Page 69 of Working Out West

I smiled. “Not too angry then. I’d still like to have dinner and get to know them.” And by the end of the night, maybe my emotions would settle enough to actually get to know them. “Besides.” I shrugged. “It’ll be my first chance to have dinner with the Russian mafia.”

He laughed unexpectedly even as his eyes widened with shock before he quickly clamped his lips shut. But he chuckled once more. Leaning in, he kissed my jaw. “You are something else, moya lyubov’.”

Moya lyubov’.My stomach did a summersault and then tried the high beam. The other day I had Google translate those words and found out exactly what they meant.

My love.

All this time he had been calling me his love.

I dropped my head to his chest and damn swooned. “I’m a good something else, right?”

“Always.”

“Okay.”

Moya lyubov’.

I would never get bored of hearing those words slip from his lips. Not when he said it as though I was someone he wanted to worship.

Yeah, I couldn’t explain why he thought I was it for him, but I was starting to allow him to believe it because I wouldn’t want a day to go by without seeing Adrik in it.

Chapter Seventeen

West

Later that night, I lay in bed beside Adrik and watched him read from a new series we’d started. “Adrik,” I interrupted.

“Da?” He pressed a finger to the spot he was up to and looked down at me lying on my stomach. I hadn’t yet managed to rest on my back; it was still too tender.

“Your parents are amazing.”

He snorted, glancing to the door. “They are okay.” He was still frustrated they’d upset me. Even throughout dinner he was curt with them, which they ignored.

“You’re lucky to have them.”

His jaw clenched. “Most days.”

Reaching out, I rested my fingers against his hip. “Don’t be too mad, Adrik. Does it seem like I regret the choice they made? How they spoke to me?”

“Not yet.”

“What about I promise nothing they said or did will cause me any… damage?” Because I honestly didn’t think their actions would come back and bite me on the butt. They were tough, but in that moment, it was what I needed, and I didn’t even know that.

“You cannot promise such a thing.”

“I can and I will.”

His lips thinned. “We will see.”

All I could show him was how it didn’t negatively affect me like he thought. It would take time for him to believe it, but he would see. For now, a change of subject was needed. “Has there been any further development from the church?”

His nostrils flared. Shit, it probably wasn’t the best choice of topics.

“Nyet,” he clipped.

I blinked. My mind went to one point only. “So, it was only my… only them who did this to their child.”

Adrik moved. He put the book on the bedside table and slid down the bed to lie on his side facing me. “West,” he whispered.

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