Chapter 17 Jess
JESS
I thought I’d rather die than tell Nadir he’s the father of my kids, but he needed straightening out. Telling him the truth was the only way to get through to him about why summer camp is a bad idea.
And also why he should care about Taro taking them.
“What?” His tone drops ten octaves.
I’d probably be in his lap right now, begging him to undress me if the circumstances were different.
Nadir doesn’t give a fuck about people unless they mean something to him somehow.
I see how Nadir is with my kids. They bring out a different side of him.
The smiles are genuine. He’s not this way with anyone else.
He was right on the verge of caring. He just needed a little push to get him over the edge.
“Jess.” His electric blue eyes have the same penetrating effects as his dick. “You can’t keep this kind of information from me.”
“I was never going to see you again.”
“You lied to me in the cab. You said it was none of my business and made up a whole narrative.”
“I did what I had to do.”
Nadir grinds his jaw. “You still should’ve told me.”
“You own a mafia, Nadir. That’s not exactly very child friendly.”
“I can protect them.”
“Jeez, it sure sounds like it, sending them away to summer camp.”
Nadir tenses his jaw and looks past me, out into the room.
This has gotten under his skin. I was hoping for this reaction. Him being pissy with me shows he cares to a degree. If he didn’t, he’d shake the news off and still be forcing the idea of sending them to summer camp down my throat.
“Triplets,” he says, eyes still fixated out in front of him. I glance over my shoulder and see him staring at the door, where he was standing earlier when the kids all jumped on him.
They do that a lot.
I bite my lip. There’s no way we can get any more complicated than this.
I study his face and remember what he told me after we were done fucking in his office. See you tonight. My heart longed to hear those words in a different context.
I hold myself accountable for going there with Nadir. It was a mistake. But he’s also to blame. He fucked me and avoided me like the plague as soon it was over, blaming everything on work.
There’s probably some truth to that. Lord knows all the guy does is work and ruin other people’s lives.
Is he ruining mine? Maybe. But he’s definitely more self-aware when it comes to the kids. Especially now that he knows they’re his.
“Looks like your family just got a whole lot bigger.” I push the remaining lasagna aside and stand. Time for bed. Today has been one hell of a day.
“I don’t have family.”
My heart swells with empathy. Oh?
Turns out we’re not as worlds apart as I thought.
“Seriously?”
“Yes,” he says in that dark, sinful voice of his. He has me thinking about sex without meaning to. And we’re not even talking about anything remotely sexual. “I killed them and came over here.”
“You killed…? What?”
False alarm. My heart sinks, and that warm feeling disappears.
He’s lucky enough to have a family, and he decides to kill them?
“What about your Bratva? Aren’t they called crime families for a reason, because you’re all related?”
“I like to do things my own way. On my own terms,” Nadir says. He collects the plates and milk cups from the table and walks them into the kitchen.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I never intended to leave Russia, but in order to escape consequences, I had no other choice.”
Nadir Medvedev runs?
I assumed he was always the predator. Never the prey. I guess Savannah was right about criminals being more breakable than they let on.
“Why did you kill them?”
“I was angry at them for reasons I don’t need to go into.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I walk into the kitchen and press my back into the counter, trying to figure him out. He gives nothing away, as usual, eyes guarded, expression neutral. Stoic as ever, as many rich men are.
Suddenly, a great weight falls onto my shoulders. Did I just fuck up? I should’ve kept my mouth shut, thought things through before telling him.
But as usual, I don’t think when I’m around Nadir. I’m always in my body when he’s around, never in my head—case in point when I fell in front of him on my first day at Sterling. My brain turns to mush. I act impulsively.
And I just told a mafia leader that he has three children. He killed his family back in Russia. How can I be sure history won’t repeat?
Nadir slots dishes into the dishwasher since he doesn’t have Maureen doing that for him anymore. He starts the machine and turns to face me, looking divine as ever in the black suit jacket, white dress shirt combo. It hits every time.
And now my mind is scrambled again.
“We’ll keep Charlie, Iris, and Willow here,” he says.
“But I stand by what I said earlier. I want you all inside as much as possible.” He sticks his hand into his pants pocket and steps forward.
“When I was at the conference earlier, I arranged guards to be on watch outside of the apartment block. They’ll report any suspicious behavior to me, which I’ll pass on to you. ”
Hold on a minute. He hired guards to watch us earlier today?
He didn’t know the children belonged to him at that point.
I’m clinging to the hope that Nadir cares more than he’s letting on.