She opened the bag and pulled out the most beautiful cocktail dress she’d ever laid eyes on. It was simply cut with an empire waist and belled three-quarter length sleeves. But its shape was the only simple thing about it. It consisted of metallic gold lace with large fuchsia and gold buttons in the back that were either made from real Swarovski crystals or doing the best imitation she’d ever seen. If Russia still had tsarinas, it looked exactly like what one would wear to a Very Important Event.
Where the hell was Nikolai taking her? The Oscars!? She got out her phone and pushed Isaac’s contact number. No answer. But less than two minutes later, he texted, “Sorry. Swamped. Is it important? I can call you back later.”
“No need to call,” she typed back. “Just need the details for tomorrow’s event.”
“Okay, will try to get that to you before I go home tonight.”
But the night came and went with no texts from Isaac whatsoever.
Nikolai came to bed—or in this case, the floor—earlier than usual and she thought about asking him about it. But instead, she just stared at his back, unable to figure out how to cross the distance between them enough to even ask a simple question.
Things had been so awkward between them over the past two weeks. Him continuing to sleep on the floor. Her feeling like an idiot because now that her first trimester morning sickness phase had passed, she was in the second trimester “lots of energy” phase with a hot side of “ooh, what’s that you say, pregnancy hormones? You’re feeling weirdly horny?”
You’d think now that he was no longer playing hockey, some of that heavy muscle would have turned into fat. But no, he was still cut all the way up in a way that made her body scream to purposefully fall on top of him whenever one of her increasingly frequent late night sex dreams were interrupted by a need to go to bathroom. She’d never been so tempted in her life to ignore her counseling background and just go on ahead and let a man use her as his toy.
But she couldn’t get back in the bed. She had a degree in psychology, for God’s sake. She knew his sleeping on the floor was a total manipulation, designed to get her to agree to be his marital fuck buddy until he got tired of her and moved on to someone else. Probably as soon as she was big as a house and no longer appealing to him.
No, she decided, squeezing her eyes shut against the sight of his heavily muscled back. Better to let things remain as they were. She wouldn’t be moving back into the bed, no matter how many times she had to step over Nikolai’s ridiculously gorgeous and totally magnificent body.
She’d never surrender.
She fell asleep with that mutinous thought and when she opened her eyes again, Nikolai’s floor pallet was gone. Cleaned up and put away like he’d never been there.
After showering and putting on her new maternity yoga pants and t-shirt, she knocked on Pavel’s door… but didn’t get an answer.
Strange, but sometimes he woke up and went downstairs to hang out with Back Up in the TV room. A chance to veg out with the TV, which he wasn’t allowed to do much these days now that he lived with Sam and her “one hour of TV per day” rule.
But when she went downstairs, he wasn’t in the TV room. She tried the kitchen next, and the sight of the empty room caused Sam’s heart to flip over inside her chest. What if Marco had been wrong about the Russian who had tried to kill Pavel being permanently gone? What if the thug had come back and somehow managed to make his way past Nikolai’s security system? What if…?
In the distance, she heard the sound of Back Up’s feet, nails clicking against the foyer’s floors, along with the pant that came after a good, brisk walk around the neighborhood.
Relief flooded through Sam, even as she went out to the foyer to chastise Pavel for taking Back Up out without her. He’d been hinting that he wanted to do this for weeks now, but she’d been clear with him about the importance of having an adult along when he took the dog for her walks.
But when she came into the foyer, it wasn’t Pavel she found holding Back Up’s leash, it was Nikolai. Nikolai let the dog off her leash as if they were old friends, before producing a treat out of his pocket and saying something to her in what sounded like halfway affectionate Russian as he let her eat it out of his hand.
For a moment Sam could only stare. How could he make a heavy sweater worn over a denim shirt look so appealing? He should have been less attractive outside his usual work wear. But this much more casual look made her breath quicken, and she suddenly became hyper aware of her own heartbeat, thumping loud and fast as her entire body clenched hard with lust.
All because he’d walked the dog.
Stupid pregnancy hormones, she muttered to herself, before forcing herself to focus on Pavel who was hanging up his anorak on a coat rack.
“So you guys took Back Up out for a walk without me? I’m so hurt,” she said to the little boy.
She was just teasing, but a stricken look came over Pavel’s face. “Don’t be angry, Mama, and I’m sorry for skipping yoga, but Dad and me had some stuff we needed to talk about.”
“Dad?” Sam asked. When had Pavel started calling Nikolai dad?
Nikolai stood. “My lawyer called. Our official court date to adopt Pavel is in two weeks, day after our ultrasound. So I tell Pavel he must decide what to call me. Fedya is his father and will always be his father, but I will be his father, too.”
“So I’m going to call him Dad, not Papa,” Pavel told her. “That way my papa in heaven won’t be mad, right?”
“Right,” Sam agreed, as her heart swelled with happiness. Pavel deserved no less than a male guardian who not only wanted to be his legal father, but his father in name, too. “That’s great. Really great. I’m glad you guys were able to come to good compromise on that.”
“Yeah, and maybe Uncle—I mean Dad, you, and me can all go to the Children’s Museum after our court date. He still hasn’t been, you know,” Pavel said. “Dad can we do that? All of us go together?”
Pavel put a strange amount of emphasis on the word ‘together,’ Sam noticed, and Nikolai seemed to be giving the boy a censoring look as he said, “I will talk with your mother about it on plane tonight. Right now, it is time you go become ready for school.”
“Okay, Dad,” Pavel agreed with a goofy grin. It was easy to tell Sam wasn’t the only one who was elated Nikolai had made his claim on Pavel official. The boy ran up the stairs to his room and Back Up, who apparently never got tired of watching Pavel do mundane things like getting dressed, quickly followed.