Chapter 13 Nadir
NADIR
“You’re not leaving until you’ve eaten all your cereal,” Jess says the following morning to the raven-haired one.
Willow, I think she’s called.
“Then I’ll stay here.” The girl throws her arms over her chest, pulling a face.
A pain in the backside for Jess. Amusement for me. She’s a character for sure. I know where she gets her attitude from.
“I like it here. I could stay here all the time,” the girl continues.
“Me too,” the boy chips in. Charlie.
The third, Iris, spoons cereal into her mouth, one piece at a time. She catches me looking over at her and cowers the same way she did yesterday.
I really can be frightening.
I return my gaze to the windows, sipping coffee as sunlight stretches across Boston. The morning is so clear that I can see the harbor in the distance. I catch glimpses of the ocean, watching it glitter as Jess’s kids moan in the background, refusing cereal and other requests their mother makes.
It’s not the quiet, soul-soothing morning I was hoping for, but Jess’s children provide some good entertainment. I can’t fault them there.
I turn and watch. She has her hands full, but she makes it look effortless, like it’s no big deal to balance two cereal bowls in one hand while tending to a third, nonverbal child who’s clearly distressed about the move. Or me.
How long has it been just her? And how old are these kids? Because they don’t look like they’re far apart in age.
“It’s okay, baby,” Jess soothes as she deals with Iris. “You love Mrs. Fawn.”
“I know, but I don’t like being away for so long. I want to go home.”
“We’ll be home soon, baby. Promise.” Jess plants a kiss on the girl’s temple while force-feeding the other two cereal.
“I want my dolls.”
“Your dolls are at home, safe.”
“Why can’t I bring them here?”
Jess throws an arm around the girl, combing through her hair. “We have to be respectful while we’re living here, sweetie. Nadir won’t appreciate returning from work to see your dolls everywhere.”
The little girl’s eyes veer nervously over to me, and my chest immediately contracts.
“Remember the golden rule when we’re in another person’s home?” Jess says.
“We must be respectful,” says Iris, like she’s reciting lines in a play.
“Good girl.” Jess turns her gaze to the other two. “And that golden rule applies to you two monkeys. Respect.” She snaps her fingers, and has both kids sitting upright in their seats. “I would like to see more of that from you two, please.”
I stare hard at the table, suddenly feeling like I’m grieving something I never lost.
“Everyone else has a mother. How come me and Dimitri don’t have one?”
“Because women are whores and fuck around,” Dimitri answers instead of my father, who’s sitting across from us at the table, now glaring at me like I shouldn’t have asked that.
“It’s the truth, isn’t it, father?” Dimitri swings his head around to seek approval.
He’s been doing that ever since he joined the business.
“Your brother is right to a certain extent,” my father says. “Women either get themselves killed, or kill somebody else by getting in the way. They bring no substance to the family.”
I finish shoveling potatoes into my mouth and leave the table, the chair scraping beneath me.
“Where do you think you’re going, son?” My father looks across the table at me pointedly. There’s not one soft line on his face. Everything is gray, and his chin looks sharp enough to make someone bleed. A lot.
“Heading out for a walk. I need some fresh air.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
I promised Anastasia I’d meet her. Not like I can tell my father and brother that.
Her family are nothing like mine.
“Why are you all of a sudden asking me about your mother?” my father asks. “Where is this coming from?”
“Just school.”
“Pfft,” he spits. “Don’t listen to any of that nonsense.”
“It’s true,” Dimitri adds. “They don’t know the first thing about business.”
“I’ll second that,” my father says, and they clink glasses.
Vodka. I don’t need to taste it to know.
I can smell it on their breaths as they take turns telling me things I really couldn’t give less of a fuck about.
“You’ll be out of there in two months and into the real world.
I’m hoping to hear no more nonsense from you after then. ”
I toss the rest of my coffee in the sink and grab my briefcase from the kitchen.
“Mom,” Charlie says, his blue eyes focused on me. “Can I wear what Nadir is wearing?”
“Absolutely not, bud. Here—pass me your bowl before you get cereal everywhere.” Jess takes the bowl and stacks them by the sink, plucking a single piece of shredded wheat from her hair.
“Leave them,” I tell her as she cranks the faucet. “Maureen does the dishes.”
Jess glares at me, and when the kids aren’t listening, hisses, “Does Maureen wipe your ass for you too?”
