by Bella Rose
Mikhail turned, offering Annette a pleasant and hopefully calming smile. “What can I do for you, Annette?”
“This message came for you while you were in your meeting.” She handed him a pink slip of paper.
“Thank you.” Mikhail wandered back into his office.
He had turned his phone off while he was with Vasily. Now he realized that he had missed two phone calls and three texts from Ryan. Feeling somewhat curious, but not yet alarmed, Mikhail called the guard back.
“Sir?” Ryan answered on the first ring. “I thought you should know that Ms. Piers-Cameron left the apartment.”
Mikhail nearly squeezed the phone so hard it shattered. “What?”
“She and Mrs. Pinckney left here twenty minutes ago to go to some sort of brunch with their friends. I tried to have them followed, but the men couldn’t find them.”
Mikhail forced himself to calm down. “Bella and Courtney are best friends. I’m sure she’s safe with Toby’s wife. The man is rich as Croesus. If someone was going to target them, it would be for Bella, not for Courtney.”
“Sir?” Ryan said tersely. “What do you want us to do?”
“Give it an hour,” Mikhail said reasonably. “You know how women are. They like to have brunch with their friends, shop, do their own thing, and then they come home.”
“If you’re sure.” Ryan sounded hesitant.
Mikhail forced himself to calm down. Maybe Courtney was trying to show him that she was still an independent woman. He could respect that. “Just call me in an hour. I’ll text Toby and see what he knows about Bella’s schedule.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mikhail sent a quick text to his friend, trying not to feel so worried and off-kilter. He couldn’t let himself get caught up in paranoia. He was not his father. Look at everything that had happened in the last few days. If he and Courtney could survive that, they could survive anything.
He walked back to his desk, sat down, and forced himself to work. That would take his mind off anything. He finished off the outline for the settlement he was proposing for Vasily Romanov and then glanced at the clock again. It had been two hours.
Mikhail checked his phone. Not only had Courtney not texted him, Toby hadn’t texted him back either. Of course, Mikhail wasn’t entirely sure that Courtney had his cell phone number. It was quite bizarre actually. The two of them had been through such an unorthodox courtship that they’d missed a few key points. Mikhail resolved to remedy this situation at once and decided to go directly to Toby’s office and get some answers.
He was in the car on his way to Pinckney Towers when he received a response from Toby that Bella was supposed to be out shopping most of the day but had stopped by his office for lunch. The two of them had only just gotten back and she was still there.
A suspicious feeling grew in Mikhail’s gut. By the time he reached Pinckney Towers, he was afraid he was far too late to fix what had very likely occurred. It made him angry. He stomped his way into the elevator and then stomped back to Toby’s office.
Toby and Bella looked up in surprise when he shoved the door open and walked inside. “Where’s Courtney?”
Bella cocked her head to one side. “I have no idea. I thought you’d locked her up in a tower to keep her safe from all of the boogeymen in the world.”
Toby swung around, staring at his wife in shock. “Bells, that’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Is it?” Bella stood up and crossed to Mikhail. “Did you really tell your wife that having a child wouldn’t change your lives at all?”
Now Toby’s look of horror swung around to land on Mikhail. “Dude. Really?”
“What?” Mikhail said defensively. “When you have money, children don’t change your lives! You just hire around-the-clock help and go on like you did before!”
Okay. Mikhail was starting to feel more than a little on the defensive. Why were they looking at him as if he were the devil? He wasn’t the type of man to roll around on the floor with a toddler or play airplane or read bedtime stories. He had more blood on his hands than a regular guy ever should. He wasn’t fit to be a parent. Didn’t they understand this?
“I don’t know where she is,” Bella told him quietly. “But I also didn’t believe her when she told me what you said. Thanks for clearing that up for me. I’ll never doubt my friend again.” She gave him a dirty look. “And my opinion of you will never recover either.”
“That’s harsh, Mikhail,” Toby told him. “I know you’re torn up about your past. I know you never had a decent father figure, but telling a woman that about her unborn child is about the easiest way to alienate her I can think of. You just told her that you want her, but you don’t really want the kid you made with her.” Toby looked angrier than Mikhail had ever seen him. “Do you know how hard Bella and I are trying to have children? The idea that some asshole like you could be blessed when we can’t even buy our way in is disgusting. Get out of here and don’t come back until you pull your head out of your ass.”
Less than ten minutes later Mikhail was standing on the sidewalk in front of Pinckney Towers, wondering how his life had spun so far out of control.
Twenty-Four
Courtney spun a small circle and tried to figure out what it was about this tiny space that actually appealed to her. The entire apartment would have fit into the foyer of the home she grew up in. Yet instead of seeming small or dingy, the place felt like home almost instantly. There were so many windows! The front room was flooded with sunlight. The open floor plan allowed the rest of the house to also be light filled and airy. Courtney sighed. This was home and she was going to be happy here.
“Well?” The old woman who owned the tiny building was looking at Courtney with an almost grandmotherly expression. “I think you could be very happy here with us. Don’t you think?”
“And the lease?” Courtney’s gut twisted at the mere thought. The rent was laughably low, but her savings was only going to give her a six-month chance to get on her feet.
