Page 141 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

She didn’t pull away, though I could see the debate happening behind her eyes, weighing whether letting me do this small thing counted as letting me back in too far.

Eventually, she sat back against the couch and let her foot rest against my hand.

I worked my thumbs slowly along the arch of her foot, and for a while neither of us said anything.

“I’m sorry,” I said eventually.

“For what, specifically?” Her voice was tired, not cold, just tired. “There’s a rather long list.”

“For all of it,” I said. “For Svetlana. For letting her get close enough to hurt you. For putting you in harm's way.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” she said, eyes closed now. “It doesn’t undo anything.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m not doing it to undo anything. I’m doing it because you deserve to hear it as many times as it takes and because it’s true. I am sorry, Genevieve.”

She didn’t answer that, but she didn’t ask me to stop either, and for tonight, I let that be enough.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Genevieve

“You’ve both agreed on joint physical custody, correct?” Mr. Halloway, the lawyer Anna had helped me find, said after reviewing the papers I handed him.

“Correct,” Kazimir said.

“Genevieve?”

“Yes,” I concurred. “Joint custody.”

“Weekdays with Genevieve, alternating weekends,” Kazimir continued, “unless work requires otherwise, in which case we adjust.”

He glanced at me and I nodded in agreement. “That works,” I said, “as long as adjusting doesn’t mean canceling last minute and leaving me to figure it out.”

“It won’t.” His tone was a bit too flat and cold for someone who had gone over the details with me two weeks ago, but I paid no mind to him.

The decision to bring in a lawyer was completely mine.

After being lied to and deceived, I wasn’t going to blindly leave my fate and that of my child’s to a man I wasn’t sure I could completely trust.

It wasn’t an easy feat to bring up the conversation, but Anna encouraged me, stating it would make me feel protected.

Kazimir, on the other hand, was a bit hesitant when I brought it up during one of his weekly visits, but he indulged me long enough to draft a plan that worked. I couldn’t understand what the change in his demeanor was about.

We went through the rest of it that way, back and forth, with Kazimir mostly agreeing to whatever I said and contributing next to nothing.

His responses to most questions were monosyllabic. At some point, Mr. Halloway himself had to ask if he had any changes to make.

“No,” he answered, his voice the same clipped tone that had been bristling my skin all morning. He looked at me, a fleeting glance that lingered more than it should’ve. “She knows best and I trust her decision.”

I tore my eyes away from his, silently cursing the warmth that engulfed my skin.

I’d read and heard people talk about their bodies being the biggest traitors, betraying them with a different emotion despite what they were feeling logically.

It was a concept I found laughable. How could your body—a part of you—betray you? I could understand feeling something at the wrong time and place, but feeling what you didn’t want to feel? That was something I couldn’t wrap my head around.

Well, at least that’s what I thought until a foot massage turned into a gift of a massager and sweet-smelling foot soaks, which prompted me to say thank you like any well-mannered person would, and somehow led to a late-night conversation about pregnancy symptoms. By a magic I was yet to understand, that birthed a routine where Kazimir created a chart to update my symptoms and started stopping by twice a week to check on it.

During his first visit, I’d told myself I was only letting it happen because it didn’t make sense to agree to something halfway and not see it through.