Page 200 of Toxic Temptation
Kovan’s expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes. I beat him to the punch, though, because nothing hurts quite as good as hurting yourself, right? It’s better that I do it to myself. Save him the trouble.
“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m forgetting my place, aren’t I? That’s what you’re thinking? I know you are; I can see it in your face. He’syournephew. I’m just the fake girlfriend playing dress-up and getting way, way ahead of herself.”
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“Isn’t it, though?” I stop pacing and face him fully. “Because that’s what this feels like right now. Like I care more about what happens to him than you do.”
Kovan pushes off the doorframe, his jaw tightening. “You think I don’t care?”
“I think you’re standing there calm as could be, while Luka is with two people who’ve spent months making his life hell.”
“You think being calm means I don’t care?” he growls. “You think I’m not imagining every possible way they could be hurting him right now? Every cruel word Yana might be whispering in his ear?”
I open my mouth to clap back, but he keeps talking.
“You think I’m not fighting the urge to drive to their house and drag him out of there myself?” He takes a step closer. “I’ve been handling this situation for months, Vesper. Long before you showed up. So don’t you dare stand there and lecture me about caring. You don’t know the first fucking thing about just how much I care.”
The anger goes out of me all at once. I sink onto one of the bar stools, suddenly exhausted. “I’m sorry. I just—I hate this. I hate that we had to let them take him today.”
“I hate it just as much as you do.” Kovan moves to the coffee maker and pours me a cup without asking. “The court order was specific. Yana requested a birthday visitation weeks ago, and the judge approved it.”
“It’s a fucking scheme.”
“Of course it is.” He slides the mug across the counter to me. “She’s playing the devoted mother card for the custody evaluation. But that also means she won’t do anything to actually hurt him today.”
I wrap my hands around the warm ceramic, trying to absorb some of its heat to ground me. “How can you be sure?”
“Because Yana is many things, but she’s not stupid. She knows Eliza Murphy will ask Luka about today. She’ll make sure he has nothing bad to report.”
The logic makes sense, but it doesn’t ease the knot in my chest. “He didn’t even want to go. Did you see his face when Pavel picked him up this morning?”
“I saw.” Kovan is solemn. “But sometimes, we have to do things we don’t want to do. He understands that.”
“He’s eight years old. He shouldn’thaveto understand that.”
“No, he shouldn’t. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt.”
I take a sip of coffee and let it sit on my tongue. The burn, the bitterness—it’s good. It anchors me to the present. “I keep thinking about all the birthdays he’s already suffered through. All the times she wasn’t there when he needed her. And now, she gets to act like mother of the year for one stupid day and we’re supposed to be okay with it.”
Kovan rounds the island and settles on the stool beside me. Close enough that I can smell his cologne, feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“She can play whatever role she wants today,” he says. “It doesn’t change the fact that when he needs comfort, he comes to us. When he has nightmares, he calls for you. When he’s scared, he looks for me.”
Us.Not ‘me and you separately,’ butus. Like we’re a unit. A team.
Maybe even a family.
“I never thought I’d feel this way about a kid,” I admit. “I mean, I love my patients, but this is different. This is…”
“Terrifying,” Kovan finishes.
“Yeah.” I look at him sideways. “Is it weird that I’m more nervous about this custody hearing than I’ve ever been about any surgery?”
“Not weird at all.” He reaches over and toys with a loose strand of my hair. “It means you care. It means this isn’t just a job to you anymore.”
“It stopped being ‘just a job’ weeks ago.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Outside, the afternoon sun pours through the kitchen windows, casting long shadows across the floor. Soon, Luka will be home and the house will fill with his voice again.
