight, and I’m pretty sure I orgasmed in my sleep.”

It took a second before he could address that. She must have had that particular dream while he’d been at the hangar, because if he’d seen her orgasming in her sleep, there’s no way he wouldn’t have slipped his hand beneath the covers and helped her along.

“We’ll have to make that dream a reality one day,” he said, then waited to see her reaction.

Her head came up and her eyes settled on nothing across the way. Her expression? One of are-you-fucking-kidding-me? She leaned over and placed her tea on the tray, then flopped down and jammed a pillow on top of her head.

He grinned at the dramatic nonsense and stroked his hand over her hip and down her toned thigh. Her ass was delectable in the shorts Bianca had chosen. Their personal shopper was actually his cousin. She’d studied fashion design at college and was now trying to make a name for herself in the industry, but would accept no help from him or Samuel and their connections. Stubborn girl was too much her father’s daughter. Lukas’s uncle Semion, who’d been named after Lukas’s late dedushka, lived a few miles down the road. Their properties joined at the stables.

Lukas frowned when he realized Bianca and Dale were around the same age. He didn’t appreciate the thought because he still saw Bianca as a young girl just entering adulthood. With Dale, he was ready to thrust motherhood upon her.

“What bothered you most about the dream?” he asked to distract himself. “The wedding dress or the fact that I didn’t react badly when I saw that you’d ruined it…likely on purpose to see if I’d react badly,” he added under his breath.

“I don’t mean to bait you,” he thought she said. “It just keeps happening.”

He removed the pillow and drew her up.

“You’re trying to make me lose my temper?”

“I’m trying to make you see that you can’t feel what you think you feel for someone you don’t know. What if this weepy pain-in-the-ass sitting with you is who I am? You wouldn’t want me. Thank God this is just me reacting to…this.” She pointed at him. “I’m usually much better protected. I mean, much more together,” she corrected.

“Protected?” he questioned, sensing that had been a slip. “From what?”

“All these feelings floating around,” she sneered as she fluttered her fingers in the air. “Or how about allowing myself to dream of white fucking dresses and wanting it with someone badly enough to have sex in public.”

Interesting. “Those were dreams, but they’re still relevant. So, what you’re telling me is…” He paused to make sure he understood. “Rather than being happily protected, since you met me, your emotions have taken over and are coming out in the form of fear and panic because you’re smothering what really wants to escape.”

Annoyance twisted her lush mouth. “You sound like a crooked attorney leading the witness.”

“Pardon?”

“On TV, they call what you just did leading the witness. You just tried putting a bunch of words in my mouth to conveniently lead us to the conclusion that suits you.”

“Then I picked something up in school after all.” At her raised brows, he tried not to sound smug when he revealed, “I am a licensed attorney. Though not a crooked one because I don’t actively practice.”

She straightened and blinked, and had never appeared younger or more innocent. He wanted to corrupt her. Stain her with the blood on his hands. He would drag her into the murky depths of his underworld where he would make it so if he shot a man through the heart for daring to speak to her; she would do nothing more than wrap her body around him and purr her thanks in his ear while ignoring the dying man’s final breath.

“Lukas? Are you serious?”

She had to ask twice because he’d lost himself for a moment. In a darkness he wouldn’t reveal until he had her in a place she couldn’t escape from without breaking her own heart.

“I studied international and comparative law at Harvard.”

She groaned loudly and slid off the bed. Her legs were long and graceful as she made her way to his dresser to peer into the case that held some of his watches. He’d have bet anything that she wasn’t seeing a thing.

“That just sent your sexy skyrocketing,” she muttered almost too quietly for him to hear. “A fucking attorney. Seriously.”

She turned and leaned her ass against the top drawer, and when she crossed her arms, the tops of her breasts rose above the neckline of her T-shirt to say hello to their new owner. In his mind, he blew them a kiss and promised to get to know them better soon.

“Not that you need it,” she added, “but the odds just keep stacking in your favor, don’t they?” She looked away from him. “I can’t believe you’re so egotistical that you have your watches engraved. And what’s with that anyway? Why aren’t you a Boris or a Mikhail? Lukas doesn’t sound very Russian. Neither does Samuel, for that matter.”

He stood, his palm itching to give her ass a sound slap for the belligerent attitude. “My mother was French. She met my father while she was studying world economics in Moscow.”

That peaked her interest. “Really? Russian and French. How romantic.”

“They were. My parents lived a true love story.”

