Chapter 6
LEAH
I’m here at the gala, just like I promised. I don't want to be; this is not my scene. I wasn’t kidding the other night on the phone with Suzie.
Not that I don't like being around lawyers. My mom was a lawyer, my best friend is a lawyer, and I hope to be a lawyer someday, too. Hell, I work in a law firm, so I'm surrounded by lawyers all day long.
What I dislike is the aspects of people’s personalities that emerge at events like these.
They’re supposed to be all about the charity and raising money to do something positive.
Instead, it becomes about posturing and showing everyone else just how generous they are, which equals the amount of money they bring in.
Then there are the obligatory stories of winning cases, of cases that financed a trip to the Caymans, wins that made the biggest headlines.
So not my thing. But it is Suzie’s. She's the social butterfly to my introspective wallflower.
Walking through the room with her is like walking Benji—he likes to stop every five feet to sniff and greet anyone and everyone.
Suzie is the same way as we make our way across the room, stopping to talk to every other person, so I just end up bored, wishing I were anywhere else.
I'm wondering if I can fake a call from Jade and come up with some mysterious non-serious illness for Eliza, so I have a reason to leave.
I tug at Suzie’s sleeve and nod my head in the direction of the restroom, and I don’t wait for her reply before I head off, squeezing through the press of bodies in haute couture.
The restroom is opulent enough to have a “powder room,” and into one of those chairs I gratefully sink. I'm going to stay here until Suzie finally realizes I'm gone and comes looking for me.
I’ll give her some excuse, like I was feeling lightheaded, even though it's not too far off. I’m not feeling fantastic today.
My energy is pretty much zero, and I could be hungry, but also, the food doesn’t look remotely appetizing, no matter how high the price tag is on one of the simple appetizers.
I’ve been feeling off for a couple of weeks, but I’ve tried to push it away.
Blame it on stress, lack of sleep. I know deep down that’s not it, but I take a few deep breaths and push the thoughts away.
I scroll through my phone for a bit, checking my social media.
Most of the accounts I follow are just cute animals; I'd rather keep up with them than with most people.
I hang out in the bathroom until I'm bored. Suzie must have found someone else to talk to because she hasn't come looking for me yet.
I slip out and walk around the edge of the room to the place where they have a few puppies to show everyone where their donations are going.
Predictably, no one is looking at the animals.
Volunteers are sitting in the pen, entertaining the puppies.
The volunteers look up as I approach, smiling because someone is actually paying attention to them.
“Can I come in?” I ask.
“You can, but these are puppies, so they're not going to be gentle with your dress.”
“That's fine. It was on sale anyway. “
The two young women volunteering smile at me, and it makes my night when the puppies swarm over to me, tiny tails wagging, mouths open in grins of puppy joy.
I spend my time playing with the puppies and talking to the volunteers until Suzie finally misses me and seeks me out.
“Seriously?” she asks, hands planted on her hips. “I've been looking for you for fifteen minutes, but I should have known.”
“Oh, come on. You know this is exactly where you’d be if this didn’t have to deal with the law firm tonight.” Suzie sticks her tongue out at me, but we both know the truth. If she had more time, she'd probably have an entire farm of Great Danes. And Eliza and I would be right there with her.
“Well,” I say, “looks like there’s no way I'm getting up.” I gesture to the puppy sprawled across my lap, fast asleep.
“Put the puppy down. We still have some networking to do. Don’t you want to make connections before you apply to law school?”
"What I want to do is spend the entire night with these puppies, and you can just come get me when you're done doing your thing."
Suzie makes a face, and I bite the inside of my cheek because I know arguing won’t do any good at this point.
I'm just standing up after handing the sleeping puppy to one of the volunteers and brushing fur from my dress when a literal shadow falls over the proceedings. I only have a moment to look up before my heart plummets. I should have run when I had the chance.
Suzie sees my expression and turns; she blanches and looks back at me with a look of horror on her face as if to say, Oh, shit. They’re here? But I already knew. I spotted them the minute they walked in.
"Figures I would find you over here with the dogs." The voice is nasty, and so is the sneer behind it.
A woman stands in front of me. She's tall, willowy, and dressed in the latest fashion. I think I saw that exact dress the last time Eliza and I window-shopped at Saks.
She's beautiful in a frozen sort of way. High cheekbones, silver-blonde hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck, diamonds glittering at her ears and throat. The glimmer in her eyes of cruelty, judgment, and hatred is just as cold as the diamonds.
"Clarissa," I greet her.
My eyes slide to the man in the wheelchair beside her. The man whom I remember standing so tall and strong, the man who I’d put my entire life on hold for, even though he’d cheated on me for months before his accident.
Peter looks diminished in his wheelchair, and it’s not because he's permanently seated. He looks shrunken, angry, and bitter, his carved cheeks sunken, his skin sallow. Even his crisp button-down is oversized on what was once a broad frame.
"Leah." Clarissa has a smirk on her face to match Peter’s sullen glare. "I'm surprised you're here."
I wasn't planning to ask because I know I wouldn't like the answer. But Suzie does, ever my white knight and most ardent defender.
"Why surprised?"
"Because everyone here knows what she did—abandoning Peter when he needed her the most. What kind of monster abandons their fiancé after a car accident paralyzed him?"
From the corner of my eye, I see the animal shelter volunteers exchanging startled looks. Suzie steps up to my side and winds her arm through mine, giving me physical as well as emotional support.
I take a deep breath to steady myself and the nausea roiling in my stomach.
"Might I remind you that I was there through everything?