The elderly woman cocked her head, her gray hair catching the light and looking almost silver. “How about we say six months?”
Courtney was flooded with relief. Her hand went almost unconsciously to her abdomen. “That would be perfect.”
“Expecting, are you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Courtney felt her cheeks heat up in a blush.
She’d traveled to a fairly small town upstate from the city where she had been raised. She knew their values were much different here. It was one of the things that appealed to Courtney. Except here she was an unwed mother in a place where such things simply weren’t done.
The grandmotherly woman—whose name was Mrs. Potts—gave Courtney a very loving smile. “I’m sure you made the right decision. Sometimes we can’t understand how we wind up in these situations, but they always seem to turn out for the best. Do you have a job yet?”
“No, ma’am,” Courtney said with a small shake of her head. “I thought I would look this afternoon.”
“I have a little coffee shop around the corner.” Mrs. Potts put her finger to her lips. “How about you come work for me? It’s nothing big. Just a little café. We serve some breakfast items, plenty of my home-baked goodies, and a few sandwiches. Would that interest you? We could really use another clerk.”
“I would very much appreciate that,” Courtney said gratefully. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“Call me Nana, dear,” the woman said softly. “They all do.”
* * *
Mikhail sank listlessly into a seat at Vasily’s home. Oksana puttered about, making sure he was comfortable and had a drink. Then she leaned down and pressed a motherly kiss to his forehead. “It is so good to have you back, dear one,” she told him in Russian. “I lost my son that night, but losing you also made it twice as difficult to bear.”
Her words warmed him, but they also shocked him. Mikhail caught her hand. “You didn’t blame me?”
“No, no,” Oksana said fervently. “Never. I could never believe that you would be intentionally responsible for Uday’s death. The two of you were more like brothers than cousins.”
“Yes,” Mikhail agreed. “I missed him. I believe I thought of him every day when I was building my business. He and I used to talk about such things. About being independent and going out on our own. He was a good man, Oksana.”
“Yes.” She sniffed a little and then smiled in spite of her sadness.
Vasily walked into the room. He pegged Mikhail with a knowing stare and then gave his wife a hard nod. “Dimitri is here.”
“And Katy?” Mikhail asked tensely. “Is she going to be subjected to this?”
“No. I’ve sent her and her husband back to their home for the night. Dimitri does not know this, though.” Vasily looked grim. “I don’t want him to have the opportunity to put Katy and Pyotr in the middle or try to force them to choose sides.”
“Smart move,” Mikhail murmured. “You know that will be the bastard’s first strategy.”
There was a loud noise in the foyer. The hall echoed with Dimitri’s loud greeting in Russian. Vasily’s second-in-command showed the rotund Russian into the living room. Mikhail looked around. Oksana was pale, but her expression was determined. Vasily looked stony. But it was Mikhail that drew the most immediate attention from Dimitri.
Dimitri pointed his finger and reached around his enormous girth as though he was going for his gun. “What is that demon spawned whelp doing here?”
Vasily glanced at Mikhail and then smiled. It was not a friendly expression. “He is here at my invitation.”
“Why would you invite your son’s killer into your home?” Dimitri asked suspiciously.
Vasily stared hard at Dimitri. “I have asked myself that question a lot lately. See, Mikhail and I have been talking about the night that Uday died. What we have realized is that the man who had the most to gain from my son’s death is you, Dimitri. I have no heir. You have too many sons. You want more. You’ve married Pyotr to my daughter. He will now inherit my businesses. It seems rather damning, don’t you think?”
“It seems far-fetched, is what it seems,” Dimitri blustered, but the way his gaze was shifting made Mikhail believe that he was most definitely guilty as charged.
“Dimitri,” Mikhail said silkily, standing up and pacing toward the fat old Russian man. “There is no point in this lie you continue to try and perpetuate. Stop wasting our time. Admit what you did and perhaps we won’t kill you where you stand.” Mikhail leaned in and used his proximity to push the older man back a step.
“You useless orphaned bastard!” Dimitri fumed. “I never could understand how such a worthless whelp could wind up with so much money! Who did you kill? Who did you cheat?”
“No one,” Mikhail said flatly. “I have what I have because I worked hard to achieve it. I’m sorry if you don’t approve, but I just don’t give a shit.”
“So what now?” Dimitri looked from Mikhail to Vasily. “I killed Uday. It was years ago. Who cares?”
They had planned this all very carefully, but sometimes even the best-laid plans experienced failure. And when Oksana lifted a handgun, took aim, and fired, Mikhail knew that anything he and Vasily had planned for this moment was no longer a viable solution.
“I care!” Oksana shouted. “I care, you son of a bitch.”
Vasily grabbed his wife, holding her close and carefully taking the gun from her hand. He passed the weapon off to Mikhail, who watched with a hollow ache as Vasily and Oksana nestled together and experienced the misery of the child they had lost. The two of them were sharing their grief, but Mikhail couldn’t help but think about the joy they had probably shared as well. Having children together had changed their lives, and anyone who didn’t understand that was exactly what Toby had accused Mikhail of being—an emotional cripple.
