Chapter Fifty-one
Inna Grace
We all sat at the dining table having breakfast with no one talking to anyone.
Grandma was simply observing, her eyes moving around the table with far too much awareness.
Caitlin was busy eating while sending me secret looks every few minutes, her gaze bouncing between my face and the ring on my finger.
Cole always ate while trapped inside his own thoughts, probably planning the rest of his day or inventing some scheme only he understood.
For Dmitri and me, it felt like we were both holding our breath. Though, if I had to bet, I would put this ring on the fact that he was perfectly calm while I sat there thinking about everything.
My eyes drifted to my ring finger. It looked more expensive than the old one.
Every time I looked at it, a different combination of emotions moved through my chest. Warmth.
Terror. Excitement. A strange sense of peace that didn’t fully settle before another feeling replaced it.
The ring looked beautiful on my hand. And I knew I agreed to a lifetime commitment with the hottest man I had ever met.
The ring seemed to change everything. Dmitri didn’t leave early this morning, as he usually did. We woke up together, showered together, dried our hair in front of the same mirror, and got dressed in the same room. The ridiculous part was that we did it all without actually talking.
The way he whispered the words ‘I love you’ last night replayed in my head, and my stomach warmed. I shifted in my chair, cleared my throat, and looked down at my porridge.
Why was I eating porridge again? Well, I deserved it.
I was the one who drank whiskey on an empty stomach.
I remembered stepping out of the bathroom that morning, hoping to find Dmitri waiting for me.
I carried that small, foolish hope with me, only to realize he was already gone.
The ache that followed settled in my chest and refused to leave.
Drinking felt easier than sitting with it.
Looking back now, it was possibly one of the stupidest decisions I had ever made.
“Okay, fine, I will talk.” Grandma set her cup down. “Should I start planning the wedding? I should. I have ladies who can help. Where do you want to have it?”
I looked up at her, surprised.
Caitlin cleared her throat. “I can help too. I can design the dress.” She sounded like she’d been waiting for this moment.
“Yes, good. We will hire her.” Grandma turned to me. “Inna, dear, what do you think?”
I turned to Dmitri. He had his cup raised to his lips, the look on his face carrying quiet approval, as though he was perfectly prepared for whatever decision landed on the table.
“We will discuss the wedding later,” I said carefully.
There was still too much sitting in my chest for me to think about venues and dresses.
The engagement itself was barely settled in my mind.
Then there was my father, my mother, and everything that came with them.
A wedding date was not the first thing that needed to be addressed. “There’s a lot to sort through first.”
“We can plan while you sort through it. Just give us a date, and we will be ready.” Grandma narrowed her eyes at me. “You don’t seem happy. Did he force you to marry him again?”
I opened my mouth, but Dmitri beat me to it.
“She put the ring on her finger herself,” Dmitri said, and my mouth fell open. “You should focus on your health.”
“My health is perfect now that I know you’re marrying her,” Grandma defended herself.
My eyes remained fixed on Dmitri as I recalled exactly how that ring ended up on my finger. He slid it on before I even finished saying yes—the audacity of this man. Under different circumstances, we would have been arguing about that statement. But Grandma’s health came first.
“We can celebrate your birthday first. Then we discuss the wedding after that,” I said, mostly to move the conversation away from me.
Grandma waved the suggestion away as though it were a fly. “My birthday doesn’t matter. You come first. Two months is too far.”
“I thought so too,” Dmitri said.
Grandma immediately nodded in agreement.
This bastard.
I turned toward him, ready to scold him for being completely unhelpful, but Akim saved him when he stepped into the dining room. He greeted everyone respectfully before moving toward Dmitri.
“Boss. You can confirm the purchase of the building you told me to buy.”
My stomach dropped. Was this the building he threatened to buy last night? He actually did it?
This man threw money at problems the same way other people threw words.
“Akim, why don’t you join us?” Grandma gestured to the nearby maid. “Set a place for Akim.”
Akim didn’t sit immediately. He stood there processing the invitation, as if nobody had ever informed him that dining tables could be used for something other than receiving orders.
“What is this about buying a building anyway?” Grandma asked. “You want to start a new branch?”
“My beautiful wife isn’t comfortable in the mansion anymore. She wants us to live in Little Haiti.” Dmitri said it with complete composure and turned to face me.
