18. Dahlia
18
DAHLIA
I feel heavy when I wake up the next morning, weighted down by what happened last night and the need to keep it to myself. I almost wish I hadn’t agreed to Alek’s request that I not tell Dimitri or Evelyn, but I did, and I won’t go back on it now. Despite the friction between us, I can’t bring myself to betray his fragile trust like that…in the same way that for some reason, I still haven’t taken my wedding ring off, even though he doesn’t wear his.
The feeling is compounded by the fact that I have my eight-week doctor’s appointment today. Evelyn went over how it would probably go—questions about the pregnancy, an ultrasound—but I’m still nervous, and I can barely pick at my breakfast as I try to take bites in between getting ready.
I throw on a pair of leggings and a draped black top with a pair of boots, tossing my hair up on top of my head rather than actually doing anything with it. Evelyn is the one taking me, and I have a feeling I might cry, so I don’t even bother putting on makeup. All I want is to get the appointment over with, so I can stop being anxious about it.
Giving up on breakfast, I head downstairs. Evelyn hasn’t appeared yet, and I glance at my phone. We still have fifteen minutes or so before we need to leave, but I want to get on the road.
“Where are you going?”
Alek’s voice comes from behind me, making me jump. I spin around to face him, and I see his gaze drift over me in that assessing, possessive way that he always looks at me when he appears. It pisses me off—and it also makes my skin heat, my stomach twisting in a not entirely unpleasant way.
“I have a doctor’s appointment.”
He frowns. “For the…baby?”
“No, for fun.” I glare at him. “Yes. It’s my eight-week appointment.”
“And you’re going alone?” He sounds surprised, even angry at the idea, and I blink at him.
“No. Evelyn’s going with me.”
“You didn’t think to tell me about this?” He crosses his arms over his chest, and I try not to notice the way the sleeves of his shirt tighten across his muscles as he does. It’s unfair that a man who is so entirely infuriating is also so gorgeous.
“Why would I?” I snap. “You’ve had no real interest in this. In fact, the only real opinion you’ve had is to repeatedly tell me that you think I’m lying about the baby being yours, and that I’m so much of a slut that I can’t possibly know who my child’s father is. So no, I didn’t think to ask if you wanted to go to the fucking appointment,” I spit.
Alek looks taken aback by the vitriol in my tone. “Well, I do. Want to go.” He narrows his eyes at me. “If I am the father, then I should be there.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t care.”
We stare at each other, both of us tense and ready to snap, when I hear the click of Evelyn’s footsteps.
“What’s going on here?” she asks hesitantly, her gaze flicking back and forth between the two of us.
“Dahlia didn’t think I needed to know that she had a doctor’s appointment today,” Alek says crisply. “Or that I might want to go.”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, either.” There’s a touch of frost in Evelyn’s voice. “And you don’t need to. I’m going to go with her. There’s no need for you to bother yourself with it.”
“She’s still claiming I’m the father, right?”
“I’m standing right here,” I snap. “And yes. You are .”
“Then I’m going.” The finality in Alek’s voice makes me flinch, and I look helplessly at Evelyn. She jerks her head to one side, motioning for me to follow her.
“You’re going to be late if we stand here arguing,” Evelyn says quietly.
“Then let’s go.” I look at her impatiently. “Ignore him.”
Evelyn hesitates. “He has a point, Dahlia. If he’s your baby’s father, then he should be there if he wants to be. You’ll have an ultrasound today. You should have him there for it?—”
“Why? He doesn’t give a shit about any of this.”
“It seems like he does,” Evelyn says gently. “I know he’s been difficult, but maybe he’s trying.” She pauses, glancing back at Alek. “Let him try.”
I can’t believe she’s standing up for him. But I look at Alek as well, at the stubborn set of his jaw and the irritated look in his eyes, and I wonder if this really does matter to him. If something changed after our conversation last night.
For better or worse, he is my baby’s father. And for now, he’s also my husband. Maybe Evelyn’s right. Maybe I should give in, just this once.
I want Evelyn with me today. But maybe I should give Alek a chance.
“Fine,” I grind out between my teeth. “But we need to go.”
Alek shrugs. “Lead the way.”
