“I already did.”
I back toward the door. “I won’t be here for that conversation.”
“Yes, you will. If you leave this estate, I’ll have security bring you back. You’re not running from this.”
“Watch me.” I turn toward the door.
His voice stops me. “If you leave, I’ll assume you’re abandoning the twins. I’ll take custody tonight. Is that what you want?”
I freeze with my hand on the doorknob.
“That’s what I thought,” he says. “Sit back down.”
I don’t move.
“Anna. Sit down.”
Slowly, I return to the chair and sit. My hands are shaking. I clasp them together in my lap to hide it.
“Your parents will be here soon,” Luca says. “We’re going to have a conversation about how this arrangement moves forward. You can participate in that conversation, or you can sit there silently. But you will be present.”
“I hate you.”
“I know. That doesn’t change anything.”
Footsteps in the hallway. Voices. My parents arriving.
I close my eyes.
This is it. The moment everything falls apart.
15
LUCA
The door opens,and Viktor walks in first.
He looks older than he did at the wedding. Thinner. The debt and stress have carved lines into his face that weren’t there two months ago. Svetlana follows behind him, her expression worried. They both stop when they see Anna sitting rigid in the chair across from my desk.
“What’s going on?” Viktor asks. “Pavel said it was urgent.”
“Sit down,” I tell them.
“Luca, it’s late. If this is about the shipping contracts?—”
“Sit. Down.”
The tone cuts through whatever Viktor was about to say. He and Svetlana take the chairs on either side of Anna. She won’t look at them. Just stares at her hands folded in her lap.
“Someone tell me what this is about,” Viktor says.
I pick up the DNA report from my desk and hold it up. “This is a paternity test. It confirms that I’m the biological father of Mila and Alexei.”
Silence.
Viktor’s face goes blank. Svetlana’s hand flies to her mouth.
“What?” Viktor’s voice is barely a whisper.