Fine. I hated this man.
“You don’t like the mansion, dear? We have an off-beach villa. We can move there,” Grandma said.
“I…” My hand disappeared beneath the table and landed on Dmitri’s thigh. I pinched him the way you pinch someone, impossible. He didn’t flinch. I tried harder but still got nothing. This man was built from something other than normal human material. “It’s not like that.”
“Well, we will have to move there too then,” Grandma concluded.
Like grandmother, like grandson. That was what Dmitri said as well.
I looked at Dmitri and found the smirk sitting comfortably on his face. I pinched him again out of principle. He still didn’t react, so I pulled my hand away and accepted defeat.
His hand caught mine under the table before I got far. He threaded our fingers together and settled my hand on his lap, holding it there. His thumb moved slowly across my skin while the rest of the conversation carried on around us.
The discussion about wedding plans continued between Caitlin and Grandma while Dmitri and Akim slipped into Russian. I stayed quiet, listening to both conversations without fully following either. Most of my attention remained on Dmitri’s hand holding mine.
A guard stepped into the dining room, and the conversation died. He bowed before looking directly at Dmitri.
“Boss, you have a guest at the gate.” He said, and Dmitri remained silent, as though he expected more information than that. The guard’s eyes shifted toward me. “She said she is Madam’s mother.”
My heart stumbled. I looked at the guard and then at Dmitri. Dmitri was already pushing back his chair, his face settling into the expression he wore whenever something required handling.
That was how I knew it was my mother.
Akim rose on instinct, already pulling out his phone. “I’ll handle that.”
“Did she request a meeting?” Dmitri asked.
“No, boss,” Akim answered.
Dmitri left the dining room, and Akim followed. Everything changed so quickly that the room seemed different from one second to the next.
I pushed back my chair and followed them, my heart racing ahead of the rest of me.
“She will not be getting in here. Tell her—” Dmitri stopped when my voice reached him.
“Is it my mother?” I asked.
They both turned toward me, and the silence told me I was right. Dmitri gave Akim a nod, and Akim turned and walked away.
“I’ll handle her,” Dmitri said as he approached me.
“You’re sending her away?”
“She won’t see you until you’re ready.” He stopped in front of me and lifted a hand to my face. His thumb moved along my cheek in a slow stroke. “Go finish your breakfast.”
I stood there thinking about my mother waiting on the other side of that gate.
I thought about all the years we spent without her and all the questions I never got to ask.
If she left now, I would spend days constructing reasons for why she came, building answers out of nothing because the real ones had driven away.
“Let her in,” I said, hating that I was doing this.
“Inna.”
“I want to know why she’s here.” I swallowed. “Maybe we can finally put an end to this.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“She won’t see Cole.” The words came out before anything else. “If she’s here for him, I won’t let that happen.”
Dmitri’s jaw tightened. He studied me for a moment before speaking.
“We’ll have to agree on something else, too.” His thumb brushed lightly against my lower lip. “I nearly lost you. I’m not going to stand here and watch you disappear again.” His voice dropped lower. “If letting her in makes you distant like before, I’ll lose my mind.”
“I wasn’t distant,” I said.
“Darling, you’ll need a better argument than that.” The teasing disappeared as quickly as it arrived. His eyes remained fixed on mine, serious again. “We can reschedule this.”
Part of me wanted to remember what her absence had done to me. I understood that her presence might not be any easier. But I also knew I wouldn’t sleep or eat. I would spend days wondering why she came here and what she wanted.
“I won’t be at peace if I don’t see her,” I said. “I need to know why she’s here.”
“So I get to watch my wife disappear again?” he asked. “Promise me you won’t do that.”
My heart warmed as I looked at him. He kept rewriting everything I thought I knew about being alone.
“Okay.” I smiled at him. “I promise.”
He leaned down and kissed me, a soft brush of lips that lasted only a moment.
Akim returned and interrupted the moment. Dmitri and I both turned toward him. “Boss, she insists on seeing you.”
Dmitri sighed. “Show her to my office.” He took my hand and led me toward his office.
My brain started running through scenarios the way it always did when fear took hold, building every possible version of the conversation before it even happened. I kept wondering what she wanted. Did she come for Cole to hand him to Iker?