Page 9 of A Surprise Baby for the Russian

She holds up two options at one point without turning around. “Which one?”

I look at them, and now it’s my turn to wonder if she’s trying to trick me into choosing the wrong one. One is gray, one is dark green. “Green,” I say. She puts the gray one back without saying a word. I say nothing either, but inside I’m feeling pretty damn smug with myself. The dark green against her complexion will look stunning, and it isn’t far from my thoughts for the rest of the morning.

Back at the house, she takes her things to the bedroom while I sit at the kitchen table, open the laptop, and start working through the channels I need to cover. Yaroslav will have gone back to my father by now, who will be on the warpath. I need to find out his next moves, track the Volkov situation, update three contacts, and cross-reference new information one of them has about Alek. I make the calls in Russian, keeping my voice low so as not to draw Raya’s attention.

At some point, she comes back through to the sitting room and curls up on the sofa with one of her paperbacks. She isn’t reading; she hasn’t turned a page in twenty minutes because her eyes keep going to the window. She is thinking. I wonder what she is thinking about. I have wanted to know what goes on in her head for months, and now that she is an arm’s length away from me, I still can’t tell.

After ending a call and making some notes on my phone, I reach for my coffee; it’s gone cold. When I get up to make another, she looks over. “What are you doing?”

“Stuff,” I tell her.

“That’s vague.”

“Yes.”

She watches me move around. “Were you always like this? Even as a kid?”

I look at her. “Like what?”

“Chatty.”

I know she’s teasing me, but I make the pretense of seriously considering her question, because this is nice, normal, almost. “Probably.”

“Must have been a fun household.” As soon as the words leave her mouth, I can see her regret in saying them. I assume Selene has shared some stories regarding life in the Mykros household.

“Not really.”

There’s a pause before she speaks. “No,” she says. “I don’t suppose it was.”

I hand her a fresh coffee, and she takes it, neither of us saying anything else about it. I go back to the laptop, and she goes back to her book; this time I think she actually reads it. I watch her for the rest of the evening without meaning to. Sofa to bathroom. Bathroom to kitchen for water. Kitchen back to sofa. My brain has decided that knowing where she is at all times is a baseline requirement, like knowing the exits and the perimeter.

She says goodnight at ten thirty and goes to the bedroom. I give her twenty minutes, which is ample for her to do whatever she needs to do, then I follow. She’s already on the far side of the bed with her back to the center. I get in, reach over, and turn off my lamp. Hers goes off a minute later, the darkness settling around us.

“Yakov?”

“Yes.”

“If you touch me while I’m sleeping, I will break your hand.”

I smile at the ceiling. “Understood, rodnaya.”

“Good.”

She’s asleep within ten minutes. I lie there facing her back for some time, listening to her breathe and taking in the smell of her hair and whatever cream it is she has rubbed all over herself, but I don’t touch her. I’m not a complete fucking animal. I want my wife to want me.

Chapter 6 - Raya

He gives me my phone back, fully charged, sliding it across the table between us.

“We can’t avoid this any longer. You need to be in contact with your family—Selene, Simon, your sisters, whoever you trust to hear it. It’s been two days; I think that’s pushing what Matvei’s patience is going to give us.”

I look down at the screen, my fingers itching to grab it, but I force myself to lean back in my chair, crossing my arms tightly. “That’s it? No list of who I’m allowed to call, no vetting my conversations?”

“I’m not your father, Raya. I’m not your kidnapper.” He keeps his eyes on mine. “I’m your husband. Whatever that word is going to mean between us, it doesn’t mean I get to decide who you talk to. Call whoever you need to. There’s one condition—location services stay off. My father’s people watch anything connected to the Volkov/Nikolai alliance, so if Matvei traces a ping to this district and rolls in with fifty armed men, this stops being a safe house. Do you understand? It’s about safety, not control.”

I momentarily consider telling him to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine, but the logic of his explanation slices right through my temper. I take the phone and say nothing because even I can see that I’d be cutting off my nose to spite my face. Small victories are still victories nonetheless.

I’ve barely got it in my pocket before it starts ringing.