38. Mikhail
MIKHAIL
I lie in the hallway outside the guest room Taylor has retreated to instead of our bed.
She is making it clear to me that she has no desire to lie with me tonight, but I cannot leave her alone. Not when I know she carries a life so precious inside her. Not when I have only just learned that everything has changed.
And that she wants to leave me.
That she has been skulking around checking flights and talking to my mother about it. I oscillate between fury and fear. I know it is fear. I hate to name fear, but seeing that open on her screen and then hearing those words from her—
Losing her was never an option. Now it is an impossibility. She will have to be torn from me with claw marks left behind. She can be angry with me. She cannot get rid of me.
My back rests against the wall opposite her room. I have rolled my jacket into a makeshift pillow beside me and loosened my tie, though it does nothing to ease the pressure around my throat.
The house is silent. Taylor is not.
I hear her moving occasionally. A drawer opening. The creak of the bed. Once, the quiet sound of water running in the bathroom.
Each noise reassures me. She is still here. It is a pathetic thought.
I have men searching for Orlov across the city. I have calls waiting from ministers, police officials, and three members of my own organization who would prefer to know whether I intend to start a war.
Instead, I sit on the floor outside a locked bedroom because the woman inside might decide to leave me.
The door opens shortly after midnight. Taylor stands there in a thin sleep shirt, her arms crossed over her chest. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and her eyes are swollen. She looks down at me. “What are you doing?”
Lying near you. “Trying to sleep.”
“Why are you out here?”
Because I am afraid that if I go to our room, what is supposed to be our room, you will disappear.
Because I have spent my life believing control was the same as security, and today you looked at me as though every promise I made was another lock clicking shut.
Because there is a child growing inside you, and I have never wanted anything more or trusted myself with anything less.
“I wanted to be near you,” I say.
Taylor closes her eyes. “You wanted to be near me, or you wanted to know if I was leaving?”
I move to my knees and steady myself against the wall, looking up at her, at the exhaustion in the purple under her eyes, the youth I still see in the shining green of them.
I take her hand and smile to see that she is still wearing the costume ring I put on her finger four weeks ago.
I consider her question carefully, the anger simmering under her calmly constructed expression.
“How can I be near you if you are leaving?” I ask.
She runs a tongue along her teeth, and I am certain that I said the wrong thing. “What a…diplomatic…answer.”
“You are angry.”
“Yes. You bought my father’s restaurant without asking me.”
“Well, I am angry too. Go back inside. I will stay out here.”
“So, no apology from you then?”
I consider giving it to her just to smooth things over. It would be easier. To give her the answer she wants, promise to undo whatever can be undone, and persuade her to come to our shared bed.
But she already believes I manipulate her. I will not confirm it by offering remorse I do not fully feel. “No.”
“You think you did nothing wrong?”
“I think I should have told you earlier, in a different way, not to prove something. I know you do not use me for money,” I say.
“You should have told—you should have asked me.”
I look away. The distinction remains difficult for me. Not intellectually. I understand her argument. I simply cannot understand watching a person I care for drown while waiting for permission to pull her from the water. “I will stay here,” I tell her.
“That’s ridiculous. You have a bedroom. Several bedrooms.”
“I am fine, Taylor. I have been through worse than sleeping on the floor.”
Her mouth tightens. Then she steps aside, rolling her eyes. “Just get in the bed.” I do not move. “Before I change my mind. It doesn’t mean I forgive you. Or trust you again.”
The word again is almost a mercy. Not completely lost. Only damaged.
I enter carefully. I lie on top of the covers, fully dressed, keeping my body near the edge of the mattress. Taylor gets in on the other side and turns away from me. The space between us is less than a meter. It feels greater than an ocean.
For several minutes, neither of us speaks. Then Taylor says, “You can get undressed. And you can get under the covers.”
“I am comfortable.”
“You look insane,” she says, turning to face me, her palms pressed together under her cheek.
