17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Aurora
Ten Minutes Earlier
After tossing in bed for over an hour, I decide to grab a glass of water from the kitchen.
As I walk down the hallway, a sudden murmuring makes me pause.
I hold my breath as I glance toward Misha’s bedroom—but the sound isn’t coming from that direction.
My feet move of their own accord, following the crescendoing voice.
Acting on impulse, my hand reaches out and presses down on Sergei’s bedroom door handle before I can scream at it to behave.
“Sergei?” I whisper as I peer inside. When I see him tossing restlessly in bed, I find myself moving closer. He’s shirtless, his skin glistening with sweat as his broad frame trembles. I gently touch his shoulder. “Sergei?”
He mumbles random words in Russian—ones I haven’t picked up yet—his jaw tight and eyebrows furrowed. Jolting awake, his eyes fly wide open as he grabs me by the neck. Then, as if finally recognizing me, his grasp eases, and he repeats in English, “What are you doing here?”
“You were having a nightmare, um… talking in your sleep.” I struggle to speak as his thumb passes over my jaw up to my hair. Both of my hands still clutch his wrist—part of me knows I should pry his hand away, while a surprisingly darker impulse craves for him to move his hold back onto my neck.
Without warning, Sergei pulls me on top of him.
Oh God. My heart slams against my ribs as goosebumps flare across my skin.
A shaky breath catches in my throat, my stomach twisting tight.
What is happening? His breathing is ragged, eyes locked onto mine before slowly drifting to my mouth.
Instinctively, I run my tongue over my lower lip, and Sergei’s gaze darkens further as it trails down my body.
Suddenly, inhaling becomes impossible, as if the oxygen in my lungs has been consumed by his attention.
My eyes scan his body in return. His torso is sculpted like a seasoned gladiator.
A faint sheen of sweat covers each sharply defined muscle—ones whose names I once knew from biology class but now fail to recall.
A lone, thin cross tattooed on his sternum urges me to worship its owner.
I try to steady my breathing, grateful for the darkness of the room concealing the flush creeping across my cheeks. The tension between my thighs builds embarrassingly fast until my hips betray me, grinding shamelessly against him.
As if emerging from a trance, Sergei drops his hands off me and sits up higher in bed. “You shouldn’t come in here uninvited.” His words hit me like an icy deluge, sending a shiver through my entire body.
I jump off him, momentarily slipping on the floor in those damn socks.
I run to my bedroom and slam the door behind me.
I collapse against it, sliding down to the floor.
As I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, I’m already crafting a case to plead temporary insanity, because only a crazy person would’ve acted the way I just did.
Oh my god. What was I thinking?
That’s the problem—I wasn’t. I repeatedly bang my head against the door.
The level of embarrassment flooding my body is unlike anything I’ve ever felt.
I’m his son’s nanny. He just lost his wife—who, if Daniel is right, he might have killed.
And here I barge into his bedroom in the middle of the night, touching him like some creep, climbing on top of him like some deprived lunatic.
I replay the interaction in my mind long into the night, his words echoing endlessly: “You shouldn’t come in here uninvited. ”
The next few days pass quickly, with me avoiding Sergei as much as I can.
Whenever we do find ourselves in the same room, long moments of awkwardness linger between us.
He doesn’t bring up our interaction in his bedroom, and I’m too mortified to break the silence.
Maybe I’m lucky, and he thinks it was just another nightmare?
On Thursday, with a rainstorm predicted for the weekend, I decide to keep things indoors.
“We’re going to ride a horse! We’re going to ride a horse!” I sing, clapping in rhythm. “What are we going to do, Mish?”
“Ride horse!” he exclaims, galloping around the living room with an imaginary horse between his legs.
I straddle my own invisible mount, joining in the fun as we both gallop around, laughing and playing. He jumps onto the couch, and I follow suit, tickling him until his laughter erupts, his body shaking uncontrollably. The sound of his belly giggle is so contagious, I could listen to it all day.
