It would be easier to avoid her.
Chapter 32
Iskra
The baby calf was safe and I could breathe again.
My hand had slid down to rest over my belly without my noticing. The familiar lump sat heavy in my throat when I realised.
Vadim had left.
I stared at the screen.
The calf was moving faster now, those dark innocent eyes blinking at the camera, at the world, at everything it didn’t know yet about what was waiting for it out there. My chest ached in a way I hadn’t budgeted for.
“Olya was asking—”
“Go away,” I said, without looking at Radovan.
They all knew. They were all keeping their distance. Even Spartak, who usually found some excuse to hover, had made himself scarce.
Except Olya. Olya didn’t care about my irritability. Olya had opinions about nutrition and rest and would share them regardless of the reception.
All morning I had been frozen. Then the test confirmed it. I sent the photograph to Vadim and he left me on read. No response. No words. Just the double tick sitting there.
Then Radovan appeared to announce the doctor’s appointment — because of course Vadim would require comprehensive medical confirmation before filing the result.
The job was done.
That was why he had walked out of my bedroom this morning. Door pulled shut behind him. Grinning, probably, all the way down the hall.
I tucked the blanket around my shoulders and pushed a pillow onto the couch before laying my head down.
The calf blinked on the screen. The narrator’s voice was low and calm, describing the world in the measured tones of something that had seen all of this before and found it worth documenting anyway.
I focused on that voice.
Even though the tears blurred everything.
??????
It was two nights later when I heard him creep into my room.
I was instantly torn—the need for physical comfort pulling one way, the need to rage against him pulling the other. Ultimately I said nothing. I lay still and listened to the rustle of clothing before the bed dipped beside me.
He moved close enough for me to catch the smell of his body wash, softer this time, not the sharp freshness of just after training.
His hand came to rest over my stomach.
Possessive. And yet gentle.
“Ty menya ochen’obradoval,” he murmured.
I stared at the ceiling. In the darkness only a faint glint of gold was visible—the moon catching the ring on my hand where it rested on the bedding.
I made him very happy.
It was a transaction. One that had been completed. The contract fulfilled in the most fundamental sense. So what was he doing here, in my room, in the dark, with his hand over my stomach like that?