It feels horribly awkward as we climb into the car together. I press my lips together, looking out of the window as the car starts to drive away from the mansion, unsure of what to say or do. I’d thought I would have Evelyn with me today. I’d counted on having Evelyn with me. And now, on a day when I already feel uncertain and nervous, I have Alek instead.
Evelyn was right that he’s the one who should be here, but right now, he’s not the one I want.
He doesn’t say a word. If he realizes how out of sorts I am, he ignores it, or maybe he just doesn’t know what to say. There’s a stiff silence as the driver takes us from the estate to the city, all the way until we reach the building that my obstetrician is located in.
“This is your doctor?” Alek looks around as we walk inside, heading for the elevator. He looks surprised, and I don’t blame him—the office is located inside an incredibly fancy skyscraper, something that looks more like it houses hedge fund offices or apartments than an OB/GYN.
“This is who Evelyn sees.” I shrug. “The doctor who oversees Dimitri and his guys referred her.”
“Hm.” Alek leans against the wall as we step into the elevator. “If Dimitri is trusting Evelyn with them, then they should be fine.”
I raise an eyebrow at him, looking at him from across the elevator. Is that concern I hear, somewhere in there? He’d never admit it, I’m sure, but it definitely sounds like he’s worried about how good of a doctor I’m seeing, and if they live up to the flashy exterior of their office.
He goes to sit down while I get checked in, and when I turn around to look for him, I can see at least half of the women waiting for their own appointments are outright staring at him. I can’t even blame them, either—he looks like some kind of insouciant god, sprawled back in one of the chairs, tattooed hands resting on his thighs, the longer front of his dark blond hair falling forward until he notices and pushes it back.
I feel a strange, combined flicker of jealousy and satisfaction. He’s not really mine, not in any way that counts, so I don’t actually have any right to feel jealous. But he is here with me, and there’s something satisfying in a primal, possessive kind of way to know that everyone in this room will think he’s mine.
If he notices all of the women staring at him, he doesn’t show it. His gaze is fixed on me and only me, following me all the way until I come to sit down next to him, and that, too, sends a flush of warmth through me.
Alek doesn’t say a word as we sit there. I try to thumb through a magazine, but I’m too nervous, wishing that Evelyn was here, wishing he’d say something, wishing that this appointment was over already. When they call my name, I all but jump out of my chair, and I hear the sound of Alek getting up too as he follows me.
The nurse openly stares at him as we walk up. “This is your—” she starts to say, and Alek speaks for the first time since we got off the elevator.
“I’m her husband,” he says gruffly, his Russian accent a bit thicker than normal, and I see the nurse flush slightly.
“Of course. Follow me.”
She gets my vitals and asks me a handful of questions about how I’ve been feeling. I notice that Alek seems to be paying attention as I answer, his gaze flicking back and forth between me and the nurse, a small line forming on his brow. Is he actually worried about me? I can’t imagine he’d ever admit it even if that were true, but it makes something feel soft in my chest at the thought.
Or maybe I’m giving him too much credit, and he’s just waiting for me to slip up somehow, to say something that will prove his theory that I’ve been lying about the pregnancy all along.
“The doctor will be in to see you shortly,” the nurse says, as I finish answering the questions. “Shouldn’t be too long.”’
Alek sits stiffly in his chair, his mouth set in a line, and I see his gaze flicking around the room. For a minute, I can’t help but think he seems nervous. But that can’t be true.
A few minutes later, we hear a knock, and the doctor walks in. She’s a pretty woman, maybe ten years older than me, with long, straight brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a calm, relaxing demeanor….though Alek seems to tense even more as she walks into the room. She glances at him and then back at me.
“This is your?—”
“Husband,” I supply. “Alek.”
She nods. “Nice to meet you both. I’m Doctor Fenwick. I’m just going to give you a regular check-up, and we’ll do an ultrasound. Nothing too invasive, I promise. I just want to see how things are going so far.”
I nod, my face heating as she starts the exam. I hadn’t thought about having Alek here for something so intimate, but he’s watching everything she does, his gaze sharp and narrow like he’s waiting for her to hurt me in some way.
It’s strange, but oddly touching. For the first time since that night, all of his attention is on me, and not in a combative way. It feels like he cares, and as strange as it is—I like it.
