Chapter 24
24
DARYA
I n the end Roman and I compromise by me seeing an obstetrician that afternoon. Dr. Ballasteros is a female doctor of my choosing, rather than Roman’s normal sew ’em up and take the bullets out male option. She reassures both Roman and me that my morning sickness isn’t grave enough to require hospitalization and gives me some medication to ease the symptoms.
“Apart from the sickness, everything looks in perfect shape. It is important that you get enough rest and remain stress free.” She gives Roman a rather old-fashioned look. I’m guessing the strings he pulled to get an appointment on such short notice haven’t gone unnoticed. “But other than that, Mrs. Stevanovsky, I think you can look forward to feeling much better very soon.” She nods at the changing rooms adjoining her suite. “You can change here, if you like, while I talk with your husband.”
I open my mouth to correct her, then see Roman’s frown and close it again. He made the appointment. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like how the words Mrs. Stevanovsky sound.
I’d be lying if I said I felt anything other than absurdly touched by everything that has happened since I woke to see that white stick by my bedside.
I wipe off the gel from the appointment and change back into my clothes, still stunned that Roman seems to be actually happy about this, about having a baby he never planned for, especially given the chaos we are in the middle of.
In the limo, his hand closes over mine. “I have to go back up to the lab this evening, work with Mak and Dimitry to iron out our plans. And tomorrow, I have to fly to Switzerland.”
I nod. “To see your mother?”
His mouth tightens into a grim line. “Whether we use it or not, I need to get the key to the vault. I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to see my mother. I’m going straight from Switzerland to Miami.”
He’s going to war.
My heart skips a beat. I know it has to happen to get the girls back. That doesn’t mean the idea of Roman bursting into the Miami compound with a gun in hand doesn’t terrify the fuck out of me.
I fix on his comment about his mother; it is the easier part for me to focus on right now.
“But we have to see your mother, at least.” I turn his hand over in mine. He lets me hold it, but his eyes remain firmly fixed on something out the window. The traffic is heavy, barely moving. It would be faster to walk home, not that I imagine Roman will be letting me walk far anytime soon. His overprotectiveness is sweet. It’s also annoying.
“Not ‘we.’ Me. You’re not going to Switzerland.” He says it with the kind of finality I normally wouldn’t argue with.
“You can’t open the Miami vault without me.” I try to make my voice calm, but I can’t quite disguise my agitation. “I have to be there, Roman, whether either of us want that or not. I may as well be in Switzerland too.”
“No chance you’re coming to Miami.” He shakes his head once, sharply. “And we’re not opening that vault, not yet anyway. We just need the Orlovs to believe that we will, which is why I’m getting a gel imprint of your fingerprints done tonight. They won’t know that gel imprints don’t work, or even if they suspect, they won’t be sure. The technology was new then.” He glances at me, his face set in implacable lines. “Vilnus Orlov already has our daughters, Darya. There’s no way I’m giving him a chance to take you and our baby. I don’t have a fortress in Miami, but I do here, one that will be locked down more closely than Alcatraz. I need to know you’re here, and safe, or I won’t be able to do what I need to.”
I nod slowly. “I understand that. Can we compromise by allowing me to come with you to Switzerland? I can fly back here after we’ve got the key.”
And after we’ve met your mother. There’s no chance we’re going to Switzerland without meeting Rosa Borovsky, urgency or not.
“Women aren’t supposed to fly during the first trimester. Especially with bad morning sickness.” He glances sideways at me, his mouth curling slightly at my surprise. “I looked it up while Dr. Ballasteros was examining you.”
“I’m over ten weeks, and she also said the morning sickness should begin to recede almost immediately. To be honest, I already feel better.” It’s true; I suspect that half of my symptoms were stress related, because ever since I realized that Roman actually wants this baby, my entire body has felt more settled. “Please, Roman.” I squeeze his hand. “I can’t just sit here, waiting. At least let me come for that first part.”
