Chapter 16 Amber
AMBER
Caring for babies changed time. The days could feel so exhaustingly long and endless if they were fussy and impossible to please.
The nights could seem so short and fleeting in terms of good rest. But the weeks blurred by.
Months zoomed past in a blink of the eye.
I bet years would seem too cruelly brief, too.
Already, Emily and Henry were nearing their half birthdays.
“How are they five months old already?” I asked Lorne as he pushed the stroller for Emily while I wore Henry in the baby carrier strapped to my chest. Stroking my hand over the soft blond hair of Roman’s son, I smiled at Emily shaking a rattle-like toy.
Lorne chuckled. Snow fell and floated around us as we walked through Central Park.
“Wait ’til they’re five. You’ll be thinking they were just born yesterday.”
I smiled at him, so glad this assistant went above and beyond in the Orlov employ.
He was like a stand-in grandpa because Mikhail seemed too young to be grandfatherly himself, although he was now, since Sofia gave birth to a daughter that they’d named Esme, after Sofia’s cousin who sadly had come so close to passing away before Thanksgiving but was still with us and hanging on to fight cancer until the very end.
Lorne explained a while back that he’d had a son once. Unfortunately, he was killed in a train accident while overseas. Sometimes, I wondered if the old man who claimed to have been working for the “big boss” forever stayed because they weren’t only employees, but family.
It was too easy to fall into that trap. I was deluding myself every day that I stayed as Emily and Henry’s nanny that I wasn’t family. With every night that I slept with Roman in his bed that I wasn’t part of his circle.
Lorne’s saying something like that had me pausing, though.
Do you see me being here in five years?
With all of you?
Roman’s penthouse felt like home. Emily and Henry seemed like my children. While Roman and I never, ever discussed terms of relationships, we didn’t have to. We behaved like an exclusive pair of souls who couldn’t get over the addictive sex.
All those fallacies posed a risk. Any day now, reality could come crashing down on me. I knew that—in the back of my mind. So long as I took every day and night, every minute as a blessing to appreciate in the present, those fears weren’t loud or big enough to intimidate me.
Almost two months had passed since I woke up and saw that intruder in the darkness. Roman didn’t offer many details or closure, only saying that the Orlovs’ security team was on it. And I trusted that it was.
Over all those weeks, I’d fallen further into being a part of the household.
Esme’s birth wasn’t easy. Maisie’s growing jealousy over more babies in the family posed complications.
Owen struggled to get over a nasty round of the flu, which worried us all.
Esmeralda’s worsening health reminded us all that her death was a sad but expected time to deal with, and Natalie’s pregnancy landed her in bed rest for a while.
That was just what I saw and was involved with as “one of the women”.
All the Orlov men were busy with… well, whatever they did.
That was why when I admitted that I’d never been to Central Park before that Roman insisted on bringing me out there. We had a carriage ride, which was thoroughly romantic—and naughty—since he’d paid the driver to give us privacy so we could have a quickie.
Money wouldn’t impress me. William was wealthy, and I saw how he used his riches for ill gains.
The Orlovs were loaded, too, but I was pleased that Roman only ever flaunted it for “good” favors and privileges.
Like a quickie in a carriage in Central Park with light snow floating down through the nighttime sky.
I didn’t stay in the building all the time anymore, either. Anya would come with me to go to lunch now and then. Or we’d stop at a store to look at things for the twins. Claire and I went to the salon one time to get a pedicure.
For the most part, I stayed inside because I liked to. It was easier to watch the twins there. The buildings in the Orlovs’ block had ample outdoor spots. I wasn’t closed up and trapped inside, but I proved how much I was a homebody with the adorable babies I was helping Roman raise.
I was only out here now with Lorne because of Roman’s insistence.
He’d been working in his home office, on calls, but no matter what I tried to do, the twins weren’t quiet.
Babbling and laughing easily twisted into fussing and crying.
At my wit’s end, I suggested taking them on a walk.
Roman reminded me that I had to go with Lorne.
Not just Lorne, but three other Orlov guards. Still, all this time, I wondered why the Orlovs had such security. And why. I didn’t ever protest, though, because knowing Roman’s guards were with me meant that I’d have that layer of protection from William or his friends.
“You ever think about having kids?” Lorne asked.
I smiled. Making small talk with this grizzly gentleman was one more thing I didn’t want to take for granted. “Of course.”
His question wasn’t really out of the blue, but when I looked at him, he wasn’t sporting his usual carefree smirk or smile. His eyes were focused, like he was concentrating too hard for a simple little chat.
“I grew up babysitting a lot,” I said, still leaning on the lies I’d told when I went to that agency for a job all those months ago. It was partly true. In those years until William wanted to adopt me, I helped so many foster parents and orphanage caretakers tend to the younger ones.
“But I’m perfectly content with these two,” I added, smiling down at Henry bundled up in the carrier on my chest. His eyes were already looking sleepy as he blinked more often and slower.
A guard leaned forward from following us and whispered something in Lorne’s ear. He shook his head but lifted a finger. “You got names picked out?”
I laughed. “Names?”
