Page 7 of A Baby for the BRATVA Boss
She doesn’t look away. “Say them.”
“You’ll hear them tonight. For now, you need to know this,” I add, and let the steel through: “When I decide to put my child in you, it won’t be a question. It will be the next step in a line that started the moment you opened your door.”
She shivers.
“You don’t lie,” she says.
“No.”
The bells fade. The square tilts back into motion. She takes another sip and licks chocolate from her lower lip without thinking. I feel it everywhere.
“Drink up,” I tell her. “We’re going home.”
Temporary, I told myself yesterday.
I was lying.
Sophia
The red coat is still heavy on my shoulders, soft against my neck. The hot chocolate lingers on my tongue, sweet and faintly bitter, and I can still hear the echo of the bells in the valley as we slowly wind our way up the mountain. For the first time since he came to my door, I don’t feel hollow.
The town was so alive it almost hurt. Laughter, joy, light in every window. For a few hours, I forgot what I was. Standing beside him while the snow fell and the world moved around us, I didn’t feel like property or payment. I felt human.
When we reach the house, night is already falling again. Yury opens the door for me, his hand at the small of my back, a quiet touch that steadies more than it controls. I step inside and turn back toward the window. From here, the valley glows gold through the dark. Tiny specks of light pulse against the snow, like the world is breathing.
“I didn’t think anywhere could still look like that,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
He sets his gloves on the table. “It’s old here. Things stay the way they’re meant to.”
“I like it.”
“Good.” He studies me, expression unreadable. “We can go again, whenever you want.”
The words make something flutter low in my stomach. I shouldn’t want to go anywhere with him. But the thought of walking those narrow streets again, of hearing the bells while his hand brushes my back the way it just did… I can’t quite convince myself not to want it.
The fire is still burning from earlier. I move closer, holding my hands out to the heat. My gloves are damp from the snow, and when I peel them off, my fingers sting from warmth meeting cold. He watches me from across the room, jacket off, sweater open at the throat. There’s something quieter about him tonight. Less Pakhan, more man.
“You’re still cold,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
He steps closer anyway. “Turn around.”
I do, though my heartbeat picks up in a way that has nothing to do with the chill. He reaches for the toggles of the coat and twists them, his knuckles grazing the base of my throat as he opens it. The air catches in my lungs.
“You shouldn’t wear wet things,” he murmurs. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
The coat slides down my arms, bunching in a pile at my feet. I don’t move to pick it up. His fingers linger just long enough to make me feel it somewhere deeper, the heat of his skin, the restraint in his touch.
I pick it up and place it on the arm of the sofa before turning back toward the window, because I need to breathe. The glass has fogged slightly from the warmth of the fire. Beyond it, the snow keeps falling, slow and endless.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say. “The lights. The people. The smell of cinnamon. I can’t remember the last time I was somewhere that felt so alive.”
He’s closer again. I feel him behind me before his reflection materializes with mine in the window pane. “You’re alive.”
I meet his eyes in our joined reflection. “Maybe, but I don’t feel like I’ve been living for the longest time.”
His hands slide into his pockets, but the air between us hums. I can feel him watching me, can feel every place the heat from him touches my body.
