NATALIE
Anya showed Maisie another pattern of notes, gently correcting her on where the middle C was located on the keyboard of the expensive instrument.
It was cute. It was so stinking adorable seeing Maisie all dedicated and eager to learn and impress. She knew her alphabet and was already so advanced in reading and writing—for a four-year-old. It blew my mind that she’d learn the language of music, too.
And I never could’ve given you lessons or afforded this experience on my own, baby girl.
Sitting in the back of the large room where the grand piano was located in Mikhail, Claire, and Anya’s building, I smiled and enjoyed the gift of seeing Maisie beam with pride under Anya’s tutoring. I watched her frown in concentration, moving her mouth to sound out the letters of the keys she wanted.
They’d done these lessons just a couple of times a week now, and Maisie was hooked.
Feeling the need to move around, and slightly restless because Claire hadn’t come back yet and I was without a chance to talk to her, one-on-one, with any advice she could give me on starting and sticking with a real relationship with an Orlov mobster, I stood and told them I was heading out to the balcony for fresh air.
It was cold, so close to the holidays that I wasn’t sure when I could ask Sergei about getting a tree for his penthouse. But on this balcony, the heaters did their job. Chaise chairs and a bistro table with stools stood ready to be used, but I didn’t want to sit.
I leaned at the railing, setting my arms on the wrought-iron scrollwork that made the simple safety bar ornate and artistic.
I sighed, breathing in deeply and letting the cooler air chill me from the inside out. It was invigorating, giving me a little zest and waking me up. It wasn’t that late, but still, I wondered like I did every night when Sergei would come home to me.
To come home to me and Maisie.
My God, Nat. Don’t get ahead of yourself.
This situation wasn’t a conventional or traditional one at all, and I’d do well not to start romanticizing all that happened.
He could very well tell me tomorrow that I could go home.
No. Are you serious? That’s not happening.
We couldn’t keep our hands or mouths off each other long enough for either of us to want that as a possibility.
Instead of letting a game ofwhat-ifs fill my mind and preoccupy me, I furrowed my brow at the sound of a couple of guards patrolling down below. The path out here was narrow, probablymore of a utility route than something with a vista, but the men were there and moving like they were on a routine to personally keep this building safe. Behind me, the notes of music from Anya’s playing mixed with the distant happy laughter from Maisie. But I listened to the men.
“Sergei thinks he can impress her, going out there and killing anyone who wants to hurt her.”
Sergei?I was all ears. I didn’t get close to the guards. I never spoke to the many men who came and went, almost like part of the background here. Now, I couldn’t resist listening in. They were talking about the man I feared I was falling for. They were talking aboutme, too.
“I’m sure it does impress her,” the other guard said. “But hell, it’s not like he can just snap his fingers and erase how she’d hate him, too.”
What? Erase what? Why would they think that I’d ever hate Sergei?
I had been stubborn and defensive when I first came to live with him, but I’d loosened up. I’d opened my eyes.
“And she would,” the other said. “She would never forgive him if she found out that he was the one who got her husband killed.”
I sucked in a breath. It froze in my lungs as I gripped my fingers tightly on the railing.
What?
Did you just say what I think you said?
Shock sliced through me, leaving me feeling weak and disoriented. The beginning streaks of a panic attack webbed overme, clouding my mind, making my ears roar with the deafening pulse in them, my heart already racing at the drive of fear and anger that coalesced into an ugly mix.
One coughed and cleared his throat. “I wonder if Sergei remembers who that man was. If the name Fitz Hayes rings a bell.”
They were talking about him! These Orlov guards were discussing my late husband. No one else. Only him.
But to hint that Sergei would’ve known about my husband before…