Dr. Fenwick gets out the things for the ultrasound, and I feel my heart flip in my chest. I have the sudden urge to reach out and grab Alek’s hand, and even though I resist it, I can’t help looking at him. He’s still watching the doctor like a hawk, and I want to tell him to relax, but I don’t. That would mean saying out loud that he’s tense and on guard, and I know he’d deny it.
I lay back at the doctor’s urging, getting as comfortable as I can on the table. I wince as the cold gel hits my stomach, and Alek sits forward a little, his gaze flicking to me.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, and I see his face instantly shutter, as if I’ve caught him doing something he shouldn’t. As if concern for his wife is something he needs to keep hidden.
I don’t understand him. I wish he would open up to me, so I could. But I don’t have time to think about it, because the doctor leans forward, touching the wand to my stomach as she starts the ultrasound.
For a moment, it’s just static on the screen. And then she smiles, pointing to a faint shape.
“It’s very hard to see,” she says. “But that’s your baby.”
Before I can stop myself, I reach out, grabbing Alek’s hand. A wave of emotion that I hadn’t expected washes over me, and to my surprise, he doesn’t pull away. His face is unreadable, but he’s leaning forward, staring at the screen as if he’s never seen anything like it.
“Boy or girl?” he asks the doctor, and she chuckles.
“It’s much too early to know that. But right now everything looks fine. I can’t see any problems, or any need to tell you to change up your usual routine. What do you do for exercise, Dahlia? You’re clearly in very good shape, so I would tell you to keep it up.”
“I run and do Pilates, and I do martial arts classes,” I tell her. “Although I haven’t been in a few weeks. Things have been—hectic.”
“Well, I would ease back on the martial arts. Maybe stick with running, Pilates, yoga, that kind of thing. Contact sports like martial arts can involve injury, and that’s a risk to the baby.”
“No more of that, then,” Alek says firmly, and I look at him sharply, my eyes narrowing.
“I heard the doctor,” I mutter, and he shrugs. There’s that stubborn, possessive look on his face again, and it irritates the hell out of me. But there’s that small part of me, still, that doesn’t completely hate it. That likes the idea of him being worried about me.
“Other than that, you can keep up all your usual activity. Make sure you’re eating well and taking vitamins. I’ll see you back in a month.” The doctor smiles. “It was nice to meet you both.”
Alek nods, grunting his assent, as we get up and head out to book the next appointment with the receptionist. Neither of us say anything until we’re back downstairs and in the car, and I look at him as we slide inside.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I start to say, and he frowns.
“I’m not worried.”
“You looked like you were in there.” I bite my lip, watching him for a long moment. “Why can’t you just talk to me? It’s clear that you were feeling something in the appointment. I’m your wife.”
He snorts, turning away and looking out of the window. His jaw is set, his expression once again impassive, and I can tell that I’m not going to get anything out of him. Frustration wells up in me, and I sink back against the seat, staring at him. It’s like a wall has gone up, and there’s nothing I can do to get past it. It feels almost physical, like a barrier that I could reach out and touch when he gets like this.
The second that the car pulls up in front of the house, he’s out of it, before it’s even fully come to a stop. He stalks up the stairs as I scurry to try to catch up with him, ignoring me when I call out his name. He doesn’t look back even once, as he heads up the staircase towards the floor where his bedroom is, completely shut off.
I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to stamp my foot. Only Alek makes me feel like this, angry and frustrated and like I want to scream out loud. He’s infuriating, all the more so because I know there’s something more there. I know there’s something that’s causing the way he acts, and if he would tell me, I can’t help but think that there’s also some way to work past it.
But I can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.
Why do I care, anyway? This isn’t forever. And once I can stand on my own two feet, I’ll be gone.
But I think of the way he looked in the doctor’s office today, that expression on his face as he saw the ultrasound, and I wonder if he’s really going to let me go that easily.
—
Alek doesn’t come down for dinner. I sit at the table next to Evelyn, half answering questions about the appointment and how everything went, wondering if he’s going to appear. By the time we’ve finished the dessert course of a brownie topped with ice cream and cherry syrup, he still hasn’t appeared, and the minute I’m done with my food, I excuse myself and go looking for him.
