Page 61 of The Arrangement

Suddenly, Viviana was rambling, words spilling from her heart and mind. They wanted to get out; had to be said. Fought their way from her chest to tumble straight out trembling lips. Anton needed to hear them, she knew.

“I asked earlier about the business in the house because my father didn’t keep it out, like at all. The garage was off-limits, his office, the library, and fuck, once we couldn’t touch the freezer in the storage for a month and a half. I don’t … damn it, Anton, I don’t ever want that for my children. And what’s worse is that I never wanted children because of this,” she muttered, waving between their bodies.

“I don’t understand.”

“You and me before we were … you and me. I just thought of it as an arrangement—a duty. I knew I wouldn’t get the choice. My husband would want children, so I’d have to do that, but that didn’t mean I wanted them, okay? Why would I want my children being woken up to someone’s screams, or God forbid, finding teeth in the fucking driveway while they rode bikes? Roman was a great father, but he was Boss first. He was the Don. I loved my dad, loved him so much …”

“I know you did,” he whispered. Viviana hadn’t realized how close he’d come to her until his hands were rubbing her shaking shoulders then cupping either side of her face. “Don’t cry, baby. Not today, Viviana, please. Not in this room, not with me.”

Always so soft and caring with her when she needed it most, it was just another striking contradiction to the man she thought he could have been.

“I didn’t want children, Anton.”

“I told you I wasn’t expect—”

“I know what you told me,” she interrupted, a little too sharply if his wince was any indication. “And I said didn’t.”

Air cut through his teeth like a hiss. “Oh.”

The heavy weight of what she confessed hung in the air and Viviana could only stay silent and let him absorb it. Children had been one thing, but the possibility of children with him had turned into something else entirely. Something so passionate and terrifying that it hurt her lungs when she breathed and made her heart kick-start all over again. A little voice said it wouldn’t be the same as her life had been growing up, while another had a dozen and one reminders of just how it could be exactly that.

And it didn’t even matter because standing in that almost bare cubby and thinking about what could be there felt so much better. Thinking about the three other bedrooms on the second floor that needed to be filled was scarily stirring. Her birth control shot would stop the moment Anton asked her to, and she knew it. There wasn’t any question in her mind now, but fuck, it still ached.

Outside of the walls they called home, the two of them could be whomever they wanted or needed to be, but inside … inside was a different story altogether.

“If you want children someday, you have to understand what that means for us. Please don’t do that to our children, okay? Please, Anton. Don’t be that man first and their father second. If you give us a home, you need to make it one, too.”

Anton cleared his throat before he murmured with a husky tone, “Okay, Vine.”

• • •

There was a brief period where Anton simply didn’t know what to say or do; he was still so damned wrapped up in the realization that Viviana wanted children. And not just children, no, his children. Sure, the thought has crossed his mind; he’d be flat out lying if he said it didn’t, but he hadn’t expected her to convey it the way she did, either.

Now that she’d brought up the topic, his mind was running rampant. Viviana wasn’t the only one who had things to share. Especially on that front.

“This little room brought on all that, huh?”

“Yep.”

Anton nodded, his hands still cradling Viviana’s face as he said, “I’m not him, your dad, I mean. That’s not to say he was doing wrong, either. By his … family … that’s just how they roll. Sometimes things can’t be helped and shit gets brought home when you don’t intend for it to. Us—the bosses—we have to clean up after a lot of stuff that I can’t even begin to explain, nor do I think you really need to know. But it happens; we manage, deal with it, move on …”

“I know,” she whispered.

“And hope to fuck you’ll forgive us in the morning,” he finished even quieter. “I was fourteen the first time I walked in on something I shouldn’t have. Daniil, his eyes were blank and black. No emotion, no fear, nothing. I didn’t recognize him at first. He just handed over the jug of bleach and a bag of rags and told me to help after everyone calmed down.”

“Jesus.” A shudder rolled over her shoulders.

Anton shrugged. “It was also the first time I realized how groomed I had been from a really young age to accept what was going on around me. I didn’t even blink; got down to the floor and cleaned the mess like he told me to. Scrubbed my fucking hands red raw, couldn’t look my mother in the eye the next morning, and aced my English exam that afternoon.

“Like it always does, life went on,” he said, trying not to sound as indifferent as he truly felt about it. Anton had a lot of time to pick apart his upbringing and the whys of the way it happened. “I finally understood why Dad and Nicoli’s guys kept calling me the little prince then, too. Daniil never wanted to be the boss, he just wasn’t meant to be one.”

“But you were?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was. It was something about me, like I was reflecting Nicoli from the time I was small. Called me dangerous and magnetic—significant. I could focus it all when other guys couldn’t. That didn’t mean everyone wanted me to be the boss; the first year after Nicoli died was probably the most dangerous of my life. I made a lot of choices I didn’t want to make and said goodbye to men who watched me grow up, but I did it because I was supposed to. That’s what it took to make me what they knew I always would be.”

“You shouldn’t tell—”

Anton smiled grimly. “I’d have to be a little more specific than that to get myself in trouble, baby. My point, though, was that I never wanted that to be my boy. I don’t want to teach him how to clean up a scene, never mind having him see me as anything other than his father. Grooming my child to be like me? I can’t even consider it.”