She wilted again and dropped her eyes to her feet. “Lucky them.” It looked like she was fighting a bone-deep exhaustion as she put her arms back to prop her hands on the dresser.

A pointless move, because when he reached her, he took her hands off the dark wood and kissed her knuckles. “Stop fighting what you’re feeling, yagodka. Let it out and watch it bloom. Once you do, you’ll see the beauty in it. I promise you.”

She came forward to bump her head against his chest. “I don’t understand how you’re so convinced this is what you think it is. God, you smell good,” she muttered, giving him a little shove with her forehead.

He smiled and tried to explain. “It’s simple. I believe in it. I believe that something that arrives suddenly is just as strong, if not stronger and more everlasting, than something that requires time to develop.”

“‘Something?’”

“I don’t want to alarm you by using the L word,” he whispered.

Impatience billowed out of her as she straightened. She gripped his chin to turn his face this way and that. “You’re not afraid at all.” There was that anger again, coming through with the accurate observation. “That’s how I know this is crap. Because if you felt something real, you’d fear losing it.”

“Because something real inevitably leaves.”

“Exactly,” she stated firmly, falling right into his trap.

“Who left you?”

Her eyes narrowed to slits, and she glowered. He let her, and eventually, the look morphed into something with less hostility and more heat. She came up to beat against his control by nuzzling her face into his neck.

“How about we drop this pointless discussion and do what we never got to do last night?”

“How about you stop trying to shut me out?”

She went to wrap her arms around his neck, but he stopped her. When she met his eye, he shook his head. He knew what she was doing. What she continuously attempted to do; make their coming together about nothing more than the same fucking he’d done with so many other women. Well, staggering role reversal aside, he wasn’t going to allow it. When he joined his body with hers, it was going to be meaningful. Profound. It would change their lives by binding them together forever.

“Talk to me first,” he suggested in a reasonable tone.

She groaned and walked away. When she reached the bed, she turned and fell back like he and Samuel used to do into the pool when they were kids. She threw her arms above her head. “Are you always this irritating?”

His blood heated because she looked totally relaxed. “No.”

Her eyes rolled. “Are you always this patient?”

He wanted to laugh as he pictured the lack of patience he’d shown at daybreak. “No. Patience and understanding are not traits I was known to possess until I met you.”

“Weak and weepy isn’t who I was until I came into contact with you.”

Like he was a disease. One she would never find a cure for because one didn’t fall out of love.

He hooked his hands under her arms and dragged her up so her head was resting on the pillows. Then he sat next to her. “Accepting what is isn’t a weakness, Dale. It takes strength. Especially as what is developing between us frightens you.”

“It doesn’t frighten me. It repulses me. There’s a difference.”

But she was no longer denying its existence. How was that for progress? Now all he had to do was get her to open up to him so he’d know who to kill for hurting her so deeply that she couldn’t celebrate falling in love.

“Why did you want me to meet your dad?” she asked again.

Remembering Vasily’s advice about being honest, Lukas grabbed a bunch of red grapes from the tray Farah had brought. He held one over Dale’s mouth. She opened, and he dropped it in, but she had to roll over and come up on her elbows to swallow it after she chewed.

“Samuel and Farah can’t have kids,” he began only to stop when she nodded, her eyes pulling down at the corners because her frown became so heavy.

“She just told me why. I feel terrible for them.”

He did, too, to the point where he’d considered not having his own so his brother wouldn’t have constant reminders of what he was missing running around the house. One talk with a furious Samuel had cured Lukas of the altruistic thought.

“Because of that, carrying on the Zavrazin name has fallen to me. My parents started mentioning the next generation when I was twenty-five, which was how old my father was when they had me.” He ate a grape before giving her another. “It’s never been a priority. Until now. My mother didn’t make it to see my children, and after my father was shot, I realized it could have been the same for him. This is the only thing they’ve ever asked of me, and I’m ashamed to admit I completely blew it off.”

Tossing the stem onto the plate, he ate three grapes he’d pulled off and fed the last two to her before grabbing a handful of pitted cherries.

“After my father came out of surgery, my single status was the first thing he addressed.” As he fed her most of the cherries, he recounted the conversation he’d had with Samuel and his father, and the subsequent plan that had involved her. “When I got to the club and collided with you in the corridor, the plan blew up. I didn’t want to meet this chubby comedian named Dale who Farah thought would be perfect for me. I wanted to introduce you to my father. Turned out you were one and the same,” he said with a smirk, “and, after I kissed you, there was no question; you were the woman I would bring into our family. I just knew. And, sure, it was unsettling for a few minutes because it changed everything. But, now? Having you here?” He paused, trying to find the words to describe how at ease he felt with this. “When I left last night and was working on the man who shot my father, knowing you were asleep in my bed was one of the most comforting—”

“Wait a minute.” She popped upright, but instead of telling him off about how secure he already was in them, she said, “You left last night? And you know who shot your dad?”

