Chapter Two #2
“Let me have her.” He takes the baby from me and gently rubs small circles along her tiny back, having dropped the bags right on the floor without a second thought.
His massive palm covers nearly her entire back, and the contrast between his size and hers—this giant of a man cradling something so small and fragile—does something to my chest that I refuse to name.
“When’s the last time she’s eaten?”
I check my phone for the time. Mrs. Henderson said Ella had her last bottle just before ten. “Almost three hours ago.”
He nods. “She’s due soon, but let’s see if we can have her hold out until we get to my place. Then we’ll put her down to sleep.”
‘We’. Like we’re a team. Like this is a joint operation and not a stranger telling me how to handle a baby I’ve known for four days.
What is even happening right now?
He continues patting her back, and when she lets out a huge burp, Alexei smiles. It transforms his entire face—softens the hard jaw, crinkles the corners of his eyes. “There we go. Was that the problem, princess?”
She stops crying, blinking as she searches for the source of the deep voice.
Her tiny fist opens and closes against his chest, and for a second she just stares up at him with those wide blue eyes, like she’s trying to figure out who this new person is and why he’s so much better at this than the woman who’s been fumbling through it for the past four days.
Same, Ella. Same.
Holding her carefully in one of his huge arms—one arm, while I need two and a prayer—he opens a package of pacifiers, walks to the kitchen sink, and washes one with my antibacterial soap. He gives it to Ella, who immediately begins sucking away, and her cries fade into soft hiccups.
I blink at him. “How do you know all this?”
He shrugs. “A gaggle of nieces and nephews, as I mentioned. I’ve been around babies a lot. You pick things up.”
You pick things up. Like it’s no big deal. Like soothing a screaming infant in under sixty seconds is a casual skill, right up there with parallel parking or making a decent omelet.
I’ve never spent much time around a baby, and these last few days have proved it.
I have no idea what I’m doing with Ella, and watching Alexei handle her with such ease makes me feel both grateful and completely inadequate.
He’s right, though. It is way past her bedtime.
It really is freezing here. And no matter how pissed I am at Andi right now, I can’t let my pride put Ella at risk.
It wouldn’t be fair. She’s not mine, but I’ve been entrusted with her care. I need to do the right thing. For Ella.
“Fine. We’ll come stay at your place for the night.”
Alexei only nods, like he expected my response all along. Smug bastard.
“I’ll get her car seat situated. You want to pack an overnight bag?” he asks, his voice going softer. It still tears straight through me.
“Yeah. It’ll just take me a second.”
He nods and heads outside into the cold, carrying both Ella—now happily sucking away at her pacifier in her carrier—and the bags of baby stuff we bought at the store. Carrying all of it like it’s nothing. Like he’s built for exactly this.
I stand alone in my quiet apartment for a moment, looking around.
The dripping faucet. The sagging couch. The thermostat that won’t turn on.
This is what I’ve been white-knuckling for the past two years, since my parents died and the scholarship disappeared and everything I’d been building toward crumbled.
I’ve been so determined to prove I could do it alone—pay my own way, handle my own problems, never ask anyone for anything—that I forgot what it felt like to have someone just . . . show up.
The last person who showed up for me was my mother, and she’s been gone for two years.
My eyes sting, and I press the heels of my palms against them. Not now. I can fall apart later. Right now, I need to pack a bag.
Scrubbing one hand over my face, I muster the rest of the energy I have left and head into my bedroom.
I shove some things into a duffel bag—a change of clothes for me, a couple of onesies for Ella, my toothbrush.
In the kitchen, I toss in a couple of clean bottles and a small package of baby wipes.
I fiddle with the thermostat one last time, like maybe it’ll magically start working if I want it badly enough, then give up and head out into the cold.
I lock my front door, though I’m not sure what anyone would steal. The sagging couch? The mismatched chairs? Have at it.
When I slide into the passenger seat of Alexei’s car, the warmth wraps around me immediately. It smells like him in here—leather and spice and that clean mint undertone—and for some reason, that calms me more than it should. My shoulders drop about two inches.
“Ready?” he asks.
I turn to face him, taking in the dark scruffy hair dusted along his jaw, his broad shoulders, the firm line of his mouth.