* * *
Courtney felt like a complete imbecile after her first shift at Nana’s Café, but she couldn’t help but feel good about all the hard work she had put in.
The other clerk touched her arm. “You did great! The first day is always the craziest. You’ll settle in, though.”
“Thank you,” Courtney said gratefully.
Courtney felt the strangest sense of acceptance. She’d felt it in the tiny apartment from Nana. And now she felt it with this near stranger at a job she never would have expected to enjoy. Maybe all of this was simply telling her that she was becoming herself for once in her life. She hadn’t gotten this job because she knew the boss. She hadn’t gotten it because of her daddy, or his money. The “in” crowd didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t have anyone to impress. The only thing that mattered was what she wanted or needed. It was just her and the baby—whom she had started to think of as Junior. It was all very liberating.
“Have you ever worked in a café before?” The other clerk was named Heather. She handed Courtney a towel and gestured to the tables. “We need to wipe down all the tables before we can go home.”
Courtney took the rag and got right to work. “No café or food-service experience, I’m afraid. I worked in an office before doing data entry.”
“Ugh!” Heather said with an overdramatized eye roll. “That sounds boring!”
“It sort of was,” Courtney admitted. “I suppose I’ve never really thought about what I would like to do, but honestly I kind of like it here.”
Heather gave a very serious nod. “The atmosphere here is amazing. That’s certainly true. And I love the coffee shop atmosphere. We get regulars and everyone who works here is very team oriented. It’s like a big family.”
“Like a small town,” Courtney mused. “A small town within a small town.”
Heather laughed. The sound was lighthearted, and Courtney couldn’t help but smile back. Heather’s grin was infectious. “That’s exactly right! And sometimes this whole town will drive you nuts, but they’ll also accept you.”
“I don’t think anyone can ask for more.” Courtney was thinking about the closed, very judgmental community she’d come from.
Heather was humming to herself as she cleaned. Every once in awhile she would give a little shimmy and shake her booty as if she were hearing an entire rock band playing inside her head. It was nice. Courtney had never been around anyone like Heather before. Maybe this starting over where nobody knew anything about her or her baggage was going to work after all.
Then Courtney thought about Mikhail. She generally tried to forget about him. Thinking about him caused a stabbing pain in the vicinity of her heart, and a desperate longing she almost couldn’t deny. She loved that man more than she had ever thought possible. In fact she knew more firmly now that she loved him than she had the last time she had felt him enter her and possess her so fully.
“You okay?” Heather asked softly.
Courtney realized that there were tears running down her cheeks. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. I’m just thinking about some stuff.”
“Like the guy you left back home?” Heather guessed.
Courtney gave a tight nod and scrubbed with unnecessary ferocity at the table in front of her.
“It’s okay, you know,” Heather told her gently. “We all have guys that we have a hard time getting over.”
“What if I don’t really want to get over him?” Courtney asked softly. “What if I just wish he would change?”
“We can’t change them.” Heather sounded as though she knew this from experience. “You did the right thing. I don’t even know what happened, but if you left because you thought he needed to change, you did the right thing. He has to want to change. And he’ll never do that if you just keep making excuses for him.”
There was a certain wisdom in those words. Heather was right. Maybe this wasn’t the end for Courtney and Mikhail. Maybe he could actually change. Maybe something would happen and he would discover that having a child was a very good thing. Maybe he would want to share that adventure with her. Maybe he’d realize that just be
cause having a child changed their lives, that it wasn’t a bad thing at all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Six months later…
Courtney sat in her tiny furnished apartment with her feet up on the coffee table. Her hands were clasped over her round belly, and she continually giggled as she felt Junior’s foot, or arm, or whatever, pushing at her hands. Beside her, Bella also had her feet up on the table. She was sporting her own much-smaller baby bump.
“I’m glad you came up for a visit,” Courtney told her friend. “I love it here and the people are wonderful, but I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah,” Bella agreed. “Just talking on the phone is definitely not the same.”
“So.” Courtney wondered how to ease into the topic of Mikhail without seeming too obvious.
“Mikhail misses you like crazy, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Bella informed her. “He nags me constantly about where you are and how you’re doing. He’s tried to have me give you money about a million times. He’s convinced you can’t possibly be surviving on your own.”
“Which is why I need to,” Courtney countered.
Bella pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. “I don’t think that’s really what it’s about anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Courtney held her breath and refused to look at her friend. She didn’t want Bella to see how much hope she had that Mikhail would have changed.
“I think he’s worried because he cares. I don’t think it’s about haute couture or the type of place you’re living in. I think it’s more about just being worried that you’re okay. He really loves you, Courtney.”
“I really love him,” Courtney whispered. “I just can’t keep trying to convince him or change him, or whatever. I have to let him be who he wants to be. And I’m starting to realize that I need to be who I am. I’ve never felt more like myself.”
“Which is crazy because you’re hugely pregnant and getting ready to deliver that kid at any moment.” Bella reached over and poked Junior. Courtney’s belly moved in response. Bella snickered. “That is a super active baby you’ve got there. Do you have any idea how wild and crazy that kid is going to be?”