If she were smiling, I would not be able to tell, the way her face is squished right now. I think for a moment that I bet she looked similarly when she slept as a child.
I sit up and pull my shoes off, putting them together against the wall. I unbuckle my belt and remove my pants, unbutton my shirt and stand to find a hanger in her closet for it.
From the bed, she chuckles.
“What?” I ask her, slipping the shirt onto the hanger.
“Nothing. You’re just…particular.”
The silence returns. My eyes move to the line of her body beneath the blanket. There is no visible change. I know it is too early. I know the child is smaller than anything I can picture clearly. Still, the knowledge of it alters everything.
Taylor follows my gaze. “You keep looking at my stomach.”
“Sorry.”
She hesitates, then takes my hand as I return to the bed. She places my palm low against her abdomen. The gesture surprises me enough that I do not breathe. “There’s nothing to feel yet,” she says.
I know. But I cannot answer. Her body is warm, her skin not as tan as when I met her now that she stays inside most days. Now that she lives in Russia. She is muscular and tight, and it is hard to imagine that she will stretch to make room for anything.
My hand looks too large there. Too rough. I have held weapons with steadier hands.
A strange pressure gathers behind my ribs. I feel compelled to lower my cheek to her stomach. Taylor goes still. I spread my hand over her, cradling what cannot yet be cradled.
Awe is not a sensation I have often permitted myself.
It makes a man vulnerable. So does terror.
I close my eyes. “My father liked children when they were small,” I say.
Taylor’s fingers move slowly through my hair.
“When they adored him without question,” I continue.
“When they were too young to see what he was.”
She says nothing.
“When I became old enough to disagree, he treated it as betrayal. Every decision was obedience or disloyalty. There was nothing between.” I turn my head but leave my hand where it is. “I have spent my life promising myself I would not become him.”
Taylor watches me carefully. “And now?”
“Now I know promises are simple. Fool’s errands,” I say. Her face softens, and I look away from the pity I see there. “I do not want to make this child afraid of me.”
The words are more difficult than any confession I have made.
Taylor’s hand settles against my cheek. “What do you want?”
I look down at her stomach. “I want them to be safe.”
Her mouth twists into a rueful smile. “So you see the problem.” A quiet laugh escapes her. “It’s the same one I’m having.”
I want to make her a promise right now, but I can’t think of anything true. I kiss her stomach instead and ask her, “What names are you thinking of?”
“I don’t know. Nothing too dramatic.”
“What qualifies as dramatic?”
“Oh, you know, like one of those composer names.”
“One of those composer names,” I scoff. “I am offended.”
She shrugs. “I like common names. Anna. Jack. It was easy to go through life as a Taylor.”
“You would give my child a common name?”
“Our child.” The correction is gentle.
“Our child,” I repeat. “How do you think your family will react?” I ask.
The smile fades. “My mother will cry.”
“Happy?” I ask sarcastically.
“Eventually.”
“And your father?”
“He’ll probably threaten to come here and kill you.”
“He may attempt it.”
“You sound excited.”
“I would like to meet him.”
“You bought his restaurant.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not going to help.”
“He does not have to know. I could return it.”
Taylor looks at me sharply. I force myself not to explain the legal complications. Not to tell her why returning it immediately would expose her family to the same creditors. Not to solve the next five problems before she has asked.
“Maybe on the condition that he promises not to kill me.”
She laughs, real, and my face bounces on her stomach. I move up beside her. Our faces are close now. The tension remains between us, but it is no longer only anger. It becomes something familiar. Heat threaded through fear.
I touch her cheek. She does not pull away. “May I kiss you?”
She nods, searching my eyes, and I kiss her gently. Her fingers curl against my chest. I deepen the kiss only when she pulls me closer.
We move carefully, as though rediscovering a language neither of us entirely trusts. My hands remain open against her body. Each time I touch her, I wait.
“You don’t have to be so careful,” she whispers.
“I do not know how to touch you without wanting to keep you.”
Taylor’s fingers still against my chest.