You were in Switzerland, skiing when the accident happened.
I never left Peter's side; I even slept in the hospital for weeks while Suzie took care of Eliza.
I was there through all his physical therapy, taking him to his appointments, making sure he did his exercises at home, even though he'd yell at me the entire time.
I even moved to a new place with him that was wheelchair accessible.
I did the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, caring for him, even though he hated me for it.
I took a sabbatical just to be able to take care of him.
And for all of that, he yelled at me, he called me names, he told me I was worthless, and he blamed me for everything.
And then I find out he'd been cheating on me for the entirety of our relationship, that the woman who died in the car accident with him wasn't a work colleague or a friend, but his girlfriend. "
Clarissa tries to take a breath, no doubt to refute what I'm saying and continue to spread the lies about me that have been circulating. That she’s circulated. But a single glare from Suzie shuts her up.
"Of course, I left after that. If you and your son weren't going to respect me and my daughter, I wasn’t sticking around. I refuse to let her believe it's okay to be treated that way, no matter the circumstances."
I switch my gaze to Peter, and I'm satisfied when he looks away. His discomfort doesn't stop me from saying what I want to say. "You might have taken three good years from me, and wasted them all, but you sure as hell couldn't take my dignity, even though you tried."
Peter still won't look at me, and though I don't smile, a slight flare of triumph starts up in the center of my chest. Suzie squeezes my arm, letting me know she's proud of me. And behind me, I see the two volunteers exchange a very different kind of look this time.
I'm about to thank them for letting me spend time with the puppies before I escape for the evening, when something over Clarissa's shoulder catches my eye.
She's winding up to respond to me, when a tall, striking man with perfectly tousled, wavy salt-and-pepper hair steps up beside my adversary.
He's wearing an incredible cobalt-blue suit that sets off his blue eyes, which meet mine in a stark moment that steals my breath before he turns to Clarissa.
He looks furious, and I suddenly can't breathe, my entire body stiffening in response. Suzie feels the change because her arm tightens around mine.
"What's wrong?" she whispers in my ear. I can't answer; I'm still staring at Viktor, wondering why the hell he suddenly showed up here.
"Is there a problem?" he asks, his gaze splitting from Clarissa to Peter to me for half a heartbeat and back.
"Viktor." Clarissa's frigid greeting might as well be a sneer. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"On an invite from my law firm. They know how important I find it to support the care of animals."
Clarissa snorts. "It figures. You'd rather support the animals than take care of your wife and son."
"You’re the one who left." There's a subtle current of anger in Viktor's words, and his tone has grown chillingly quiet.
Even the puppies have fallen silent in their pen in response to the quiet menace radiating from the man.
"You took our son and wouldn't let him near me.
You spoiled him and turned him against me. "
"I'm not spoiled, you son of a bitch," Peter says, speaking for the first time.
I suddenly feel faint, my head spinning with all the information flying at me, too many things becoming clear in too short a time.
"I have to—" I'm already moving, dragging Suzie with me. "I'm going to—"
I start running and barely make it to the toilet in time to heave up what little I'd eaten this evening. Suzie's heels tap on the marble flooring as she catches up to me and pulls my hair back while I continue to wretch.
I expect her to make some joke about repeating our college days, but she remains silent. She's quiet until I'm seated in one of the chairs in the powder room again, and she hands me a wet paper towel to use on my head and neck.
"So you want to tell me what the hell is going on?" She drops into the other chair and crosses her arms over her chest.
"That's the guy," I finally manage.
"What guy?" Suzie sounds annoyed as she looks, her eyes narrowing at my cryptic response. But her eyes widen in a snap. "That guy? That guy? He's the mystery man you spent the wild night with?"
I nod miserably because it's painfully obvious who that guy is after everything that's come to light in the past fifteen minutes.
"Leah, are you nuts? That's Viktor Antonov, Clarissa ex-husband. The Bratva boss."
"I didn't know that when we ran into each other and he asked me out. How was I supposed to know? Clarissa goes by her maiden name. And so does Peter."
"Oh, shit, Leah." Suzie drags her hand down her face. "You had no idea he was Peter's dad?"
"No. Peter mentioned his dad was a mobster, but I just figured he was some lowlife who left them when Peter was a kid. He never mentioned his name, not even once. There weren't any pictures, and there sure as hell weren't any conversations about him. "
"That... this is so bad." Suzie doesn't even know how bad it is yet.
"Okay, well," she takes a deep breath and sits up straight, slapping her thighs. A look of determination overcomes her shock. "It was just one night with him. He hasn't contacted you in two months, and you'll never have to see him again if you don’t want to."
Suzie looks to me expectantly, but her face falls when I don't respond, and she sees my expression. "What?" she asks with dread.
"That's not it," I say quietly, biting on my lower lip until it hurts. "I, uhh—"
Jesus, just say it!
"I think I might be pregnant."
Suzie stares at me, for once in her life, entirely out of words. "Are you serious?" she shrieks.
"Shhh!"
"When were you going to tell me?" Suzie hisses, somewhere between disappointment and complete shock.
"I was going to tell you once I confirmed it," I admit. "I’ve been feeling off lately, and I’m over a month late on my period. I’ve tried to reason it away, but I know the signs. I just wasn’t ready for it to be true just yet."
Suzie stares at me. "Do you think you should tell him since he’s here now?"
"No, absolutely not. Especially not now that I know who he is. Besides, I've raised a kid alone before; I can do it again."
Suzie's jaw clenches. "We are not done talking about this. But right now, let's get you out of here and home.”