by Lia Lee
“Of course!” Senator Mackey gushed.
The senator’s wife suddenly took great interest in the conversation. “Oh my God, you’re the one who discovered Julietta Forest, aren’t you?”
“I did actually,” Maddie said eagerly. “Julietta is the sweetest girl. I found her playing in this dive downtown, but I knew she really had the ability to be so much more as an artist if someone would give her a chance.” Maddie reached out and gently touched the arm of the senator’s wife. “I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to hear someone else compliment one of my artists.”
“Oh, of course! I just can’t imagine how amazing it would be to get to go around finding all of these people and then helping them get a career!” The senator’s wife took Maddie’s arm. “My name is Violet, by the way. It’s just so incredible to meet you!”
The two women began chattering away while Alex looked on in amazement. Maddie was exceptional when it came to putting people at ease and getting them to feel comfortable in her presence. Then Alex realized that the senator was still watching him. Smoothing out any sign of surprise or discomfort, Alex met the senator’s gaze and smiled.
There was no telling where things might have gone from there if the hostess hadn’t arrived to take them to their table. There were three couples here this evening. Maddie and the senator’s wife were already fast friends and chose seats beside each other. Alex took a chair to Maddie’s right, which put him in a position to chat with both the senator and the member of the state department who had been invited this evening as well.
***
MADDIE HAD NO idea what she was supposed to be doing at this stupid dinner, but she figured if she could take the opportunity to put in a few plugs for her clients, then it was at least worth being here. It was difficult to believe that Violet was married to a US senator. Although she was very beautiful, she had little to no interest in politics or foreign affairs. She hadn’t even realized that the dinner was a political function of sorts.
“So,” Violet said, leaning close. “Do you really think that Nelson Phillipi will be playing here in New York in the next few months?”
“Oh, I have it on good authority that there’s a concert tour date scheduled for the end of the spring.” Maddie nodded. “If you want, I could try and get you some backstage tickets.”
”Oh my God, that would be incredible!” Violet was practically leaping up and down in her seat.
Maddie waved her hand. “Hey, it’s no problem at all!” Then she glanced over at Alex and Violet’s husband who were deep in discussion. “So what is this dinner for? You know, what’s the purpose?”
Violet leaned in close and shot her husband a surreptitious look. “Well, all I know is that Alex is some kind of heir to the Russian throne.”
“Yeah, back when there were tsars. He’s a Romanov, I think.” Maddie shrugged. “I read that on a gossip blog. I don’t know how much is true.”
“Oh, it’s true!” Violet insisted. “And apparently Alex’s mother is trying to push him into making a bid for the throne. Something about his cousin being too weak to hold it or some weirdness.”
“Wow.” Maddie mulled that over in her head. “So why the meeting then?”
“All I know,” Violet whispered. “Is that my husband claims he invited Alex to dinner to make certain that he really doesn’t have aspirations to take over the country.”
Maddie gasped, mostly because it was really very shocking to hear. Violet was basically saying that Alex was here to prove that he was loyal to the Russian president instead of his mother. Given the very little that Maddie had gleaned from Alex about his mother—especially when it came to tense topics like their baby—Alex might not have a choice when it came to participating in some bizarre Russian coup.
She gave Alex a sideways glance and wondered what she was getting herself into. Perhaps it would be better just to walk away and forget about the fact that this man was the father of her unborn child. Maybe it would be safer for them all if she just handled things on her own.
The stress made her stomach queasy. Maddie shot to her feet. “Um, if everyone will excuse me, I’ll be back directly.” Feeling so very close to ruining yet another pair of shoes, Maddie made a hasty retreat to the ladies’ room.
***
ALEX WATCHED IN confusion as Maddie walked energetically out of their private dining room and out of sight. What was wrong with her? Could she not see that the other guests sitting around the table felt that she was being unforgivably rude?
“I apologize for my dinner companion,” Alex murmured. “Shall we continue our discussion?”
“Of course!” Mackey grinned. “Women will be women.”
There were a few laughs and raucous jokes about the inconstant nature of women before the conversation turned back to more important matters. The waiter brought appetizers and then salads. Drinks were refilled and reordered as the room got a little more relaxed, and dinner progressed exactly as Alex would have hoped.
He was just beginning to think that he was making headway in convincing the senator and his fellow UN member that Alex had no designs on reinstalling the Romanov dynasty on the Russian Imperial Throne when Senator Mackey’s wife touched Alex’s elbow. He turned to look at her in surprise and realized that Maddie had never returned to her seat.
“Mr. Stepanov, I’m starting to become more than a little worried about Maddie,” Violet admitted. “She’s been gone for half an hour. I know she’s a very busy woman, so perhaps she’s just making a business call in another part of the restaurant, but I think I’m going to go and check on her if you have no objections?”
