I want this woman. I want to marry her. But first, I need the truth about Ava’s father.
“Just tell me,” I grunt. “I can handle it. It won’t change anything between us, Nenoka. I need to know.”
Nina shakes her head, the light shining over her dark hair, a smile spreading over her lips.
“You’re the father.”
For the first time in my life, I’m lost for words. I must have misheard her. Or developed some form of auditory hallucination.
“What do you mean?” I ask slowly.
Her words are spreading through my body like pure ecstasy, making me want to shout for joy, but I can’t let myself believe them. This is too good to be true.
“What do you mean, Nenoka?” I repeat, my voice rougher, more urgent.
Nina brushes her thumb over my cheek gently, tenderly, and I want to bottle up that sensation and keep it with me at all times. It’s like she’s come back to me.
I’m not the subject of her resentment, her suspicion, but only the warmth of her love. For the first time in a long time, she’sholding me like I am someone precious to her, not like I’m an addiction she can’t shake.
“Artyom Vassily Petrov. I have never thought of you as a stupid man, but I do right now.”
I do the maths. Slowly. Repetitively. Double-checking, then triple-checking.
I let myself believe it. Because it must be true.
When Nina left me, she was pregnant with Ava.
“Ava is mine. I have a daughter.”
Nina nods, stroking my cheek with her hand before she rises up on her toes to kiss me. She tastes sweet, her touch tentative and gentle. One of the walls between us has broken down.
But the burst of pure joy in my chest mingles with confusion as I hold her.
All this time, I’ve been searching for the father of Nina’s child, imagining how I would tear him apart for hurting them both, and it never occurred to me. I shrugged off Vanya’s pronouncement that Ava was mine.
Because she would have told me.
Why didn’t she?
“Congratulations, genius,” Nina chuckles as I pull back from the kiss, processing what this means.
She’s smiling like it’s a joke. Like this doesn’t change anything.
It changes everything. This uphill battle I’ve been fighting doesn’t need to be uphill.
This should have happened five fucking years ago, but I can make it happen now.
I feel in my pocket. The familiar hunk of metal is still there, where it’s been waiting for her for five years.
This was not the plan.
But goddammit, if this woman has had my child without telling me, then she’s going to wear my ring.
“We’re getting married.”
I shove the engagement ring onto Nina’s finger. It’s a perfect fit. Good. Because it’s never coming off her finger.
My voice is rougher than it should be. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I’m equal parts overjoyed and overwhelmed.