“Yes. The man is being punished, and will continue to be punished until his heart stops beating sometime in the next eighteen hours. His accomplices will also pay dearly.”

She blanched. “Oh. Well, I guess congratulations are in order…?” She shrugged and gave him a helpless look. “Not sure what the protocol is when you get your man. Or men. Should I kiss you? Hug it out? High five?” She put up her palm.

We’re so close, he thought as he dried his hands of the moisture the cherries had left behind. Then he tumbled his woman down into the sheets. There was no fear or censure in her expression. She just went with it, smiling and squirming until she got her leg free and wrapped it around his knee. Already, she was separating the things he would do in a business setting from who he would be at home.

“Do you get aroused when you ‘punish’ people?” She air-quoted with the two fingers she then sliced through his hair.

“No. I get aroused knowing when I’m done handing down my punishment, I’ll now be coming home to you.”

She hid by moving in to kiss along his jaw. “Let’s drop that, okay?”

“No.”

“Jerk.”

“Dale…” he warned.

She bit his earlobe and snuggled her bent arms between them so that his body would have completely hidden her from view from anyone entering the room. She looked remarkably comfortable under his heavy weight.

“You’re an affectionate little thing,” he commented as he went down to nuzzle her sweet-smelling neck.

“Take my clothes off and I’ll show you affectionate.”

He chuckled. “So ready to make babies.”

“Ugh.” She wriggled free so she could fist the hair above his ears and peer into his face. “You keep mentioning children, so I’m assuming you’re talking a reasonable stretch of time for this relationship you’re insisting on.”

Her need to act deliberately obtuse wasn’t endearing. “Yes,” he said, adopting her practice of using one-word answers.

“And when you get bored of me?”

“I won’t get bored of you.” Ever.

“Won’t get bored. Why? Are you a special species of man that I’ve never heard about before?”

“Yes. I’m one of the rare ones who is loyal to the death to those he loves.”

She scoffed and didn’t say anything for a stretch. She just slid a hand through to pull at the back of his hair before running the tip of her nose up the front of his throat. She inhaled a few times. “Loyal to the death, huh? Are you sure it wasn’t you who sustained the head injury?” The question was a bitchy one, but the warble in her voice said her emotions were once more getting the best of her.

He let it pass and shifted to settle more of his weight on her since she seemed to like feeling the security that came with it. He’d have liked to let his hands start roaming, but something in the air was telling him they were close to a breakthrough.

“Okay. Let’s say for argument’s sake I agree to have your child.”

And there it was.

He was surprised his balls didn’t explode when he felt her shiver beneath him.

“What happens when you don’t want me anymore? Will you kick me out and try to keep my daughter?”

His triumphant smile fucked off as the air left his lungs in a soft whoosh. “Our daughter,” he corrected without thinking. Goddammit, he felt a burn beneath his lids. “No, yagodka. I would never separate our child from her mother. You will remain here and raise her with me.” Raise them, he corrected silently. “Always.”

She let her head fall to the mattress and nodded without looking at him. “Always. How many children are we talking about?”

“I would like three or four, but that is something we will decide together.”

Her eyes fluttered closed but didn’t stay like that. “Three or four. Three or four babies.” There was so much turmoil in their depths when she finally looked at him that he almost commanded her to open her fucking mouth and tell him where it stemmed from. But then she said, “And you want to marry me.”

“Tonight, if I can arrange it.”

“Tonight.”

“Were you a parrot in a former life, Magdalena?”

“Maybe. So what happens if I give birth to your child and he or she doesn’t have the qualities and characteristics you like. Will you shun him or her and try again?”

That’s when his patience with her disappeared. He surged to his feet, bringing her with him, and all but dragged her to the full-length mirror in the corner. “Do you see that? Do you see us? Me?”

“Yes.” Her chin was up high, but her voice came out small.

“Do I look like the kind of man who would shun his child? Look at me!”

She was.

“From what you know of me, is that truly a question you can ask?”

