Chapter 15
LILIANA
Anton is here.
More than the burn in my throat and the roiling nausea in my stomach, the heat of his touch cuts through the shock. All the shock. From seeing him again after not expecting to. From learning that I’ll be a mother. That I am a mother already.
As of five minutes ago, when I rushed into the nearest CVS, bought a test, and took it in the bathroom there, I am a mother. The lines on the stick came up fast and bold, proof that I am, without a doubt, carrying a child.
Not just any child.
I close my eyes, staying as still as possible in the cold of the night. I will my lungs to fill with air, to chase away the breathlessness of vomiting.
His.
I’m carrying Anton Sokolov’s baby.
I force another swallow, hating the rawness of my throat.
It’s tender from rushing out here without a scarf, hat, or even a coat.
That’s how unsettled I was, desperate for a test and an answer to my suspicions.
Now it burns from the nausea that overpowered me.
And after the shock of that test, it was all just too much.
Puking on a sidewalk is never anyone’s finest moment. This embarrassment is the least of my concerns though.
“Easy,” Anton coaxes, rubbing my back.
He’s still holding on to me. Or rather, he’s holding me up. Curled over, breathing through this spell, clinging to the open flap of his overcoat, I open my eyes.
No.
Nothing about this will be easy.
Nothing about this is even processed or settled in my mind yet.
But I will not be counting on him. Not to hold me up and keep my hair from my face after I puked. Not to rub my back and offer me basic comfort.
I jerk up, nearly headbutting him in the chin with the top of my head. He leans out of the way, as if he anticipated me being this skittish and jerky.
“Easy,” he repeats.
Because of course he’d tell me that. Of course. He’s used to giving orders and having them obeyed.
He’s not the boss of me, though, just like that asshole at the bakery.
Ignoring the order to go easy, I shrug him off and wriggle out of his embrace.
“Liliana—”
“No.” I thrust my hand out, not only to ward him off but to regain my balance. “What—” I push out another deep exhale, dizzy from the quick rise after crouching over. “What are you even doing here?”
He stands close, his brow furrowed as he watches me. “I came to see you.”
Now?
After all this time?
On the precise day that I find out I’m pregnant with his child?
“I overheard you on the phone and…” He shakes his head, like he’s both annoyed and too uncomfortably vulnerable to explain anything. “I wanted to see you.” He licks his lips and huffs. His breath fogs in the air, reminding me of how cold it is, as if I could forget. “I want to see you.”
The correction matters. Wanted versus want.
Not past tense, as though I could’ve been on his mind since he left me in bed sleeping all those weeks ago.
But present tense. Like he’s eager to have me in his life again.
And if he wants me now, currently, that means he’ll need to know that he’s knocked me up.
I’m not even able to process that yet, let alone tell him.
I blink fast, the cold air stinging my eyes. My mouth opens and closes as I search for something, anything, to say.
This is all too new.
Too sudden.
Too big a secret to keep and still look like a functional adult capable of speech.
I’m surprised to see him at all. But crossing paths with him today, when I’m so nervous about what it means to be pregnant and carrying his child, I’m at a loss for a single word to say.
“I heard your voice and something clicked. I needed to see you.”
I shoot my hand up, letting those pieces snap together. “Wait.”
He frowns, watching me, maybe alarmed I might throw up again. The unspoken question is right there on his handsome face. He’s wondering why I did, itching to ask what’s going on. But I can’t allow that.
“You heard me.” I narrow my eyes, thinking back to how that could be. Replaying the day, I fly through the conversation with Jenni in the office, then Margarita suggesting I nap. Then my math, counting back the days until I bolted out of the bakery for a test.
I was delayed on the way, though. When Markus tried to stop me from leaving, to discuss the damn loan terms again…
Does Anton mean he heard me in the background?
I can’t form the words, too stuck on what that will mean.
He seems to see that I need the gaps filled.
“One of my men was on a phone call and I heard—”
I suck in air. It’s too cold. Icy and raw. It forces a rough swallow out of me, and I cough a little. Anton steps closer to hold me, likely worried I’m about to vomit again.