He’s in the first place I look—the library, standing next to the fireplace, one arm braced on the mantle as he stares down into it.
“It’s a little warm tonight for a fire, isn’t it?” I step inside, closing the door behind me, and Alek doesn’t move. I try not to think about how the last night that we were in the library together went, or how we’re alone together right now.
He doesn’t respond, and my momentary flush of arousal flees as frustration takes its place.
“Just talk to me, Alek. You’re my husband. You’re the father of my child.”
“So you say,” he mutters, and it takes everything in me not to let out a frustrated scream.
“We’re back to that, now? I thought maybe we were past it.”
He shrugs, and I run a hand through my hair, staring at him.
“We need to talk about all of this, Alek. A man came up to me in a bar, offering me five million dollars to bring you to him. Shouldn’t we talk about that? Don’t you think I should know why something like that would happen? I just?—”
“I just want you to leave well enough alone, zhena ,” he growls, shoving away from the fireplace and stalking past me. I try to grab his shirt to stop him, but he shakes me off, his mouth flattening in a hard line. “I’m going out. Leave me alone.”
“Going out where?”
“None of your business.” He keeps walking, striding out of the library. Deep down, I know following him is only going to make this all worse, but I can’t help myself. He’s making me angry, and I don’t like being dismissed like this.
“Alek!”
“Fuck off,” he snarls, heading straight for the front door. I barge after him, striding down the steps, but I can’t keep up. I barely make it down the steps and out into the courtyard before I hear the roar of his motorcycle, and see him tearing down the front drive.
“ Shit ,” I breathe, grabbing my phone before I can stop myself. The smart thing to do would be to go back inside, and wait for him to calm down and come home. The even smarter thing to do would be to forget about this altogether, accept that Alek is never going to open up to me about any of this, and leave it all entirely alone.
Instead, I text the number Evelyn gave me for one of the drivers in case I needed to go somewhere, and ask them to bring a car around.
“Where do you need to go?” the driver asks when he gets out to open the door for me, and I see a glint of confusion in his eyes. I don’t have anyone with me for security, and it’s late.
“There’s a bar in—I’m not sure where it is, exactly. Salty Sal’s. I need to go there.”
The driver’s eyebrow rises. I have no idea if that’s where Alek is going, but I overheard him talking to Dimitri about it once, like it was a place he goes regularly. It’s my best and only guess—I can’t trawl every bar in New York City trying to find him. If he’s even going to a bar.
He could be going to see someone else. That thought twists my stomach, making me feel like I want to throw up. “Now,” I say urgently, and the driver frowns. I can see him struggling between the fact that this seems off—probably something he might get in trouble for doing—and the fact that he’s technically supposed to do what I ask, the same as he is for Dimitri or Evelyn or Alek.
“Alright,” he says finally, opening the door for me. I slip inside, my heart pounding, as the driver gets in and pulls away from the mansion.
What am I doing? Alek isn’t going to be happy that I’m following him. But I’m too angry, too tired of being ignored and shoved aside, kept in the dark. I’m tired of being treated like an annoyance, like a fly to be swatted away. This is my life too, and Alek is now inescapably a part of it.
The driver doesn’t say anything, but I can tell by the glimpse of his face that I get in the rear-view mirror that he’s unsure about where we’re headed, as we start to get closer. The neighborhood we’re in definitely looks run-down, and when we pull up in front of our destination, I can tell that it’s the very definition of a dive bar.
“Just wait. I don’t think I’ll be too long.” I go to open the door, not bothering to wait for the driver to come around and open it for me, and I hear him protest as I do.
“Are you sure?—”
“I’ll be fine. Just pull around somewhere that you can park, and wait.” I get out, the heels of my boots clicking against the uneven concrete as I head straight for the front door, yanking it open and getting a strong whiff of beer, cigarettes, and that unique, faintly musty smell of a very old, rundown bar.
Unsurprisingly, I see Alek, sitting at the far end with a beer bottle in front of it. He’s staring at it, gaze narrowed in like it’s some kind of crystal ball, and I shove my way past the handful of patrons between me and him.
I stop right next to him, and he looks up, his gaze darkening as he sees me.