“I’ll call the doctor and ask her.” Roman shifts across the seat and pulls me back against his body, his arms wrapping over my front. “I don’t want to leave you.” His lips move against my hair, and I hold his arms, relishing the reassurance of them around me. “Even the thought of leaving you alone...” His voice roughens, and he pulls me closer.
“I’ll be fine.” I turn in his arms, my hands coming up to his face. “But take me to Switzerland.” I kiss him.
He kisses me back hungrily. But as fast as the fire between us flares, he slows his kiss, lessens his grip on my body. His mouth moves beneath mine gently, with none of his customary fierce desire. I press against him, my hand sliding up his denim-clad thigh, edging toward the hard bulge threatening to thrust above his leather belt. My other hand slides beneath the navy linen beach shirt, touching just enough tanned, hard chest to set my insides churning.
He groans into my mouth, but one of his hands halts mine on his thigh, and despite the fierce tension I can feel in his body, he pulls back from me. “You need to rest, Darya.” He tries to smile, but nothing can diminish the dark lust in his eyes, the way they linger on the new fullness of my breasts, swelling over my sundress.
“Am I going to rest for the next seven months?” I trail my mouth up his neck, my whole body shivering with the desire to touch him.
“Darya—” But even as he’s protesting, his hands are roaming up the backs of my legs, teasing the lace at the edge of my panties. I feel a stab of triumph as his tongue swipes my mouth and his hands cup my ass. He rolls me against the rigid outline of his shaft. “Fuck.”
He hits the button that darkens the glass between the driver and us, and I smile against his mouth.
“ Vedma ,” he murmurs against my lips.
“ Pakhan ,” I murmur back, and the rumble of his laughter soothes every piece of my shaken soul. In a single movement he flips me over and lays me down on the back seat, tugging my panties over my legs and opening me to his mouth.
My eyes roll back in my head. “ Oh... ”
He licks me with a slow, sensual delicacy that is a world away from the leather seats and tinted windows of the limo. He holds my hips and tracks every crease and fold until I’m moaning and squirming beneath his hands, craving the hard length of him inside me. He chuckles when I writhe, the vibration of his laughter tripping me closer to the edge. He doesn’t even have fingers inside me and his mouth is driving me insane, my hips bucking off the seat as his tongue hits my center, curling and pounding me with such certainty I have no hope of holding out.
My hands twine in his hair, and one of his comes up to stifle my scream as I thrash against him. His mouth holds me in an endless moment of spasm after spasm, the world around me disappearing. I’m just coming back to earth, my eyes still closed, when he lifts me from the seat and steps out of the limo, growling an order at the driver.
I didn’t even notice that we came into the garage.
He doesn’t put me down inside the elevator, cradling me against him until we reach the penthouse, where he walks us straight down the corridor to the bedroom, slipping my dress off as we go and leaving it in a pool of cotton on the floor. He lays me down, unbuttoning his shirt as he stares down at me. “I can see it now,” he says roughly, one hand stroking the curve of my breast, the faint swell of my belly, as the other tears his clothes off. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. Your body is so beautiful, milaia... ”
When he joins me on the bed he slides gently inside me, moving slowly, his body rigid with tension.
“You won’t hurt me,” I whisper.
“You don’t know that,” he growls.
“You won’t hurt me, Roman.” I thrust upward to meet him, and he groans, his arms quivering with the effort of holding himself back. “You won’t hurt the baby. I promise.”
“I don’t want to jolt you around—”
I put my mouth close to his ear. “Let yourself go.” I wrap my legs around him, urging him onward. “It’s what I want, Roman. And it’s what you need.” I grasp his ass, pulling him deep inside me. “Just let go.”
He scoops me up and folds me around him, sinking into me with a savage sigh that sends me spiraling into bliss, thrusting with sure, deep strokes that hit every part of me.
“Fuck, Darya.” He lifts my ass high and drives home in a final, heady surge. “Fuck, I love you.”
“Ilyan Fedorov.” I repeat the name as Roman rubs the towel through his hair and reaches for his clothes. The sun is golden and brilliant beyond the window, the last burst of daylight over the water before night falls. “So you think this man is behind Vilnus Orlov, controlling him?”
