Tatiana opens her mouth, no doubt to do exactly that, but Noah is already jumping up and down.
“Can we, Mommy?” He tugs on her hand. “Please?”
The smile I flash her holds a warning. For Noah’s sake, I’m offering her the easy way of doing this. I wouldn’t recommend finding out what the hard option entails. Whatever the case, I’m not going away, and she knows it.
The delicate line of her jaw turns hard.
“Good.” I move my gaze over her figure that’s drowning in a T-shirt with the name of a forgotten rock band on the front. Even obscured beneath the oversized garment, her shape hints at generous tits and a narrow waist. Big or small, her size never mattered to me, but fuck me if she’s not the stuff wet dreams are made of. “Would you like to change?”
If she could shoot laser beams through those pretty eyes, I’d be fried to a crisp.
She pulls herself to her full height. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“I’m simply being a gentleman, as my mother taught me. Always give a lady the option of changing her outfit if you spring an improvised outing on her, right?” I motion at her feet. “You may want to put on shoes. And a jacket. It’ll get cooler later. Do you want me to grab a sweater for Noah?”
She ushers Noah down the short hallway toward the only door at the end of it while biting off every word. “I can manage.”
I turn to Jasper. “You?”
She glances at a suitcase that sits open on the ratty sofa in the lounge while rubbing her arms with jittery movements. “I’ll just grab a cardigan.”
A tote bag lies on the coffee table. I go over and search it shamelessly, finding a burner phone as well as Noah and Tatiana’s fake IDs in a tattered purse. I confiscate the phone and the purse, ignoring Jasper’s accusing stare when I ask for her bag. After she drops the strap from her shoulder and shoves the handbag at me with a scowl, I rid her of her phone, ID, and purse too.
I go outside, hand the items and the gun I took off Tatiana to Reino for safekeeping, and fire off a text message to my assistant, Penelope, to let her know my hotel accommodation needs to be upgraded from two double rooms to a family suite. I was going to lock Jasper in her own room and put a guard in front of her door, but I can’t do that to Noah. I can’t let him sleep with Jasper because I don’t want to separate him from his mother, and I can’t take him into bed with us. It’s too early for that. He won’t understand. I’ll have to ease him into the way his life is about to change. Yes, his presence changes everything. We’ll just have to move into a bigger suite like one big happy family.
Our vehicles are parked around the corner. I couldn’t risk attracting unwanted attention or let Tatiana know I was on to her. I give Ulysses my key and order him to bring the cars around. Leaving Reino to keep an eye on Jasper from the door, I pick up the ball Noah dropped and go after Tatiana.
She’s sitting on the bed, tying her sneakers when I enter the room. Noah is zipping up the sweater he pulled on, concentrating on the task with a cute frown.
I throw him the ball when he’s done. “You left this outside.”
He catches it and runs to a crate that’s turned onto its side to put the ball in one of the compartments with the care one spares for cherished possessions. “Thanks.”
Tatiana follows me with her gaze as I do a quick tour of the room. I take everything in with a glance—the double bed with the thin mattress she presumably shares with Noah as there’s no other bed and this is the only bedroom, the narrow closet with an open curtain instead of a door, the crate that’s been turned into a bookshelf, and pictures of Tatiana and Noah on the wall.
Their clothes take up three small shelves in the closet. A puffy jacket for Noah hangs from a hanger. Pajamas with an airplane motive are neatly folded on top of three T-shirts.
The crate holds a well-read storybook and a stuffed dinosaur with a patch on his back and a missing eye.
Those pictures on the wall above the bed are what draw me. The first one is of Tatiana holding a pink baby wrapped in a blue blanket in her arms. She’s staring down at him with a soft smile, her long golden hair hanging loose and a little tangled over one shoulder. Even though she doesn’t look at the camera, the dark circles beneath her eyes are visible. Noah must’ve been only a day or two old in that photo. Tatiana looks exhausted but happy and also a little sad. Scared.
On the next one, Noah is wearing hand-drawn bunny ears and showing off an Easter egg that he cradles in both hands. I judge him to be around two years old. His expression is serious. He looks as if he’s doing something important such as carrying a fragile treasure without breaking it. It tells me just how precious that chocolate egg wrapped in blue foil paper was to him.
I move on to a picture with bad pixelation, like those taken with cheap disposable cameras, where Noah’s hair is a little longer, blown around his face by the wind. He must’ve been about three. He’s laughing from his belly, leaning against a smiling Tatiana who took the selfie of them. They’re sitting on a blanket in a field of flowers, the sun shining on her flaxen head. A red poppy is tucked into her hair above her ear. Noah holds a bouquet of wildflowers and weeds in his chubby hand. He looks happy. Well-balanced.
A bout of envy assaults me. I want to fill in the gaps but no stories or pictures can make up for the time I lost with him.
Tatiana’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “We’re ready.”
I turn around to find her standing in the middle of the floor with a worn hoodie in her hand.
Noah runs to her.
She puts an arm around him. “His bedtime is at eight, so I suggest we get a move on if you still want to go out for dinner.”
I smile a patient smile, one that clearly gets on her nerves from how her nostrils are flaring.
Jasper waits in the lounge with her arms wrapped around herself, shooting daggers at Reino. Tatiana takes her tote bag from the coffee table without a word.