“What the hell?” he growls, his jaw tightening. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“We were having an argument.” I cross my arms over my chest, staring angrily at him. “You left before we were done with it.”
“Like fuck I did.” He grabs the beer bottle, taking a long drink. “I don’t want to talk about any of it, zhena . Not a fucking thing. Leave it alone.”
“No.” I narrow my eyes at him. “You don’t get to just run away and come drink your sorrows here, while I have no fucking idea what’s happening. We’re a part of each other’s lives now, Alek, like it or not, and?—”
“I don’t fucking like it.”
“Neither do I!” My voice rises, and I can see some of the patrons starting to look our way, but I don’t care. “I don’t like any of this. But I don’t get a choice about it. I don’t get to run away from it?—”
“You had a choice.”
“Is that what you wanted me to do? Because I saw the look on your face when I told you that my father wanted me to get rid of the baby. You were pissed. So I don’t think that you?—”
“I don’t even know that it’s mine.”
“For fuck’s sake!” My voice rises to a shout, all of the emotions of the day bursting out, refusing to be held back any longer. “Stop saying that! It’s yours, Alek. I hadn’t fucked anyone for months before that night, and I haven’t since. There’s no one else it could be.”
Something changes in his face when I say I haven’t since , a flicker of some emotion that I can’t quite pin down. His gaze meets mine, and a sarcastic twitch jerks up the corner of one side of his mouth.
“That good, hm, zhena ? No other man could compare once you’d had my cock?”
“Fuck you,” I hiss, and I see the closest thing to a smile that I ever have on his lips, but there’s nothing humorous about it.
“You want to. I can see it every time I get close to you. Is that what this is about, zhena ? You want me to come back home with you so we can fuck, and then I tell you my secrets?”
“Don’t do that,” I hiss. “Don’t turn this back around on me, like I’m doing something wrong. I have dangerous men coming up to me in bars, offering me outrageous amounts of money?—”
“Shut up.” Something dark gleams in Alek’s eyes, and I flinch back, hurt by the two sharp words. “Don’t fucking talk about that here.”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” I cry out, a burning hurt searing through me, and it makes me feel like a fool. Why would I think that he would do anything other than hurt me? He’s been twisting the knife ever since that afternoon that he found out about the baby.
“Then don’t follow me when I want to be alone.” Alek turns away, reaching for his beer. “Go home, Dahlia. I don’t want to talk. Not tonight, not ever. Leave it alone.”
I stare at him, feeling the eyes of the bar on me, feeling a burning heat in my own eyes. Humiliation washes over me, and I take a step back, refusing to let Alek see me cry. To let him see that he’s hurt me in any way. I can’t bear the thought of that, on top of everything else.
I pivot on my heel, bolting for the back door. Halfway to it, I realize I probably should have gone out the front to call the driver, but there’s no way I’m going back through the bar after what just happened. I’ll just walk around, I tell myself, shoving past a line of people waiting for the bathroom and out of the back door, into the fresh night air.
The door slams shut behind me, and I wrap my arms around myself, trying to breathe. I’m an idiot to let myself feel hurt by the way he talked to me, an idiot to let it get to me at all. Alek has been like this all along, and a moment of humanity in the doctor’s office doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change anything.
I wipe the back of my hand across my eyes, still fighting back tears, and turn to head around the bar. I get three steps before a strong hand closes around my arm, and a startled scream erupts from my lips as I twist around, half-expecting to see Alek there.
“Don’t touch me?—”
It’s not Alek. It’s a tall, burly man dressed all in black, and two more men are walking up behind him, looking straight at me.
The hand around my wrist tightens, pulling me forward. “You’re coming with me,” the man growls, and I dig in my heels, wrenching backwards. His grip is like iron, and the man gives me a leering grin.
“It’ll be easier if you don’t fight, devochka .”
“Fuck you!” I rear back again, refusing to let this man drag me away without a fight, backup or not. I twist in his grasp, but it feels impossible to get free, and I realize that I was an idiot to come here alone. I should never have left the house?—
The back door of the bar slams open, the sound jolting through me, and I twist around just in time to see Alek stalking towards the three men, his expression dark and furious.
“Get your fucking hands off my wife.”