Alex shot to his feet, unceremoniously shoving his chair back as he did. Inside he was fuming. Could it be possible that Maddie was taking a business call during this dinner and managing to make him look bad as she did? The idea that she would be so selfish was abhorrent. He didn’t think he could be with a woman who would so callously be rude to people who had welcomed her so warmly.
“No,” Alex said to Violet. “I’ll go check on her myself. If you will all excuse me for a moment?”
There was a round of good natured comments and nods around the table. Alex could not help but feel like they were all laughing at him in their own ways. Not that they were being particularly rude, but this breach of protocol on his part showed a deplorable lack of manners. He didn’t appreciate being placed in such an untenable position, and he intended to be certain that Maddie knew how he felt about it.
He left the private dining room and headed back to the lounge. He fully expected to see Maddie perched on a barstool with her phone to her ear. There was no doubt that she took her career seriously and would likely not hesitate to put her commitments above her decision to be his dinner companion. Yet Alex didn’t see her anywhere.
“Excuse me.” Alex stopped a passing waiter. “Where are your restrooms?”
The waiter gestured back down the hallway. Alex gave a nod of appreciation and then headed in that direction. Could Maddie have made her phone call and then decided to make a quick detour to the ladies’ room? It seemed likely given the situation. Perhaps she would try to sway him and make him think she had been in the restroom for the past thirty minutes.
Alex snorted as he knocked on the door of the ladies’ room. “Maddie?”
There was no answer. Feeling irritated, he shoved the door open and stepped inside. The square space had three stalls and a long sink area with plenty of room for a woman to freshen up her makeup. Maddie was nowhere to be found.
Alex frowned. It was unwise for him to linger in the ladies’ room, but he couldn’t help feeling as if something was very wrong. He could well believe that Maddie had gotten caught up in her own business concerns, but he was having a very difficult time imagining that she would just leave him there with no explanation at all. She had to be in the restaurant somewhere.
“Go away, Alex.”
The voice came from the stall at the far end of the room.
Alex f
rowned in surprise and moved in closer. “What’s wrong? You never came back to the table, and the group was worried.”
“I just don’t feel good.” She sounded horrible. Her voice was weak and reedy.
Then Alex shoved open the stall door and gaped at what he found. Maddie was sitting on the floor in front of the toilet with her arms draped over the seat. Before Alex could even prepare himself for more horror, she gasped and began to be violently sick into the toilet. She groped for the handle as she did, managing to flush before sinking back to the floor.
“Maddie?” Alex asked weakly, feeling his own stomach heave at the sight of her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just sick. Okay?” She coughed, sounding utterly miserable. “I probably shouldn’t have come at all tonight. The past few days have been a little unpredictable.”
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, completely confused.
“Seriously?” She looked at him as though he was the biggest idiot on the planet. “It’s called pregnancy.”
“That’s morning sickness,” Alex said stupidly.
“Yeah?” He could not miss the biting sarcasm in her tone. “Well, unfortunately it isn’t confined to the morning hours or to any schedule at all. Just go away and leave me alone.”
Alex felt like a complete ass. He had been imagining a dozen negative reasons why Maddie might have disappeared from the dinner table. In fact, he had already painted her with a very unflattering brush and basically condemned her for something he had no notion of. Now he discovered that she was indeed ill, and oddly enough, it was the child she carried—his child—who was making her that way. It was a very confusing sensation.
Making a split second decision, he pulled out his phone and texted his driver to bring the car around. Then he moved toward Maddie. She only gave him a dirty look and tried to push his arms away.
“What do you want?” she groused.
He plucked her off the floor and settled her in his arms. “I’m taking you home.”
“Oh.” She sounded so relieved that he felt even worse. “Thank you!”
Chapter Six
Humiliation did not cover what Maddie was feeling right now at this moment. Yet there was also a huge sense of relief in being held so tenderly by Alex as he carried her to the car. Not another word was said about dinner. Although, if he had said something about food, she probably would have hurled again. She just couldn’t seem to get a grip on her stomach. She felt so horribly sick!
The interior of the limo was cool and quiet. Alex set her on the seat and climbed in behind her. She’d heard him ask a waiter to go make his excuses to their dinner companions, and Maddie hoped this episode didn’t harm him in some way with those politicians. It wasn’t as if it was his fault that she’d gotten ill.
“I’m sorry,” Maddie whispered. Her face felt hot, and she pressed it to the leather seat in an effort to gain relief. “I should have told you I was ill and saved you the embarrassment of having to leave in the middle of dinner. I truly apologize.”
“Don’t,” he chided gently. He stroked her back with the palm of his hand. His touch felt like heaven. “Don’t worry about dinner. It hardly matters when you’re obviously so ill. Can I call a doctor? Do you have a midwife or someone looking after you?”