I watch with unabashed pleasure as Roman drops the towel from around his waist and pulls on black leathers, his eyes running over my naked body on the bed as he does. I’m not going to lie—I still get a thrill from seeing how immediately his body reacts to what he’s seeing.
“I’ll never focus if you lie around looking like that.” He pulls the sheet up and tucks it around me with the twisted smile I love. “Yes, it looks like this Fedorov bastard is the one who started it all, back in Paris.”
“Paris.” I repeat the word slowly. It’s strange how one word can evoke so many emotions that I never truly realized I felt until now, after Roman explained what he has learned about our fathers’ shared past. “Papa would never take us there. Even when I was at finishing school in Switzerland, he’d holiday with us in Italy or at Lake Geneva—but he’d never take us to Paris. And my mother never went there either. I remember once there was a school trip to France; Papa refused to sign the form. He took Alexei and me to Barcelona instead. He never explained why he hated France. I just knew that he did.”
I sit up, clutching the sheet around me, my chin resting on Roman’s shoulder as he pulls on his boots. “It’s like all the other shadows that were never spoken about in our house, this darkness that sat around us, all the secrets I could sense were there but never understood. When I think of France even now, I feel this uneasy sensation of fear and danger. I never knew why I was afraid of Paris. I just knew it was a dangerous place for some reason.”
Roman tilts his head toward mine, his cheek touching my head in a brief but incredibly comforting gesture. “I don’t remember my father ever mentioning it at all.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head and stands up. He’s in his bike leathers, a white T-shirt molding his chest, the jacket slung over a nearby chair. The last rays of the afternoon sun turn his muscled biceps a tawny gold and highlight the warm depths in those midnight eyes. He’s so damned beautiful I want to tear all his clothes off again, and at the same time, I want him up at the lab, working to bring our girls home.
“But I do know what you mean about the atmosphere of secrecy,” he says. “The first thing I thought, after Mak explained what had happened, is that Paris is the reason our fathers never met up for drinks or dinner. They lost what must have been a lifetime of friendship, all because they wouldn’t risk a public relationship that might expose their families to Ilyan Fedorov.” He pulls the jacket from the back of the chair with savage force, his jaw hard. “Not that it helped. They lost everything anyway. We all did.”
I touch his hand, feeling the tension coursing through him. “We can’t blame them for that, Roman,” I say softly.
“Can’t we?” He shakes his head, his mouth a tight line. “It seems to me there’s a lot they could both have done and didn’t. It all comes back to that damn vault.” He shakes his head, breathing deeply to calm himself. “Anyway. None of that matters now. We’ll finalize everything tonight at the lab, and then I’ll fly to Switzerland first thing tomorrow.” He pauses, looking down at our joined hands. “I’ll call Dr. Ballasteros.” His voice is careful and measured. “If she agrees that it’s safe, then you can come too. But, Darya.” He fixes me with a stern look that is meant to quell my excitement, but absolutely does not succeed in doing so. “If she says it isn’t safe—”
“I know, I know.” I stand up and wrap my arms around his neck, kissing the hard corded muscle there. “Only if she says it’s okay. I get it, Roman.” I kiss him until he groans and wraps his arms around me, hauling me hard against him. “Thank you,” I whisper in his ear.
His kiss is long and sweet, and I never want it to end. I want him to know it isn’t just Switzerland I’m thanking him for, or even his willingness to include me in every step of this. It’s for all he has said since the moment he placed that white stick by my bedside. For making me feel safe and loved. For reassuring me that I won’t ever have to be out in the cold again, running alone in the darkness with a small life to protect. I realize that right up until today, until I saw the fierce wonder in Roman’s eyes, part of me still feared it would come to that. Feared he would resent me or reject this baby, and all that it means to be a family.
But he called it a miracle.
I cling to him, wanting to hold on to those words forever. They feel like a miracle in themselves. A small explosion of rich, pure joy amid the horrific darkness we will live until Roman has the girls back safely.
“Go,” I whisper against the shell of his ear. “Go, and do what you must so our girls can come home.”