She layered up in a tank top and cardigan thing and a different pair of jeans and went exploring.There wasn’t anyone stationed outside her room, but she didn’t thinkfor a second that she could walk out of here without some kind of tail attached.Ifthey even let her leave at all.
No, Romanov wasn’t that different from her brothers after all.
The hallway twisted strangely, and she wondered again who had decided that converting old apartments was a good way to go about building a freaking mansion in New York.Someone with something to prove.
The second floor was consigned to guest rooms.After the third door opened into one decorated similarly to hers, she gave up and went to the stairs.Dmitri’s study was on the first floor, and she wasn’t ready to face him again.Keira wasn’t sure who gained the point for the win in their last conversation.He’d agreed to let her train and not to force her, but… she hadn’t really thought he’d force her to begin with.If he was the kind of man to do that shit, it would have already happened.She’d sure as hell put herself in vulnerable positions with him over and over again.
Theywouldhave sex.It was a given—had been a given since the moment she set eyes on him.
Keira stopped at the top of the stairs and tried to picture how the hellthatwould go.She wasn’t a virgin.Far from it.But Dmitri wasn’t some blitzed guy in the back of a club.He was… a different animal altogether.He’d touched her once in the backseat of his town car, and the look on his face hadn’t been controlled or locked down.He’d seemed half a second from taking her right then and there.
And then he’d shut it all down.
Would holding out drive him into a frenzy?
She shivered, her skin prickling at the thought.It didn’t matter what Dmitri wanted.He wouldn’t force her, andshe’d be damned before she traded away her only advantage before she was good and ready to.
No matter how sexy the Russian was.
Determined to put it out of her mind, she moved down the hallway.It was shorter than the one on the second floor, broken up only by two closed doors and ending in a third.Keira poked her head into the first.Her stomach did a slow flip at the sight of the crib positioned in the corner.She stepped into the dim room, taking in the rocking chair sitting at an angle to the crib, the changing table on the other side of that.The other half of the wide room was devoted to the next age group up.There was a teepee with pillows scattered inside it, a low bookshelf with kid-appropriate board books, and even an easel with tiny paints and colored pencils.All of it untouched as if just waiting for a child.
Herchild.
She pressed her hand to her stomach.She wasn’t even sure she wanted kids.Fuck, she was only twenty-one.If shedidwant them, she didn’t want themnow.She’d been sober all of a few days.Hot messdid not begin to cover the shit show that was her life.
This nursery wasn’t something Dmitri had set up—of that, she was sure.It had the feeling of love, even tenderness.The sheets in the crib and the pillows were new, but the books had creases in their spines where they’d been read repeatedly, and there was a person-sized dent in the seat of the rocking chair.
Was this… Dmitri’s nursery?As in the one he’d grown up in?
She spun on her heel and marched out of the room.The concept of Dmitri as a child freaked her the fuck out, and she didn’t like how strange she felt when she pictured himthere.Maybe it had been set up for his niece?The fact that Dmitri’s half sister Olivia and her daughter were now living with Cillian O’Malley was just one more thorn in Romanov’s side.Hadley had the look of her uncle.It wasn’t any particular feature, but sometimes she got a calculating expression on her face that screamed Dmitri.I bet he was a little shit when he was a kid.
She stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind her.It was only then that she realized she wasn’t alone.“Don’t you have something better to do than skulk around here?”
Dmitri raised his brows.“I’m not skulking.”
“You are the very definition of skulking.”She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.“Didn’t anyone tell you that nurseries are creepy as fuck?I bet it’s haunted.”
If anything, his amusement deepened.“I have it on the best of authority that there are no resident spirits in the nursery—or elsewhere.”
She tried to picture Dmitri hiring a supernatural expert and failed.“What did you do?Bring in a ghost hunter to exorcise this place?Because it’s actually a really good idea.Think I could hire one to take care of the O’Malley house?There are definitely some bad vibes there.”She realized that it wouldn’t matter if those bad vibes were gone, because she’d never be going back, and wilted.Damn it, no.I am not some princess who was tricked into captivity.I chose this.Andno onecan keep me against my will.
Dmitri turned and moved to the door just down the hall from the nursery.“Give me some credit.If I were going to exorcise anything, I’d hire a priest.”
“How very orthodox of you.”She followed him, drawn closer as if he’d attached a magnet around her middle.Or lower.
He looked more relaxed today than she’d ever seen him.His dark hair was slightly rumpled, as if he’d run his hands through it, his dark gray shirt unbuttoned two more than normal.Not that she noticed how far up he buttoned his shirts.That would be the height of insanity.His lips quirked in something of a mocking smile.“You like what you see.”
“You’re not ugly.Stop pretending you don’t know it.No one likes a pretty person who fishes for compliments.”
“Ah, but it’s different when it’s my wife complimenting me.”He practically purred the words.
Keira opened her mouth to tell him to shove right off, but reconsidered.What was that saying?Catch more flies with honey or some shit?She smiled sweetly.“I’m going to begin Krav Maga lessons next week.Find me a suitable gym by then.”She hesitated and forced out, “Please.”
“Of course.I have one already in the process of being prepared.”
In the process of being prepared.She wasn’t going to touchthatwith a ten-foot pole.She hesitated when Dmitri walked into the second room, but curiosity got the better of her, and she followed.
The master suite.
