Page 38 of Marrying the Silver Fox

“Nikolai?”

I realize I’ve been sitting in silence, and now she’s staring at me nervously, waiting for me to say something.

I rise to my feet, warming my face with a smile. “This is fantastic news,” I tell her, and I lean down to wrap my arms around her. She hugs me back, but I can still feel the tension in her body, the clear surprise at how enthusiastic I’m being about this.

“You…you mean that?” she murmurs.

I pull back, looking down at her with a cocked brow. “Why wouldn’t I?”

She twists her hands in her lap as I take my seat again, eyes still fixed on the tests. “I don’t know,” she confesses. “I just thought…fuck, I don’t know what I thought…”

“Hey, careful about using that kind of language around our child,” I remark jovially.

Her brows knit together. She doesn’t seem to be in the same place I am, far from expressing the same brightness and joy that’s running through me right now.

“You really…you’re really happy about this?” she asks me.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I ask her. “I’m going to have a child with my wife. It’s perfect.”

She shakes her head. “I just…I figured that you would have your own plans for the way things were going to go,” she confesses. “And I didn’t know that a child would fit into them. Given that I only seem to get in the way of things…”

“You heard my father,” I remind her. “He’s traditional, when it comes to his family, at least. He wants an heir to the business. A new generation who will step up to take over what we’ve both worked so hard to make happen. And now, we have that.”

Her eyes darken as I speak, and I can tell at once that I’ve managed to say the wrong thing. Isn’t she relieved, that this is what I want? Or is she pissed, somehow, that I’m too enthused about what we have ahead of us right now?

“Is that what this was all about?” she asks quietly.

“All what was about?”

“All…this!” she exclaims, gesturing between the two of us. “I mean, this marriage, us being together, all of it—did you just want to get me pregnant and have an heir for the family business?”

I reach out to touch her hand, but she snatches it back sharply.

“I didn’t plan on this,” I tell her. “But this was always the plan. Back when I was still meant to marry Natalie, the intention was⁠—”

“Oh, so you just planned this with whoever you happened to meet at the end of that aisle?” she replies, voice laced with pain. “I could have been anyone, could I?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?” she replies sharply. “Because it sounds a whole hell of a lot like I could have been just about anyone, and you would have been happy to knock up whoever wound up with this ring on their finger.” She lifts her hand to flash me the wedding ring that I gave her the day we were married.

It’s still a little big for her, sized for Natalie’s hand and not hers, but she has worn it every day since—and I thought that meant something to her. I thought it was worth something to her. I have tried to show her that I’m willing to provide for her, willing to give her whatever kind of life she wants, and now she’s talking like this is the worst thing that ever happened to her.

“No, Andie,” I assure her. “I’m glad it was you. I know you’re going to be an amazing mother⁠—”

“You don’t know anything about me,” she replies, her voice laced with unbridled bitterness now. “If you did, you would never have married me.”

“Jesus, Andie, what the hell does that mean?”

“You know what it means,” she retorts. “You made me walk away from my business. I try to offer you help, and you shut it down. And now I’m pregnant, and you’re talking like the only thing I’m good for is to just be your breeding stock.”

“Andie, I’m trying to give you a life that a woman married to me would expect,” I reply, doing my best to keep my voice steady. “And that means taking care of you. Giving you everything you need⁠—”

“Everything I didn’t ask for.” She rises to her feet abruptly, shaking her head. “I need…I need time to think.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice takes on a sharp edge. “I just…I need to clear my head, okay? I just want some space to figure out how I feel about all of this.”