“Don’t hurt my flowers,” she says as she leans away to look into his eyes. “They pretty.”
“They are beautiful and so are you,” he answers as he turns, his eyes meeting mine. I see the change in him. The way he hardens, his eyes growing more distant. “Sasha.”
“Dimitri,” I say back, unable to disguise the breathiness of fear, my palms spreading out on the wall for some measure of strength.
“Is everything all right?” Another male voice asks. This one too close for comfort.
Ryker. My eyes close as a wave of anxiety overtakes me. I’m trapped between the two of them with no way out. Physically. But also, some sense is telling me they are closing a much bigger net about me. “Anna,” I call to my niece, needing something, anything to hold onto.
She wiggles down from her father’s arms and runs to my side.
Reaching down, I sweep her into my arms. Living with her has been the only joy of staying with my brother instead of my father.
She wraps her arms about my neck and, holding her with one arm, I adjust the flower in her hair that Dimitri shifted out of place with his hug.
Just having her in my arms changes my energy. I relax as I breathe in her scent, feel her small hands on my skin. “Ya tebya lyublyu,” I whisper, having already taught her the Russian words forI love you.
She smiles at me. “I love you,” she whispers back in English. She doesn’t speak any Russian, even her English has been slow to develop, but the words still fill me with joy.
Ryker approaches slowly, stopping a few feet from us. “She looks like you,” he says, clearing his throat.
I’ve noticed it too, how much Anna resembles Katarina and myself, how like our mother we all appear. Dimitri joins me on my other side, his palm coming to his daughter’s back.
“Sasha, do you think you could take Anna into the back room with Ava? I need a word with Ryker.”
I already know what they need to talk about. My gaze shifts to the back door, half hoping to see my sister walk through. I’m afraid of what this day will bring if she doesn’t.
Where is Katarina and what happens if she’s found a way to slip this knot?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ryker
My fingers tightenaround the button of my tuxedo as Sasha’s gaze swings back to mine, her eyes filled with her questions and her fear.
Fuck me, but the look does something to my gut, making it tighten in a knot. I’m not supposed to feel anything for her.
Besides the attraction that’s been collecting in my balls.
That is meant to be a positive. Make it more pleasant to pass the time that we must remain in each other’s company.
I’m not supposed to like Sasha, though. I rarely get soft when it comes to women, but it’s something in the vulnerability of her position and her demeanor. She seems so fragile that she’s tugging at some unnamed emotion deep in my gut.
And then there’s the way she’s holding Dimitri’s daughter.
They’re in matching outfits, for fuck’s sake, Anna looking like a Sasha miniature, while Sasha holds the child like…
I blow out a breath. What was life like for Sasha when she was a little girl?
I nearly pop the button off, my jaw clenching granite-hard. I cannot get an attack of my conscience now.
I’m too far in and too many strings have been pulled for this puppet master to quit the show. There is nothing to do but see it through.
“Daddy?” Anna asks, her little hand flexing in the hair at the base of Sasha’s neck. Her hands are still a bit chubby, and Sasha responds by hugging the child tighter, kissing her velvet cheek.
“Yes, my love?” Dimitri leans in, kissing the child’s other cheek.
“Okey dokey?” she asks, her brow puckering into a frown.
