Chapter 15 Ivan #2
I gritted my teeth, holding in my explanation about why I’d left. It was to keep her safe. To spare her more pain. I didn’t expect her to understand that at all. Not now.
“This morning, he woke me up and asked a million questions. And I explained that you are his father. That Luka is a… distant relative. That we’re here for the time being while I speak with you some more.”
“Good.”
She furrowed her brow, looking sexier somehow with that attitude. This woman never failed to keep me on my toes. I’d missed that. I’d missed her.
“Good?”
“Yes. It is good that he knows I’m his father now.” That helped my mood about being dismissed like this. “And it is good that you are well aware that you owe me more answers.”
She pressed her lips together and faced forward, watching Lev laugh with Misha.
Merely seeing my son filled me with a foreign sense of joy. Hearing his laughter pulled a smile out of me. And I knew this was only the beginning.
It was.
While the understanding remained between me and Raisa, the expectation that she would need to speak with me about the past and especially about what brought her here, I spent the next few days focusing on Lev.
He wasn’t shy to talk to me. He wasn’t overly nosy, either. Like Raisa, he was observant and smart, quick-witted but patient. Compared to Misha, he seemed mature, but I wondered if that was a by-product of how Raisa had raised him so far.
Instead of going home, I remained here with them.
Every day, I woke up eager to see Lev and learn more about him, and when I went to bed, it was with a lingering smile at all I was experiencing in this newfound parenthood.
Raisa didn’t go far. She was always near, watching over us, but she didn’t stop me from spending time with our son.
We walked around the house. We hung out with Alexsei and Misha. We saw baby Andre. Slowly, I introduced him to the important people in my family here. We played games. He colored with me. Swimming in the pool that Luka had put in for Gabriella was fun too.
All the while, he refrained from being overly nosy. He didn’t ask too many questions, at least not ones I wouldn’t be able to answer, but I knew he was cataloguing all that he was learning here. Just like I was learning about him.
Still, time was ticking by and I had to understand what prompted Raisa to come here. What had changed. Even though I didn’t want to put a pause on befriending Lev and getting him to gradually trust me, I couldn’t escape this push to speak with Raisa.
Too many questions remained unanswered.
The following night, I asked Alexsei to preoccupy Lev and Misha together so the boy wouldn’t be a distraction. Raisa seemed to realize that I had something on my mind, because when I asked her to take a walk with me after dinner, she gave me a look but didn’t protest.
I intended to bring her outside to the garden, so we could have privacy but not be stuck in a room where she might feel trapped. With the rain pouring outside, though, we ended up walking toward my room.
“I’ve been meaning to find a chance to speak with you,” I said after I let her enter ahead of me.
“Yeah. I bet.” She rolled her eyes as she walked past me.
I closed the door, almost falling for her sassy act to demand that she lose the attitude. I wasn’t surprised that she was hostile, but I refused to be persuaded into letting her off the hook. I wanted answers, and it was time for her to fill in some gaps about her story.
“Why did you leave me like that?” she asked. Whirling around to face me, she kept her expression cool, her arms folded over her chest in a defensive pose. “Why? Why did you just get up and go right when I needed you the most?”
I shook my head. I would tell her more about my lies where Serena was involved and my reasoning to go. But not right now. I had every intention to steer this conversation to what was going on now. “Luka expects me to figure out why you are here.”
She huffed. “Sure, sure. Whatever the boss wants.”
“I understand that your only wish was to defy your father, but I’m not the same.”
“I know that. You choose your family over everything.”
“As I should!” I would never betray my family. I hated that being with Raisa that summer felt like an inkling of a betrayal at all, when I fell in love with a rival.
“What did you come here for, Raisa?” I approached her, grabbing her upper arms and jerking her closer so she’d look at me and focus on nothing but me.
“What do you expect from me?” Because this was her, and this was us, I couldn’t resist stroking my thumbs over her bare skin.
She shivered, still so responsive to my touch. She loathed me, but her body recalled the magic we’d found together.
As she slowly lifted her gaze to meet mine, some of her stubborn protest melted in her eyes. Instead, she peered at me with something more like longing. Like need. This blonde beauty stared at me with such intensity that I had to wonder if she wanted me again.
No wonder Luka mocked me about keeping it in my pants.
I released her, stepping back and scolding myself mentally for being such an idiot. Sex wasn’t going to solve anything. I needed answers. Intel. But something about her always weakened me.
Only she could render me a fool like this.
I shook my head, more to feebly clear my thoughts than to nonverbally tell her no.
It’s not happening.
Not like this.
She clearly hated me, and that wasn’t any grounds for us to make love again.
Meeting her gaze once more and finding her giving me a flinty, cool stare, I had to remind myself that she had every right to be mad at me for how I’d left her before.
If only she can understand I’ll never leave her again.
I dragged my hand over my face and sighed. “What do you want from me, Raisa? What did you come here for after so long of staying away and hiding my son from me?”