Guilt stabs me immediately, but I don’t soften. I can’t. If I soften now, I’ll lose control of the conversation and myself.
I stare at her for a long second, and my mind is moving faster than her heartrate monitor. A baby changes the rules. It doesn’t matter what I want. It doesn’t matter what she wants. It matters what the world will do to us once it knows.
A child is not just love. It is a target.
Alina’s voice comes again, smaller now. “I wasn’t trying to?—”
“I know,” I answer sadly. “You didn’t trust me. You didn’t trust us. And I can’t even blame you. I can’t be angry at you for any of this. I think I just need some time.”
Her eyes lift back to my face, startled. “To process?” she asks.
I don’t answer right away. No, that doesn’t feel right. I feel like I’m processing the news just fine. The problem is, I’m having to process a million things. I’m processing the next eighteen years and how complicated everything is going to become.
Instead, I do what I always do when I’m drowning. I shut down. I straighten slowly, letting distance do the work my control is failing to do, and I keep my voice flat.
“You’ll be moved back to the penthouse as soon as you’re discharged,” I tell her. “And I’m having your security doubled. Nothing like this can ever happen again.”
Her lips part like she wants to argue, but she stops herself. She’s watching carefully, like she sees beneath the mask and she knows I’m hiding my true emotions.
“Andrei,” she says again, and there’s something pleading there now. “Please. Talk to me.”
I hold her gaze for one second too long, and I almost do it. I almost tell her the truth. That my chest feels tight in a way I don’t like. That I’m furious and relieved and terrified all at once. That I can’t decide if I want to shout at her or hold her so close she can’t breathe.
None of that changes the problem. I can’t keep her safe if I can’t think clearly, and I can’t think clearly with her looking at me like that. So I do the only thing I know how to do.
I turn away.
29
ALINA
The days blur together in a strange, colorless way, like someone drained the world of anything bright and left only quiet behind. After I’m discharge from the hospital, I’m brought back to the penthouse, just as Andrei promised I would be. I feel heavier, now. Depressed, even.
I sleep more than I’m awake. Not because I want to, but because my body seems to insist on it. Every time I try to stay up for longer than an hour or two, exhaustion pulls me back under again, heavy and inescapable. The doctors say it’s normal after shock. Pregnancy doesn’t help. Stress doesn’t help. Nothing about this situation helps.
Andrei doesn’t ever come to check on me. I know he’s somewhere in the penthouse. I hear doors open and close at odd hours. I hear voices in the hall. Things are happening all around. Preparations for the wedding are still being made, even after the bombshell news of the baby.
Meals are brought to me, usually by a maid or a guard. A nurse comes every day to see how I’m doing. Andrei comes to check on me exactly twice, and only when someone else is present. Whenhe does appear, it’s brief. He asks if I need anything, waits for my answer, nods at my response, then leaves.
He clearly doesn’t want to be around me, and how can I blame him? I knew if he ever found out about the baby, the fallout would be bad. I expected anger, though. I expected shouting and threats and his barely concealed anger.
Silence is so much worse.
I don’t want to dwell on it too much, so I rest. I eat when someone brings food. I take the vitamins the doctor prescribed. I stare out the tall windows at a city that keeps moving forward while my life feels suspended in glass.
Then, one morning, I’m feeling much better. I get out of bed on my own and get dressed. I get up and go to the dining room for breakfast. When the guards see me up and about on my own, they tell me that we’re going out.
The words alone are enough to make my stomach twist. I haven’t been anywhere since the attack. Even the thought of taking a step out of the penthouse makes me want to dry-heave.
I realize, though, that this isn’t a request. We’re leaving the apartment whether I want to or not. They lead me out of the apartment and to the garage where I’m loaded into yet another town car.
No one speaks to me during the ride, not that it’s unusual. The guards aren’t known for being chatty. One does nudge me lightly, though, when the car starts to slow.
“We’re almost to our destination, Miss Kuznetsova,” he says gruffly.
I open my eyes slowly and make myself look out the window. We’re pulling down a quiet street. I notice that it’s blocked on both sides. Only Andrei’s people are allowed in.What is this,I wonder?
We stop in front of a large, ornate restaurant, and I’m confused until I see a sight that takes my breath away. My father is walking toward me with a huge smile on his face. I nearly topple over the guards to get to the door. I stumble out and run to him, leaping into his arms.
