Page 36 of One Last Shot

I don’t get upset like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just want to protect Stella, and I can’t figure out why he’s not on the same page.

“Stella needs someone who’s constant. Someone who will be here every single day, taking her to school, picking her up, taking her to her after-school activities. I travel a lot for hockey. I can’t be here all the time. Stella needs someone who can.”

“You’ve literally described the role ofanynanny. Are you telling me that out of the probably tens of thousands of nannies who work in this city, you couldn’t findanyonemore caring and compassionate than that dictator?”

“It’s going to be fine,” he says, and his dismissiveness only riles me up more.

“You cannot possibly know that. Put yourself in Stella’s shoes. She just told me that everyone she loves leaves her.” I watch that sink in, and Aleksandr’s long blink is the only indication that it’s affected him. “Now you’re going to go play your games and leave her with someone who not only doesn’t care about her, but doesn’t even seem capable of caring for anyone?”

“You’re overreacting,” he says, and he knows how to push all my buttons in the same way I know how to push his.

I drop my voice low. “Do not tell me I’m overreacting. These aren’t the hysterics of someone making something out of nothing. I’ve been in Stella’s shoes. After my mom and Viktor died, my dad was distant and consumed by his own grief. If it hadn’t been for you, I would have been all alone. Please, Sasha. Don’t be my dad in this situation.Be your teenage self. Be there for her, or make sure that when you can’t, you have someone here who’s going to care about her emotional well-being like she deserves.”

“Irina’s moving in on Sunday, and I leave for my first playoff game on Tuesday. There isn’t time to find someone else,” he tells me.

“So this is about you, then. Not Stella.”

He puts both his hands on the back of the chair in front of him, and the only sign that he’s as pissed at me as I am at him is the fact that he’s squeezing the wood so hard his knuckles are white. “No, this is about needing to have someone living here with her when I can’t be here. Natasha didn’t give me much notice, and I got lucky finding someone so qualified in such a short time frame. She may not be all touchy-feely,” he says, “but she’s who we’ve got for the next year.”

“I’m beyond disappointed in you,” I say as I cross my arms under my chest. “This is not how you treat people you love.”

“How would you even know?” A dark laugh tumbles through his lips.

I narrow my eyes at him. “What?”

“You never let people get close enough to love you,” he says, but he’s wrong. I don’t let people get close enough to hurt me. There’s a difference. “In your entire adult life, who have you ever loved?”

I loved you, I almost say, but I hold my tongue because in the end he walked away too.

“Exactly,” he says when I don’t respond. “I’m doing the work of loving Stella and raising her, even though I don’t claim to be qualified for either. So save your criticism for someone who wants to hear it.” His words are a dismissal and I know when to cut my losses.

“I’m going to go say goodbye to Stella,” I say as I turn and rush out of the kitchen before he can level any more parting blows at me.

I walk through the entryway and down the hall quietly, feeling like an intruder. I thought I had Stella’s best interests at heart, and I thought I could convince him to find someone else. Maybe I was wrong on both counts, which is just another reason why I don’t belong here. It’s good that I’m heading home, where I can think about this situation and try to find a way to help him adopt Stella without having to be around him.

I approach the door to Stella’s room, and pause, listening to the nanny’s words. “No, you can’t go see your uncle. He doesn’t want to be around you when you’re crying like a baby. Get yourself together, and then you can see him.”

“He does want to see me,” Stella says, her voice heaving through sobs. I can’t tell if she’s trying to convince the nanny or herself.

“No one wants to be around a crying child,” Irina says. “You will learn to control your emotions or you will spend every moment in your bedroom alone.”

“No,” Stella wails. She sounds so scared that my heart literally hurts.

“How dare you,” I say as I step through the door to find Stella curled up into a ball on her bed, Irina standing above her. Everything about Irina’s body language is threatening. “You’ve been here for ten minutes and you’re already intimidating and threatening her?Thisis how you care for the children in your charge?”

She looks at me like I’m an annoying child. “I will not have my methods questioned,” she says. “Especially not by some outsider.”

I feel rather than hear or see Aleksandr behind me.

“She’s six years old,” Aleksandr says to Irina. His voice isn’t exactly placating, but it’s not as harsh as I’d want it to be in these circumstances.

“I know exactly how old she is. Too old to be treated like a baby.” Irina stands there ramrod straight, as if daring either of us to argue with her.

“You are threatening her with solitary confinement,” Aleksandr says. “That will never be okay with me.”

Finally, the man I know he can be shows up.

“I’ve had forty-eight different families reach out about becoming their nanny in the two weeks since I signed a contract with you,” Irina says to Aleksandr.

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