4. Ilya
Ilya
"I have the results."
The nurse pulls the door closed as she stands there before us, and I can tell she is still less than impressed with my presence here. Let her be. I am not going to stand aside and let someone else lay claim to the child I know to be my heir.
"And?" Rose prompts her nervously, twisting her hands in her lap.
"They’re positive," she replies. "You’re pregnant."
"Thank you, nurse," I reply, nodding to the door. "Give us a moment, please."
She parts her lips, clearly thinking about protesting, but something about the way I’m looking at her seems to dissuade her.
I look over at Rose, who is staring at the floor, clearly too stunned to react.
Her light brown hair has fallen into her face, and her blue eyes are fixed on the floor, her back hunched like she can’t begin to make sense of any of it.
I need to get her out of here. Now that the pregnancy is confirmed, with no room for doubt, I need to make sure that my heir is secured. It doesn’t matter what happens; I need to ensure that she and my child are safe.
"Did you drive here?"
"What?" She lifts her head, as though only half-aware that I am speaking at all.
"I said, did you drive here?"
"Uh... no, I got the bus."
"Good. Then I won’t have to call anyone to pick up your car."
I pull out my phone, and I can feel her staring at me, trying to make sense of what I just said.
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"You’re coming back to my place," I tell her, lifting the phone to my ear. It buzzes a couple of times, but Marcus knows better than to keep me waiting.
"Pakhan?"
"Prepare a room at the house," I tell him. "We have a guest."
I hang up and find that Rose has just gotten to her feet to argue with me, her finger jabbing in the direction of my chest.
"I’m sorry, you don’t just get to drag me out of here with no warning—"
"You’re safer with me than you would be anywhere else," I tell her bluntly. "Trust me."
"And why should I trust you, exactly?" she demands. "You just told me that you were spying on your nephew’s phone, for God’s sake. Have you been following me around, too? Making sure I don’t spend time with anyone you don’t like?"
I ignore her as I pull on my coat, picking up her bag and handing it to her.
"Oh, God, you didn’t, did you?" she gasps.
I shake my head. "I didn’t need to before," I reply. "Come on. My car is outside. I don’t want to get caught in traffic."
She crosses her arms over her chest and roots her feet to the floor defiantly. "I’m not going anywhere with you."
It’s almost cute, how defiant she thinks she’s being right now.
I almost want to remind her that I could buy and sell this entire place from right under her feet if I wanted to, make sure that security looked the other way while I took her anywhere I wanted.
But if we are going to make this work, then I need to be as diplomatic as possible.
Not exactly my strong suit, but there’s a first time for everything.
"You heard the nurse," I remind her. "You’re carrying my child."
"No, she said that I was pregnant, not that the baby was yours," she retorts. "And I don’t know why you’ve got it into your head that it has to be your baby, anyway. If you were monitoring Petar’s communications, then you would have seen that the two of us were together right up until the night that we—"
"And I don’t know why you doubt it," I reply curtly, cutting her off.
She grits her teeth, glaring up at me, clearly trying to muster up every inch of intimidation that she can.
"Well, even if you are the father, that doesn’t mean that you just get to spirit me away somewhere I’ve never been before," she replies, trying a different approach. "It’s the twenty-first century, in case you missed it. And I don’t have to live under a man’s roof to—"
"When that man is me," I tell her. "Yes, you do."
She huffs out a breath through her nose, but doesn’t contradict me.
I guess Petar never filled her in on the gory details of how our family amassed its fortune, or the businesses that I took over when his father died years before.
Probably knew that a sweet thing like her would want nothing to do with someone like him if she knew the truth, so he hid it from her, giving her no choice.
"I need to go back to work," she protests. "I can’t just drop everything and run off to do whatever it is you want me to do."
"You’re not listening to me," I growl, taking a step forward.
The atmosphere between us now is very different from the one we shared on the plane, when she looked at me like she wanted to take a bite out of me.
But then, that was behind her mask, and she did tell me that people used those things to disguise their true selves.
"You’re coming with me, and you’re coming now," I explain to her. "Any medical treatment from this moment out, I’ll make sure is provided for you. Anything you need, you come to me. You hear me?"
She shakes her head again. "This is my doctor’s office," she tells me. "And they know me here. You saw the way the nurse looked at you—she has her finger on that alarm button right now. If I scream, they’re going to call the cops, and you’ll have a lot of explaining to do."
I flick my tongue over my lips, pissed. I want to pick her up, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her to my car, but she’s doing everything in her power to make it clear that’s not going to happen.
And she’s right; if she makes even the barest hint of a noise in the direction that she’s in trouble right now, they will call someone to haul me away, and I will be left even further on the back foot.
No, there is a time and place for every negotiation, and this isn’t a one-off occasion. From this moment on, I know there are going to be many times that I’ll have to deal with our mutual expectations and the places they diverge, and it’s better we recognize it now.
"Fine," I reply. "But I’ll be in touch soon."
"Sure," she shoots back, rolling her eyes. "Because that’s what the men in your family are best known for, right? Trustworthiness."
That sharp tongue hidden in that pretty face—for just a second, I don’t move an inch, almost wanting to challenge her to see how much further she will go. But right now, I have to find another way to convince her. This place is too much of a liability; I need turf that I can control.
And with money like mine, that’s not going to be hard to find.
"Just go," she pleads with me, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingertips. "I’ve had enough stress for one day as it is. Please."
I give her one last moment to change her mind. Once I am satisfied that it’s not going to happen, I head for the door.
Outside, the waiting room is dead silent, and I wonder just how soundproof these rooms are.
Could be that the people here heard the whole thing.
I don’t break their gazes as I stride out of the clinic and into the cool air beyond, not even glancing back to see if any of them are staring to ensure that I’m out of here.
She’s heading back to work for the day, huh? I know that Petar’s fiancée was in there the other day, and I doubt it will be hard to find a receipt that leads me straight to that place. I just need to find the owner, and I can carve out some territory in her land.
And make it so she can’t just tell me to leave when we’re only getting started.