“What did I promise?” I grunt, pulling the sheet further up over my lap.
“You said we’re going bag shopping today,” she says like it’s a legal contract. “For school next week. I need the perfect bag for my first day!”
I rub a hand down my face, stubble scratching my palm. She’s right. Damn it. Her excitement—those wide gray-blue eyes practically glowing about starting “real school” for the first time—hits me square in the chest. I kept her home for years, shielded from the world I run, but Bella’s voice kept echoing:She needs friends, needs normal.And I gave in, letting Alya have this, starting next week.
“You skipped lessons to go shopping?” I ask, raising a brow.
“I rescheduled them,” she says, matter-of-fact, like she’s alreadyPakhan.
“You let her do that?” I call out to her nanny, who’s been waiting outside the room.
“I tried to stop her, KonstantinYaroslavovich,” Mariya, Alya’s nanny shouts back from the hallway, already exasperated. “She said it was urgent.”
Christ. I rub my eyes.
Alya’s off the bed before I can say anything, already halfway to the door, her socks skidding across the floor like she’s practicing for the Olympics.
“Alya.”
She stops—but only because she’s calculating if she can outrun whatever I’m about to say.
I tilt my head. “You ate, so get ready to go. Shoes on, and you’re not hitting the stores in those glitter pajamas. Change into something that doesn’t blind me.”
She makes a face, one hand on her hip like she’s brokering a deal.
“These are cute, Papa. And I was gonna change! I just want the bag first!”
“Doesn’t work like that,” I say, voice low, steady. “Shoes. Clothes. Then we shop for that bag.”
“But you promised we’re going today,” she insists, her voice rising with 8-year-old fire, her excitement for school next week spilling over.
“And I don’t break promises,” I say, a smirk tugging at my lips despite myself. “But you don’t get to run this show. Go. Move.”
“Ugh, fine,” she mutters, already bolting down the hall.
From somewhere downstairs, Mariya bellows back, “They were not dry; they were perfectly fine,Alyushka!”
I stare at the door for a second, then sigh.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My body protests—too relaxed, too unfamiliar with softness. My spine doesn’t ache. My jaw isn’t tight. And it pisses me off how good that feels.
It was supposed to be just sex.
I told myself that when I pulled her into my bed. When I pulled her apart with my hands and mouth until she couldn’t think. I needed the release. Needed control.
Now that I’ve had her—my body craves more.
Which is precisely why I should’ve stopped.
Instead, I slept. Like a fucking fool. Slept so deeply I didn’t hear her leave.
And she’s hiding something.
She didn’t tell me about the phone call. The call from someone.
I stand, dragging the sheet off with me as I walk toward the bathroom. The wood is cool underfoot, smooth and silent, like it’s listening. I flick on the light.
The mirror stares back.