She turned, and her imploring look begged him to understand. “That’s my point. I don’t know you, Lukas. And I don’t want to. In all honesty, I’d kill to have your baby, but that’s because I just want a baby. Not all this other shit. But I know that isn’t going to happen, so it’s back to me not knowing you well enough to feel I can do this with you. I have no idea what your favorite ice cream flavor is much less what you’d do if we had a diagnostic test done and it came back positive, which could indicate something might be wrong with our baby. Would you make me have an abortion to avoid having a child with a disability?” She placed her hands over his slamming heart and shook her head. “I don’t want to know that you would or wouldn’t. I don’t even want to know how you react when you’re stuck in traffic and late for an appointment. I don’t want to know how you treat wait staff or the guy behind the register at a grocery store. What if you’re a stuck-up, arrogant prick, and I have to stand there dying of shame while you shit on them because you think they’re below you?”

She talked faster and faster as she finally allowed him to learn some of her fears while revealing more and more about herself.

“What if you hate Christmas? It’s my favorite holiday. What if Valentine’s Day is your favorite? I fucking hate it. What if you hate the beach? I live for the water. Or cats? What if you’re cruel to them? I love them even though they’re hurtful little fuckers because they don’t love us back. What if you get up early in the mornings to work out, and I feel like I have to join you or I’ll look lazy? I hate getting up early, which is another reason I work at a place that’s open most of the night. What if you don’t get my jokes? What if yours are stupid? What if you snore and it annoys me? What if you treat Samuel like shit and I begin to hate you for it? What if you leave me alone a lot? I hate being alone. What if you end up being one of those fathers who can’t stand hearing their child cry, and I have to take in all of that emotion every day all day and it drives me insane because I might have postpartum and you’ll be off bullying the world while I try not to shake my poor innocent little baby for something she’s doing because she just wants to feel loved. What if—”

He covered her mouth when it looked as if she was about to start hyperventilating. The quick breaths coming from her elegantly sloped nose heated his skin.

“Stop this, O Prophet of Doom.” Why did he suddenly want to laugh when not a minute ago he’d wanted to throttle her? “Where the fuck are you getting all this?” He did laugh, then, because winning always made him feel good, and judging by how far into the future Dale’s thoughts had gone, she was already planning their lives. “Like every other couple, we’ll learn about each other as we go,” he assured her, conveniently ignoring the fact that she’d said she didn’t want to know him. “And we’ll be tolerant and considerate because that’s how people are with those they care…”

His humor faded when he realized he might have won long before now. “You don’t want to know me because you don’t want to care about me. And you’re scared because you feel you can? Or maybe you already do…?”

She reached up and grabbed his wrist with both her hands, but she didn’t remove his palm from her mouth. He was right. He could see it in her eyes. She was afraid of the way she already felt.

“Aw, fuck. My sweet little berry,” he sighed, rubbing his nose across hers. “Who did this to you? Who was it you cared about that hurt you so badly?”

Her eyes flooded with tears as she shook her head, her small nostrils flaring.

“Okay. You don’t have to tell me. Not right now, anyway.” He removed his hand in time for a sob to pop from her mouth.

She bit her lip and blinked rapidly, trying to gain control.

He went back to their original topic to give her some time, and because he had to nail her down while she was vulnerable. A prick move, sure, but hey, one he wasn’t above using to get what he wanted.

“I swear on my family; I will never reject a child of ours. Not even if she comes from your body missing an arm and both legs. My experience has taught me that people with disabilities are sometimes better equipped to love more generously than the rest of us. Maybe because their focus in life is different? I don’t know. But I can tell you this with complete certainty, my mother being confined to a wheelchair for much of her life never hindered her ability to love and care for her family. She…cherished us. My brother and I, and my father, too, flourished because of the connection she formed with us. Working limbs and an upright stance had nothing to do with that.”

He could see Dale was shocked. And beaten. He’d never been more pleased to see a woman look so resigned at the idea of being stuck with him.

He’d have to tell her about his mother and her MS in more detail. He just didn’t feel comfortable doing so now, when he was acting in a way Leane Zavrazin would never have approved of. She’d have been disappointed that he was pushing so hard to get his way. It wouldn’t have mattered that he was doing so to please his father—and, as mentioned, to get his way because he was used to things working out for him. It wasn’t right, and his mother would have called Lukas out on it.

“Believe me, yagodka.” He pressed his lips to her brow. “Feeling abandoned or unwanted is not something my children will ever experience through their father.”

He wished he had an unlimited amount of time to prove all of this to her. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and they had to move this along. His father needed some solid, tangible reasons to stay with them instead of leaving this life to be with his wife. And Lukas knew showing up at the hospital today with a diamond on Dale’s finger would be a great beginning.