In a swift motion, Misha swings his hand toward my face. I turn just in time, but his fingers graze my earring. Panic rises as I jerk my head away to prevent him from tugging on it.
Note to self: never wear long earrings around a kid.
I never did during my practicum, so I’m not sure what possessed me to this morning. Maybe I thought they matched my shirt and wanted to look cute.
And who did you want to look cute for? my subconsciousness teases.
I touch the earrings, feeling their smooth surface on one side and the textured finish on the other.
A sudden realization strikes me before I can fully process it. Misha continues to gallop around the living room, blissfully unaware of my shifting focus.
On the night of the gala, Alessia wore long, dangling earrings—the kind that twist at the back of the ear.
I remember thinking how uncomfortable that design seemed, especially given their cost, and I wondered why, for the price she must have paid, they hadn’t created a simpler, quicker way to get them on.
And off.
A quicker way to get them off.
It takes every ounce of my willpower to resist the urge to sprint to my phone and call Daniel. Instead, I focus on Misha, who tugs on my sleeve to ask if we can keep playing.
I glance at the giant clock mounted on the wall, hoping I can wait a few more hours.
Friday morning, I hurry Misha out of bed to start breakfast. I keep glancing at my phone, driven by the urgency to meet with Daniel and discuss my thoughts about the earrings.
After bringing the cup of chocolate milk to Misha, I lean forward to adjust his plate, positioning the fuller side closer to him.
This seems to get him eating again. I glance toward the numbers on the screen as the need to wrap up my nanny duties and shift into detective mode grows stronger with every passing minute.
Returning to the sink, I rinse out his water bottle, my thoughts already drifting back to my possible revelation.
What if I’m right? What if it means what I think it means? But does it have to be… him?
Dread fills my chest as I set the bottle parts on the towel by the sink to dry. I stretch my neck from side to side, then grab the banana peel and strawberry scraps, tossing them into the trash can.
Turning around, I spot Misha placing a piece of banana and a strawberry onto a pancake, folding it like a taco. As he leans forward to take a bite, the banana and half the strawberry fall out. The chocolate spread on top leaves smudges on the corners of his lips, like a poorly groomed mustache.
“Good morning,” Sergei greets us as he enters the kitchen, impeccably dressed in a navy suit and an eggshell white shirt. True to his Friday routine, he’s opted for no tie.
“Good morning,” I reply.
Misha points to the stuffed animals on the counter and asks, “Agator?”
I rush over and hand him the large green alligator. “Here you go, sweetie.”
“No! Ink Agator!” he insists, pointing to the other alligators on the counter.
“Oh, you’re missing the pink one,” I realize, quickly adding, “I’ll get it for you.” I hand him the green and blue baby alligators.
“I can get it for him,” Sergei offers.
Before he can even take a step, I’m already out of the kitchen. Misha doesn’t provide enough of a buffer, so I’m eager to put some distance between us.
“It’s okay,” I call out from down the hallway. “It’s probably buried somewhere in his bed.”
In Misha’s room, I yank the heavy comforter off the bed and shake it, checking for the toy.
I remove the pillows, digging inside each cover, remembering how one of his toys was lodged there a few days ago.
After several minutes of searching, I’m completely out of breath. This should be an Olympic event.
I wriggle under the bed, struggling to fit my upper body beneath the frame.
“Can I help?” Anton’s voice startles me, and I bang my head on the bottom of the frame. I scoot out, rubbing my head to ease the pain, and glance over to find Anton standing by the door, watching me with an amused expression.
“We’ve got the mama alligator and the blue and green baby alligators, but the pink one is missing,” I explain, accepting Anton’s outstretched hand as he helps me to my feet.
“Where was the last place you saw it?” Anton asks, his gaze following me as I move around the room.
“I think it was in his bed last night, but I’m not seeing it anywhere…
Wait!” My eyes widen, and I freeze for a moment.
