Chapter 29 #2
He cycles through each screen, giving me time to search for the unknown person. No one suspicious is lurking about. No one approaches the bell tower.
And now I feel completely stupid.
“I didn’t see anyone…exactly. I just had this feeling that someone was watching me.” Feeling a little nauseous, I rub soothing circles over my stomach. “I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot for overreacting.”
“If you felt someone watching, then they were. Your instincts have always been spot on.” He tucks his gun in the back waistband of his jeans, takes my bag and sets it on the floor, and pulls up Tristan’s contact on his phone.
I quickly place my hand over his to stop him from calling Tristan and am taken by surprise by the electric jolt that passes from him into me. Pulling away, I curl and uncurl my fingers to dissipate the tingles.
“Please don’t. There’s no point worrying him when it was probably my overactive, pregnant imagination.
” I also know what will happen. Tristan will freak out, which will make Constantine and Hendrix freak out, and they’ll force me into lockdown until after the baby is born.
I have one more final exam tomorrow, and then I’ll be done for the semester.
“He needs to know just in case it is something. If anything happens to you—”
“Nothing is going to happen to me.”
I go completely still when he brushes the backs of his knuckles down my cheek, his tender touch eliciting a visceral response. “Ta tú mo domhan, pevchaya ptitsa. I will protect you and the baby with my dying breath, even if the person who kills me is Tristan because we didn’t tell him.”
Hearing him speak Irish Gaelic and Russian in the same sentence throws me off, but my brain soon catches up. You are my world, songbird.
“I didn’t know you knew Gaelic.”
“Seemed like a good language to learn.”
And because his emotional blackmail worked, I promise him, “I’ll talk to the guys tonight.”
The smile and those damnable twin dimples that appear transform his face from ruggedly handsome to devastating to a woman’s heart. “Thank you.”
Feeling a bit out of my element, I pick my bag back up. “I’m supposed to meet Constantine in the gardens.”
“I’ll walk with you. No argument,” he says when he sees I’m about to do just that.
My eyes drop to his chest. “You may want to put on a shirt.” Or not. Not being my preference. That damn smile widens. Stop staring at him. “Can I have some water? Or ginger ale?”
He worriedly glances down at my hand rubbing rapid circles over my belly. “Morning sickness?”
I haven’t had any morning sickness since my first trimester. Thank God. I spent weeks living with my head in a toilet. The experience made me a germaphobe, and I’m OCD about making sure everything in the bathroom is bleached and disinfected on a daily basis.
“Just thirsty.”
His hand splays possessively at my lower back as we walk to the kitchen, but I feel his touch more like a brand that singes its mark into my skin. The heat of his palm actually feels really good on my aching back.
“Ice?” he asks, taking a can of ginger ale from the fridge.
“Plain is fine.”
He pops the tab for me, and I study him over the lip of the soda can. “Thank you.”
His head cants to the side, almost boyishly. “For the ginger ale?”
Tristan said he was going with Aleksander to visit the site where he spread Aleksei’s ashes. I thought it would be in poor taste if I came with them, seeing as I’m the person who killed him.
“For keeping your promise.”
I can’t think of any time when he hasn’t.
It’s just who he is. I can always trust what Aleksander says because I know he will never lie to me.
Manipulate me into finding out the truth for myself, yes, but manipulations are not lies.
If life has taught me one thing, it’s that well-intentioned omissions to protect me from the truth, even when done out of love, are the bane of my existence.
I’d rather you flat-out lie to my face than keep things from me, thinking it was for my own good.
My phone buzzes in my bag, and I know it’s Constantine wondering where I am. But before I have a chance to answer, the baby starts kicking up a storm, his little feet protruding my distended belly. I reflexively grab Aleksander’s hand and place it over my stomach.
“There,” I tell him when the baby kicks again. His storm-cloud eyes fill with wide wonder when they lift to mine. “He’s a womb ninja.”
Aleksander’s hand glides over my stomach following the baby’s movements.
Slowly dropping to his knees in front of me, he places a soft kiss at my navel, and tears blur my vision when he repeats in Gaelic, “Ta tú mo domhan.” Rising to his full height, I can only blink up at him because my ability to speak has disappeared. “I’ll go get that shirt now.”
I can only nod as he walks out of the kitchen.
“Let. Go.” It’s the only warning I’m going to give.
As if it causes him pain, Aleksander swallows as he chokes out, “I can’t.”
This entire conversation is taking a turn down a path that I don’t want to travel.
Apprehension rolls out of me when I say, “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to see me.”
Not fully understanding because I’m looking right at him, I reply, “I do see you.”
He gently releases my forearm, and my fingers curve around the thick paper packet when he places the manilla envelope in my hand.
“No, you don’t. Not like you see them.”
I do see you, Aleksander.
And that scares the shit out of me.