My fingers brush his temple as I part his hair to see the full cut. His breath changes. Only slightly, but enough for me to hear it.
His gaze drops to my mouth for one awful second. Heat curls low in my stomach, fierce and immediate, and I nearly miss the edge of the wound because I am too busy remembering what he tastes like.
I step back half an inch. “You’re going to need six stitches.”
“You’ve had knives in my ribs, doctor. I think I can trust you to stitch up a cut.”
I don’t answer. If I do, I’ll say something reckless.
The needle passes through the skin cleanly. Lev doesn’t flinch. He just watches me work, silent now, with that same unbearablefocus he used to bring into my kitchen, into my bed, into every room that ever felt too small once he entered it.
I tie off the second stitch and tell myself not to think about his hands.
By the time I finish the third, my throat feels tight, and my pulse has moved between my legs. I cut the thread and reach for the antibiotic ointment.
“This will bruise,” I tell him.
“I’m devastated.”
I smooth the ointment over the cut, then place a small dressing above his brow. My fingers linger against his skin for one fraction too long, and his hand closes around my wrist.
I freeze.
Around us, the garage keeps going. Men talk. Boris swears. Metal clangs somewhere near the back wall. None of it reaches me past the heat of Lev’s hand on my skin.
He looks up at me, and his face has gone stripped bare in a way I’ve only seen a handful of times.
“I need to ask you something.”
I have to clear my throat before I can answer, “I know what you’re going to ask.”
His grip around me loosens, but he doesn’t let go. “Polina.”
“Yes,” I blurt out, because there’s no point dragging this out. “I’m pregnant.”
For a second he just stares at me.
Then his face changes.
I’ve never seen Lev Morozov look broken before. Furious, yes. Possessive. Cold. Amused. Wrecked with want. I have seen all of that. This is different. This is something giving way right in front of me with no effort made to hide it.
He stands so quickly the chair legs scrape against concrete. “Polina, I?—”
“I’m keeping the baby.” I pull my wrist from his hand. “You don’t get a vote in that decision.”
His throat works once. “I wasn’t going to tell you otherwise.”
“No? Then this is the first easy thing we’ve agreed on in weeks.”
Pain moves across his face. Good. Let it.
He tries again. “Are you all right?”
I almost smile at the question. It is so absurd, so late, so cruel by accident that it nearly makes me lose my footing.
“No,” I admit. “But that has very little to do with morning sickness.”
He goes quiet.
For one dangerous second I want him to reach for me. I want him to break every rule I’ve put in place and drag me against his chest and tell me I am not doing this alone. I want every selfish, impossible thing that would make me hate myself even more.
Instead I step back.
The tears are already there, hot and close and humiliating. If I stay another second, he’ll see them.
So I turn away, walk past Boris, past the folding tables, past the men who know better than to stop me when my face looks like this. I make it to the side door with my spine straight and my breathing steady.
Then I push outside and keep walking before Lev can see me cry.