I quickly climb onto the bed, reaching my hand into the tight gap between the wall and the bed.
“Got it!” I exclaim with the pink alligator in hand.
“Toys always get stuck here, and he loses them during the night.”
I climb down, holding the pink alligator triumphantly.
“Big plans for your weekend off?” Anton asks, a subtle smile curving the corner of his lips.
“I’m not sure,” I lie, my gaze dropping to the toy in my hand. “I might reach out to my friends to see if they’d like to do something. Maybe a game night.”
“Game night?” he repeats.
I step around him toward the door, and he mirrors my movement, keeping his eyes fixed on me.
“Board games,” I explain. “We used to play them every now and then while we were in school.”
“Do you like to play games?” Anton asks, stepping closer.
I instinctively take a small step back, maintaining the space between us. “I mean, who doesn’t like games?” I avoid eye contact as I shift the pink alligator from one hand to the other. “Aren’t we all kids at heart?”
Anton chuckles, a mischievous spark in his eyes. “True. I was wondering, with your weekend free of nannying, would you like to grab a drink with me?”
I snap my head to him, my surprise evident. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
“Whose rules?” he says with a grin. “You’re not my nanny. You’re not my employee.” The way he says that makes me wonder if he knows what happened between Sergei and me. “I’m a single man, and you’re a single woman. Are you not?”
As he speaks, he toys with his cross necklace—a heavy gold piece adorned with a large diamond, flashy and extravagant, much like Anton himself.
His attire is always polished, yet he has a knack for including standout elements, whether it’s a vibrant tie or his favorite dark green snakeskin shoes he wears on Wednesdays.
“I am,” I hesitate, unsure how to respond. Admitting that I’m single feels wrong. Anton is undeniably attractive, especially when he smiles, but there’s something disingenuous about it, as if his facial muscles don’t quite believe the emotion he’s trying to convey.
“So, what do you say?”
Just then, Misha calls out from the kitchen.
I smile and lift the toy into the air. “I should get this to him before he gets upset,” I say and slip into the hallway.
That was… unexpected. Anton has always been friendly with me, as I was with him. I just never considered he might be into me. Has my romantic radar completely short-circuited, missing signs when someone is interested and seeing them where they don’t exist?
“You shouldn’t come in here uninvited.”
Rushing back, Misha barrels into me, snatching the pink alligator before dashing off to his room.
“Wait. Did you finish breakfast?” I call after him, but he doesn’t hear me.
As I step into the kitchen, I say, “It was in the gap between the wall and the bed.”
“Great,” Sergei replies, placing the dishes in the sink with a clatter. He opens the dishwasher forcefully and pulls out the trays, the contents inside rattling.
I frown. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Sergei load or unload the dishwasher before. “Is everything all right?” I ask.
He was in a better mood this morning, but now the room’s temperature feels like it dropped into single digits. I half expect penguins to waddle into the kitchen.
“Everything is fine,” he says, pulling open the cupboard and unloading cups from the dishwasher. “I think Misha will need you this weekend. I have some work to catch up on and a few virtual meetings, so you’ll accompany us to Mount Charleston.”
His back is turned to me as he speaks, dropping the silverware one by one into the drawer. Each piece clangs against the others, as if he’s trying to punctuate his annoyance not-so-subtly.
I stand there, attempting to process the curveball Sergei just threw at me. I knew he planned to take Misha to his house up north to spend time with each other, but he told me I could have the weekend off. What changed?
Suddenly, Misha’s voice crackles through the baby monitor positioned conspicuously in the middle of the island. The small camera is aimed directly at where he’s currently playing on his bed. Where a minute ago, I was standing with Anton when he asked me out.
My face heats up, but I can’t identify the emotion behind it. I quietly reply, “All right, Mr. Chernov,” emphasizing his last name. “I’ll join you this weekend.” With that, I dash out of the kitchen, eager to escape before I say something I shouldn’t.