I swat his hand away and step back. I’m not sure how much shock a person can take in a day, or how many surprises a pregnant woman should have to tolerate, but I’m hitting my quota. My heart races as I stare at him.
He did hear me on that phone call. I was in the background, telling Markus to leave me alone, and here I’m supposed to accept that he’s one of Anton’s men. A member of his Bratva.
Oh, fuck…
I hold my hands out to ward him off, glowering, and shake my head. “Are you serious? You ordered someone to chase me? Stalk me?”
“No.” He screws up his face, scowling at me. “I’m not stalking you.”
“Looks that way to me!”
“I’m not stalking you, Liliana.” His face is colder. More serious. “I haven’t tried to contact you once since I left you naked and satisfied in my bed.”
His words chill me. The reminder that he’s had me, that he’s fucked me, is alarming. Because it’s not a reminder of the sex I couldn’t get enough of with him. It’s a reminder of the result those two hot nights left behind.
His baby.
In my womb.
“No.” I shake my head, defensive and too stuck in arguing with him and getting away from him to compromise.
“You didn’t just show up out of the blue.
This isn’t some crazy happenstance. You were looking for me.
” I clear my throat, desperate for water after throwing up.
I’m more anxious to get away from him though.
Backing up slowly, watching him carefully, I put more space between us.
“No, I heard your voice and—”
“And chased me down, expecting me to just be happy to see you?” I’m not quite at the decibel of screeching, but inside, I feel like screaming. Out of frustration. Out of nerves and fear. For God’s sake, I need a freaking minute to stop and think and process all that’s changed.
A black SUV pulls up to the curb. It slides in silent and sleek, a shadow easing up too close for comfort. Without a doubt, it’s his. It idles right there, inches away, and I panic that this conversation won’t be enough for him.
“Come with me,” he says, his voice level but still with that pushy command. “Come get warm and calm down.”
“I will not calm down,” I argue.
“You’re ill—”
“I’m not—” I growl, fisting my hands. “It’s none of your business what I am, dammit.” The second the words leave my mouth, I want to wince at how false they might be.
“Liliana. You’re frantic. Out here in the cold without a coat. And you just vomited.” He stretches his arm out, as if that gesture makes it final, that I must heed his wishes. “Come with me. Get in the car.”
Shaking my head, I back up. “No.”
“Liliana,” he warns. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t want your help,” I protest, careful to keep my distance from him. Passersby notice, men and women casting second glances at us as they walk by. I bet if I scream, I’d have backup from another older woman, a stranger who’d care just because women are supposed to look out for each other.
“I would like to help you, Liliana. As soon as I heard your voice again—”
“Stop. Stop saying that. You sound like a fucking stalker talking like that.” I can’t help my anger. I can’t tell if it’s hormones or the sheer exasperation of this day and night, but I snap without my usual filter.
Now that he’s repeated that bit, though, the detail shifts through my mind again.
He heard me on the phone while Markus took his call.
Markus called him sir, because he works for Anton, as a member of the Sokolov Bratva.
But I’m wrong.
I am making the mistake of thinking Anton dispatched Markus to find me because he’s stalking me and keeping tabs on me. But that’s not it. Markus isn’t anyone new. He’s been coming to the bakery for a while now because of the loan.
My jaw drops as it clicks.
It all adds up to one shitty conclusion.
Anton is the one who owns the bakery now. He’s the one I’m repaying.
That’s the final straw. The ultimate blow.
He owns me, in that regard. He has a hold over me with that loan I have to pay back for my parents.
But now, with the positive pregnancy test in my pocket, it’s almost like he owns and has another hold on me in a different, more life-altering way.
Intimidated and pissed that I’m losing control of my life to this man in two ways, I clamp my lips shut. Then I turn and run, fuming, wanting absolutely nothing to do with him while I figure out how to move forward with the child I’m carrying.
The child I’ll have on my own.
Because there’s no possibility that I’ll ever allow myself to let a man decide anything again.