I bite my lip, feeling a smile want to break through. She’s pissed because I left her hanging last night.
She’ll have to get used to being tormented. It’s only right. I’ve had more than my fair share of pain every time she walks into my building wearing high heels and tight skirts. As respectable as her outfits are, I still want them off.
“I created the mess. It’s only fair I take care of it.” She gives me a look, those blue eyes veering into dangerous territory.
It’s not even nine a.m. and my cock is already stirring in my pants.
I’d slack off today to get my hands back around her breasts. I went to bed last night memorizing the shape and size of them. Small areolas. Pretty pink nipples. Amazing shape. Still the best pair of breasts I’ve ever seen.
“You’re not doing the dishes. You’re coming with me. To work.”
Another glare from Jess. “I don’t start until—”
“Says who? You? May I remind you who is the boss, and who is the employee?”
“Oh, how could I ever forget?” Jess rolls her eyes. “But I seriously can’t start yet. I have the kids to drop off at kindergarten.”
“Maureen will take care of that.”
She appears just at the right moment, taking dishes from Jess’s hands. “Morning, dear. Is everything all right?”
“Fine, yes.” Jess forces a smile.
“I’ll take care of the dishes,” Maureen says. “You go and get dressed.”
“I need you to drop the kids off at their kindergarten,” I tell her. “Jess will send you the details.” I pass Maureen an extra four hundred, which she knows to accept without any questions.
She’s a good maid. Very helpful. She’s never been able to conceive kids, so the look on her face yesterday was priceless when I mentioned three were gonna be staying here for a while.
I linger in the doorway, watching Jess kiss her kids goodbye.
“How old are they?” I ask her as we slip into an elevator.
“Why?” Jess frowns at me.
“I’m asking you a very simple question.”
Blyat. She’s looking very frightening in that black makeup. Her eyes are too piercing for my own good. Her moans have been playing on a loop in my head since last night, and now my cock is shifting in my pants again.
Fuck. I’ll never forget the way her tongue brushed against mine, hot and fervent like other parts of her body.
I’ve been dying to rip off her panties and get reacquainted with her pussy, but it’s a dangerous game, and I’m already playing one at the moment with Taro.
I’ll come out victorious; I always do when it comes to business.
But with Jess? I’m not so sure. This has to be the first time I’m entertaining the same woman twice.
Besides, Jess needs to feel some of the pain I’ve been feeling. How dare she tease me in my own building, working under the company that I created? She’s on my payroll, earning money because of me, and she has the nerve to distract me? I’m finishing in my hands under my desk at least twice a day.
I won’t tolerate being tormented in a world that I’ve created, especially now that I’m protecting her from Taro Kozhikov. She should show some respect.
And I’m sure she will soon enough, when she knows how it feels to be in my situation, left hanging all the time.
We slide into the back seat of the private hire waiting for us out front, and she’s still unable to answer my question.
“They’re all the same age,” she finally says after some prompting.
I glance at her sidelong between the seats, sprawling my legs out beneath me in the back. “That doesn’t answer my question. How old?”
She tenses her jaw and looks away. “Five.”
Triplets. All of them five years old…
I feel Jess’s eyes on me.
“Is Taro their father?”
“No.” She sighs a breath of relief. “Thankfully not.”
“Who is?”
Jess shrugs and looks away again. “Just some guy. It’s no big deal.”
“No big deal?” I repeat. “Jess, you have three—”
“Thanks for stating the obvious. Now, can we drop this?”
“No.”
She rolls her eyes.
“If you were on the run from Taro and were concerned about him finding you, why return to Boston?”
“What?”
“We met six years ago on a flight to Miami because you were running away from him.”
“I needed to come back. My entire life is in Boston.”
“And yet you were willing to give it up.”
There’s something she’s not telling me. I’ll squeeze it out of her at some point. Making victims cave is no problem at all, but I’ll have to change my tactics and make her fold another way. It should be simple, considering how easy it was last night to get her right where I wanted her.
“I got pregnant,” she finally admits. “I was dating somebody in Miami—he was a sleaze and I never saw it going anywhere. I found out I was pregnant a week after we called it off.” She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.
“Poke your nose into business that actually concerns you. The father of my children is irrelevant in this.”
“So you moved back to Boston because…?”
“I had to fly home and work. As a single mom—not like you’d understand—I went back to nannying and doubled my hours. It was the only way to make sure my kids were taken care of.”