He seemed to dismiss whatever the guard said, wanting to keep chatting with me. “Yeah. Names for the redheaded babies you’ll have.”
I smiled. “No. I haven’t projected that far ahead.” I had spent too much of my life trying to survive from one minute to the next.
While he kept up an easygoing chitchat about all the horrible potential names Andre, Sergei, and Mikhail had hated while their wives were pregnant, I watched the people in the park and took in the fresh, albeit cold, air.
And that was when I noticed it.
Two men were following us.
Dressed in street clothes and not standing out with coats, hats, and gloves like everyone else wore outside in the elements, they shouldn’t have stood out.
But the way they always kept me in sight unnerved me.
I noticed it when Lorne said he wanted a hot cocoa and we stood in line at a street cart.
Then I picked up on the two men in the background again when I lowered Henry out of the baby carrier to put him in the stroller next to Emily, since he was asleep and my back was starting to ache.
Once more, when we walked past the playground in case Emily might like to be on the swing, I spotted them again.
They were following me. Stalking me. And my mind instantly shot to one fear.
William.
He knew I was here. He had men tailing me. While I didn’t recognize the thugs, I was certain that they had to be friends of my adoptive father.
“You all right?” Lorne asked.
I blinked quickly and masked my frown. “Yeah. It’s just… It’s getting colder, isn’t it?”
Shit. I sounded so breathy and startled, my voice too high-pitched.
“I don’t want them to be too chilly,” I said of the twins. Even though they had layers on. More blankets waited in the bags beneath their carriers on the strollers, and neither of them fussed or acted like they were uncomfortable.
“Sure, Sure.” Lorne nodded, not betraying any emotion. “Want to go? We can stop at that bakery you liked that one time, grab a little something on the way uptown?”
I shook my head, too panicked to be out and about at all.
The twins were here. Lorne and the guards. If anyone from my past was seeking me out, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if any of them were hurt.
How can he still be watching for me?
How can he be this close?
William had faded to the back of my mind all these months I’d been working for Roman and sleeping with him. But he wasn’t gone. He was still a threat who’d loom at large in this city.
“I’d like to go home.”
Home? The last one I’d actually had was the mansion with William. Roman’s residence was my place of employment despite how it felt like where I belonged.
“I’d like to take the twins home,” I said quickly, knowing that was accurate.
“Sure thing,” Lorne replied. He gestured to the guards, and we all turned toward where the car was.
I realized we were walking in a different route, though, and I grew more scared that we were further from safety than I preferred. “I thought the car was back that way,” I told Lorne.
He shook his head. “I texted the driver to have it closer.” He smiled. “Getting cold for my old bones. I thought we’d all appreciate having our ride near for when we wanted to go.”
I nodded and frowned again. “You should’ve told me,” I chastised. “I don’t want you to be too cold.”
He patted my hand that I kept on the stroller handle. “It’s all right, Amber.”
I felt like nothing was all right with those men tailing me.
Clutching the stroller closer as I pushed the twins, I wished I could crouch over and shield them completely.
Fear consumed me, and I counted down the time until we could be back at the building.
Until I could be with Roman again and share my fears with him.
The guards were here. Lorne, too. But those men were following me. This was my problem, not theirs, and I hated that I was a risk to anyone at all.
We reached the car and got in. The driver had the backseat so warm and toasty. But it was too much. I felt claustrophobic with my coat and scarf and hat. I felt too warm with the adrenaline rush of fear.
I didn’t speak on the way to the building, but as the car traveled through the city, I checked again and again on Emily and Henry.
They were napping in their carriers, buckled in and safe, blissfully unaware that I was afraid, and I was glad for it.
They were only babies, but they spent most of their time with me.
They were attuned to me, smiling when I grinned at them, serious when I was pensive.
Their social cues were being shaped by me simply because I was their most consistent caregiver aside from Roman, and I didn’t want them to be exposed to how nervous I looked.
I covered it, or I hoped I did, but nothing would calm me until they were back home, far from anyone following them in the park.
At last, we were there. Lorne offered to come with me to the penthouse, but I shook my head in the elevator. “No, it’s fine,” I said.
“You sure?” he asked. “I’ve got something to check, but it can wait.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m fine in here.”
He smiled and told me that he’d see me later, and the elevator closed. Shutting my eyes, I exhaled a deep breath to steady my nerves.
“You’re home,” I whispered as the elevator car shot up.
“You’re home and no one’s going to follow you,” I said quietly, knowing the twins couldn’t hear my reassurances.
“You’re safe,” I told them as the elevator stopped at Roman’s penthouse.
I opened my eyes with relief, seeing that they were still napping, content and comfy in the stroller as the elevator doors slid open. Roman’s home was revealed, and I didn’t waste a second to get off and push the double stroller inside.
They were safe.
But I was stupid to dupe myself into thinking I ever would be, even under Roman’s protection.
I could hide in here with a new life and purpose, one that seemed like a dream come true, but with William alive and seeking me out, I’d never, ever be safe from the secrets in my past.
Roman stepped out of his office, smiling at me. “Good walk?”
No. The worst, actually.
I frowned and rushed toward him.