Page 56 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

And honestly, that should be a little frightening.

But I’ve never been looked after. I’m the oldest between Tiny and me, and our mother worked full-time, so I was always taking care of her. Always packing Mom’s lunches. Checking Tiny’s homework. I was a mom long before I was ever pregnant.

After I left home, I thought I would never have kids. But then Potato came along, and I thought he was enough of a kid for me to take care of.

Then I had Klaus to take care of. Him, and his massive parties, and the rest of the executives… Now, though, it’s different. It’s all different.

There’s a man who worries about whether I eat. He checks that I sleep. He walks me in the orchard because the doctor prescribed walking.

I should want the laundry van, but I want Galina’s yellow thing with sleeves. Whoever it’s for. And Pasha’s chess lessons, because I have a feeling the lessons will help me with being an actual mom.

Kids are sneaky.

The next morning, Maxim leaves for the city early. I’m crossing the front hall with my decaf when the doors open. Pasha comes in from the gatehouse with rain-wet hair, carrying a large wicker gift basket wrapped in green cellophane. He carries it wrong. Stiff-armed, held out from his body, his eyes down on it the entire way across the hall.

“Pasha, what’s wrong?”

“It arrived at the gate,” he says. “Courier service, prepaid, no sender. I swept it. Twice.” He sets it on the hall table with visible relief.

“Swept it for what?”

“Everything we sweep for.” He says it lightly, which is how I know it’s not. “It’s clean. No wire, no powder, no metal. Whoever sent it wanted it to reach the house intact. I have to call it in, but it’s safe to look.”

There’s no card. I circle the table once. Glimmering green cellophane, a gold ribbon, professionally put together. Inside are the usual suspects of an expensive basket. Crackers, a wedge of pricey cheese, dark chocolate, and pears wearing little foam sweaters.

It’s the bottle of wine inside that stops me cold.

A cabernet from a little vineyard in the Finger Lakes called Haven. A name nobody knows. A label nobody stocks. A bottle you cannot buy in the city, because you can only buy it at the winery.

I know because I stood at that bar. With Klaus. We tasted a dozen wines and bought a case of the cabernet because I loved it, and he teased me for a week about my cheap palate.

He knows it’s my favorite. He’s the only person who knows.

Among all the details about me that he’s let slip over eight months—like my coffee order, birthday month, sister’s name, or my birthmark—this one stuck around in his thick head.

Pasha’s saying something about the courier company and our security, and his voice sounds like he is underwater because I’m freaking out.

My hands have gone cold around the mug I’m still holding. It’s the only thing keeping my hands from shaking.

Klaus knows where I am. The bus ticket, the special phone, the invisible weeks, all that work, and my ex-boyfriend just reached through the walls and set my favorite wine on the hall table like a calling card.

Klaus knows where I am. The same Klaus that has been betraying Maxim to his enemy. The enemy who likes to peel faces.

The mansion is no longer safe. If it ever was.

Strength flows out of me with my next breath. “Oh, God.”

22

MAXIM

Pasha’s careful text ended discreetly… Miss Thea recognized the wine. She wasn’t well after.

I learned that night where the wine came from. Pasha was right. Thea wasn’t well when she spoke of it.

My son infiltrated my home to frighten Thea and to prove that he could do it. I’m still deciding what to do about it when my assistant’s replacement announces Anya Sokolov.

“Let her in.”