The dashboard lights cast shadows across his face, and he looks like something out of a movie.
The kind of movie where the rich, handsome guy saves the girl from her terrible life and they fall in love and everything works out perfectly.
Those movies are fiction for a reason.
“Are you sure? You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s fine, Ryleigh. It’s just one night, right?”
I nod. “Do you have a roommate or a . . . a wife, or anything?”
“No roommate. Definitely no wife. It’s just me. But there are two guest rooms, so you and . . . the baby can pick where you’d like to sleep.”
I glance back and see her carrier safely buckled into the back seat. “Her name’s Ella.”
“Ella,” he repeats softly. And the way he says it—gentle, careful, like he’s trying the word on for size—makes my chest ache.
We’re quiet on the ride to Alexei’s place.
It’s on the other side of the city, in an area known to be where the young, wealthy elite live.
The buildings get taller and shinier, the streets get cleaner, and I sink a little lower in my seat with every block.
He pulls into an underground parking garage of a towering building and has to show his credentials to a uniformed security guard working at the gate.
“Good evening, Mr. Ivan,” the man says, his gaze wandering from Alexei to me, and then to the baby before widening in surprise.
Mr. Ivan. So that’s his last name. The guard says it with the kind of deference you reserve for people who matter, and I file that away.
“Night, Frank,” Alexei says, then pulls the car ahead when the gate opens. He parks in a well-lit underground lot, and then we take the elevator up to the penthouse level.
The penthouse level.
I’m having a very Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman moment. But despite what Alexei saw earlier, I’m not a prostitute, and he certainly won’t be my knight in shining armor.
Suddenly, I’m struck by the need to correct him. “I wasn’t going to do anything with that guy, you know.”
He shrugs. “Not my business what you choose to do. I was merely trying to help you out of a situation I didn’t think you wanted to be in.”
I huff, pretty sure he doesn’t believe me. “Well, for your information, I’ve never done anything like that. So if you think you’re getting your dick sucked tonight or something, just because you bought us some diapers . . .”
Alexei holds up his hand. “Whoa. That’s not why I brought you here. And no offense, but I can get my dick sucked anytime I want.”
I have no idea what to make of that comment, like he’s got a bevy of women at his beck and call. Before I can formulate a response, the elevator doors slide open, and for a second, I just stand there.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but his apartment is enormous.
Polished marble floors and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the entire city dominate my view.
The skyline glitters beyond the glass like a postcard—all those lights, all those lives, and here I am standing in a penthouse elevator in my work jacket that smells like cigarette smoke.
There’s a modern kitchen that’s all stainless steel, white cabinets, and black granite, and a sunken living room with two huge, fluffy, cream-colored couches. The biggest flat-screen TV I’ve ever seen is mounted on one wall, and a hallway at the far end leads off to what I assume are the bedrooms.
My apartment could fit inside this living room. Twice, probably.
“Come on in,” he says.
I step off the elevator and follow him inside, trying not to gawk and failing completely.
Alexei sets the shopping bags on the kitchen counter while I unbuckle Ella from her car seat.
Once she’s in my arms, she begins crying again, and I let out a long exhale.
Of course. We’re in this stunning apartment and she’s screaming like I’m torturing her. Great first impression, babe.
“May I?” he asks, holding out his hands.
I pinch my lips together and hand Ella over. I hate to admit defeat, but he knows what he’s doing, and right now that matters more than my pride.
She looks so tiny resting against his massive chest. It doesn’t matter that the last thing I’m in the market for is a man—seeing him with her does something to me.
I think the technical term is ovary explosion.
The way his big hands cradle her so carefully, the way he dips his head slightly to murmur something I can’t hear, is so unbearably sweet that I nearly melt for this stranger who shouldn’t affect me like this at all.
I’m too tired, that’s the problem. Exhaustion is making me soft.
Needing to make myself useful—needing to prove I’m not completely helpless—I grab one of her bottles from my purse and dig the tub of baby formula out of the shopping bag. “I’ll feed her so we can go to bed and get out of your hair.”
He shrugs. “It’s no problem. I’m honestly more of a night person.”