Maksim came home, and because of this bubbling urgency inside me with the suspicion that I could be pregnant, I did mybest not to be near him. To stay busy and not idle. To look preoccupied so he wouldn’t want to talk to me.
I bet it reminded him of how icy and cool I was toward him in the beginning of our marriage. After how tenderly we’d come together last night, itwasa one-eighty.
But I just couldn’t take the step to knowing if I was carrying his child.
Once it became a fact, there was no going back.
While I knew I was his wife and I belonged here with him, that was justme.
If I were to bear him a child, it would be another way for him to secure me here.
I didn’t oppose that. I understood that I was his. But at same time, another reason to lock me into my purpose here would end up being a reason to prevent me from ever being a real part of the Cartel again.
“Carina? We are leaving for dinner soon,” Maksim told me, calling out to be heard through the closed bathroom door. I sat on the closed toilet lid and stared at the pregnancy kit.
“I know,” I replied.
Then I winced and stared some more.
Just take it.
Just get an answer.
One way or another.
I swallowed hard, hating the pressure to find out a truth that could further change my world and who I was.
If I showed up at this dinner without an answer for Elena, there was simply no way in hell she wouldn’t give it away. She wasn’t as good at being cool and chill with a secret between us.
Just take the test.
I winced, getting up to hurry and take it.
Then after the agony of waiting for three minutes, one hundred eighty precise seconds that I spent pacing, I had the answer.
Pregnant.
It didn’t take my breath away.
I wasn’t stunned.
That was how deeply I felt like I’d already known it to be true.
There it is.
I bit my lip and took a picture of the test to show Elena.
Iampregnant.
No more wondering. No more riding on the hunch that I knew my body enough to guess what was up.
I was one hundred percent, completely, officially, absolutely pregnant with my husband’s baby.
I would be bringing another member of the next Volkov generation to our family.
And the enormity of the discovery kept me more subdued and internally disoriented than I wanted to admit.
We arrived at the main house, and I immediately sought out Elena before we’d sit down to eat.
