I stared at him in shock. Was he really asking my permission?
He was trying, I realized with a start, not with flowers or fancy gifts but with actual effort.
“I can help.” I was half out of my seat when he looked at me. “If you want me to,” I added quickly.
Slowly, a smile spread across Alexei’s face. “I’d love that, Amy, if you are feeling up to it.”
“I’m feeling up to it.” I returned his smile with one of my own. “Maybe we can talk about the future while we do it?”
Closing his hand around mine, Alexei brought it to his lips and kissed the back of it. “I would like that, Amy. I would like that a lot.”
He sounded so earnest that I almost told him about the file. I didn’t even know what stopped me. Maybe because I didn’t want to spoil the moment.
Tomorrow, when I had spoken to Kristoff properly, I would tell him everything, but until then, I just wanted to have a nice evening getting ready for our son to come home.
Chapter Forty-Two
Alexei
Today was the day our son came home, and I was so nervous that it felt like I was a kid again, and it was the first day of school. There was a kind of gnawing pit open in my stomach that made me fidget nervously from foot to foot with the huge bouquet of flowers in my hands as I waited for Amy.
Not that I thought flowers, even if I bought her a bunch every day for the rest of our lives, would make up for anything, but I had seen the smile on her face when I had given her some last night, and I wanted that smile again.
We would both smile today. Nicolai was coming home. Our family would be complete. All we had to do was wait for Amy to turn up, and we could go home and start our life as the family I wanted us to be.
On the other side of the room, the nurse flashed me a smile. “You look so nervous that I’m beginning to think this is a first date and not you guys taking home your baby. Who is perfect, by the way.” The grin she gave my son was full of adoration
Everyone loved Nikolai. Even tiny, he charmed everyone he met. He got that from his mom.
I was nervous, but not because this was our first date. We hadn’tactually had one of those yet, I realized with a start. And now that we had a newborn. I wasn’t sure when we would have time.
Make time, a small snarling voice growled in my brain, and the thought made me glance at the Rolex on my arm. The smile slipped from my face. Amy was late. Not just a little late, but almost an hour.
I tapped on the watch face like maybe there was some mistake, and my eyebrows slammed down. Amy would not be late today, even if there was traffic, she would have called. Or her driver would have. Today, I had made sure she had one.
Today was too important to our future to risk anything happening.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Maybe it was the tone of my voice, but the nurse’s easy smile slipped from her face to be replaced by a look of worry.
“Is everything OK, Mr. Petrovov?”
I was already pulling open the door when she asked, but I paused long enough to force myself to smile at her. “Of course. I just need to make a call.”
Of course, everything was OK. Today was going to be perfect. Only when I dialed Amy’s number, the call rang off. I tried again, and exactly the same happened. The nervous pit in my stomach opened into a gnawing pit.
Why wasn’t she answering her call?
Almost instantly, my mood went black. My whole body shook with the energy it took to keep my temper in check, but people noticed anyway. The couple in the elevator took one look at my face and quickly vacated. I slammed my thumb against the button.
Where the hell was my wife?
Had she run again? But even though I thought it, I knew that would never happen. She would never abandon her child.
Striding through the hospital lobby, I froze when I saw a familiar car outside. My pace picked up until I was standing right in front of the driver’s side window. Rapping my knuckles on the glass, I watched the man jump, a curse on his lips before he saw me standing there.
“Where is she?” I asked the moment he had opened the door a crack.
