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“You agreed to the handoff at six.” She tips her head to the clock behind me. “It’s five ‘til.”
“Exactly. I have five minutes left.”
I hug Nina to my chest, not that there’s any chance Polina could take her from me. I refuse to lose a single second with my daughter.
Laila may not want to see me, but I refuse to budge where Nina is concerned. My little girl is going to know me.
“This whole business is ridiculous,” I grumble.
“I know,” Polina sighs as she lowers herself into a chair. “But it’s what Laila wants. Humoring her is in your best interests at the moment.”
“I can’t see how. It’s been a fucking week of this nonsense, and I haven’t set eyes on Laila once.”
“I think that’s the point, Arsen. She doesn’t want to see you. Just be grateful she’s decided to let you see Nina.”
“‘Let me’?” I growl. “‘Letme’? Nina is my daughter. She’s as much mine as she is Laila’s.”
Pol shrugs, unrepentant. “You can be as grumpy as you want about this situation. But right now, you’re in the doghouse, my friend. And that means you have to do what all screw-up husbands have to do in order to get out of the doghouse.”
She waits for me to ask, but I have more self-respect than that.
At least, I thought I did.
But I’m on the verge of giving in and asking what I should do when Polina finally puts me out of my misery. “You have to grovel. Sitting around and waiting for her to realize she needs you and come crawling back isn’t going to win you anything but an unhappy marriage.”
“Newsflash: I’ve already got one of those.”
She shakes her head. “You are two unhappy people in a… a work in progress. You’re going through a tough time right now, and Laila needs you to be patient.”
Polina rises to her feet and reaches for Nina. I’m about to swat her hands away, but the clock behind me chimes.
Polina punctuates each of the six chimes with a wag of her finger. On the final one, she takes Nina into her arms. “Channel all that alpha male energy you’ve got pent up in there and you just might have a shot at winning your wife back.”
On her way out, she leaves the door open for Dominik, who is already waiting in the hallway. Like Polina, he arrived a little early.
“Got the Jag gassed up and ready for our meeting with Enzo.”
“You were supposed to check on Jasper,” I remind him as I rise to meet him, locking my office door behind me.
“I did. There wasn’t much to check,” he says. “He’s pissed that I’m his new middleman between him and you, and I’m delighted that he’s pissed. It’s the least he deserves.”
Dominik isn’t wrong. Letting Laila’s dad into the funeral was literally one of the only things I asked Jaspernotto do.
“Did he tell you he’s pissed?”
“He didn’t have to. He almost choked on his tongue doing a little grunt work for me this afternoon.”
“There’s a difference between humility and humiliation, Dom.”
“Is there?” he asks innocently. I glare at him and he chortles. “You’ve been playing favorites all this time, Arsen. It’s time the little shit gets a taste of what life is like in the real world.”
“I haven’t been playing favorites.”
“If Jasper were anyone else, would you be questioning me right now about being too hard on him?” I don’t need to say anything for us to both know the answer to that question. “That’s whatI thought. Onto happier topics: How’s the custody arrangement with Laila going?”
I unlock the Jag and slide into the driver’s seat. “Let’s just say this meeting with the Italians will be a nice break from that torture.”
“You want to split the Temple District?” I ask in surprise.