“Not exactly.” She heaved a sigh. “I made an appointment with my regular doctor, but tomorrow was the soonest I could get in. They hardly consider this an emergency.”
“It seems as if it should be.” He actually sounded worried. “You appear to be very ill.”
It was almost cute how he kept saying that. It was as if he were worried and yet was unable to express it adequately. Perhaps he was good with formalities, but horrible at casual relationships with boundaries that were more negligible than strict. It was something to think about when she wasn’t afraid of puking her guts up every second of the day.
“Where is your home?” he asked suddenly. “I’ll have the driver take us there so that you can be comfortable.”
Maddie rattled off her address and then wondered what her neighbors were going to think when a limo pulled up to the curb. Her building in the Village was hardly used to that sort of traffic coming by. Likely they would all think it was one of her clients bringing her home.
Of course, that was better than trying to explain the presence of Russian royalty on her doorstep.
***
THE LIMO STOPPED a short while later in front of Maddie’s building, and Alex gazed outside with interest. He hadn’t exactly known what to expect. When he and Maddie had engaged in their original liaison, it had been in his hotel suite. He hadn’t asked her any details of her life, and she hadn’t offered. Their association was meant to be casual. Now it was more, and he didn’t really know what to do with that change.
He glanced over at Maddie. She was already heaving herself toward the door, obviously preparing to exit the vehicle.
Alex reached over and touched her arm. “Please let me help you inside.”
Her eyes widened, and she actually looked a little panicked. “Oh, you don’t need to do that. Really.”
“Oh, but I want to,” he insisted.
Now he was curious. What was she trying to hide from him? There were any number of possibilities. He was accustomed to people attempting to keep the truth from him. Nobody did clandestine like a tsarist Russian family. Although it disappointed him to think that Maddie was just like the rest of his family.
“All right.” She opened the door and heaved herself out onto the street. “But I’m warning you it’s nothing fancy up there. Nothing that you’re used to.”
He felt his eyebrows go up as he realized that her reticence must come from a fear that he would judge her for her humble surroundings. Nothing could be further from the truth, though he supposed that she would have no frame of reference to believe him anything but an entitled snob. That sort of knowledge about a person came from a lengthy acquaintance.
Alex buzzed his driver through the intercom. “Stay here until I tell you otherwise. I don’t think I’ll be long.”
The response was immediate. “Yes sir.”
He sighed. The driver had been hired by his mother to cart him around New York while he was here lest he sully himself by taking a regular cab. The driver was nice and it certainly made things convenient, but sometimes he longed for a little bit of normal in his life.
“Here,” Alex said quickly. “Let me help you.”
He reached for Maddie and tugged her into his arms. She didn’t fight him, which made him believe that she felt worse than she was letting on. She sort of melted into his embrace as he carried her up a short flight of steps and into her building. The sensation was rather nice. Alex had never spent much time with a woman in a situation that wasn’t formal in nature. This casual sort of contact was—well, it was very satisfying in a whole new way.
“What floor?” he asked as they entered the small, dark foyer.
She didn’t seem inclined to be chatty. She was taking deep breaths as though she might be sick again at any moment. “Second floor. Apartment 2-C.”
***
IT WAS ALL Maddie could do to keep herself from getting sick all over Alex. And there was no way she was going to allow that because she would have been dead right after. The shame would have made her keel over and die. One did not throw up all over a Russian prince. At least not without completely losing any credibility or hope of having one’s dignity restored.
Fortunately the deep breaths helped. By the time they got up the stairs and to her apartment door, she was feeling much better. She dug in her little clutch purse and found her keys. She was about to have him let her down to unlock the door when Alex gestured with the hand that had been holding her up beneath her knees. Surprised, she gave him her keys. Without setting her down, her lowered her enough so he could unlock the apartment door and let them inside as though he did this every day.
“Uh. Thank you?” she managed to stammer. “You didn’t have to do that.
I could have managed.”
He carried her into the small front room and then closed the door behind them with his shoulder. Somehow the cozy space that seemed like plenty when it was just her or a few friends was absolutely dwarfed by Alex’s presence. It was like he swallowed up all the space in the room. When he finally let her down, she took a step back to put some distance between them. The air in the room felt heavy. She was so utterly aware of this man, and yet she didn’t really know what that meant yet.
“I’ll be right back,” she muttered, ducking into the bathroom. It was the fastest she’d ever brushed her teeth, surely quick enough to break a world record, if there were such a thing.
When she returned and found him still standing there, relief surged through her.
“Are you going to be all right?” He was looking around her apartment with quick glances that suggested he was taking absolute inventory of her life.
She wondered what he thought of her now. “I’ll be fine. I read online that this is typical of the first trimester. Since I’m less than two months in, I suppose I’ve got some more of this nonsense to deal with. I’m just hoping the doctor can get me pills for this problem.” Her thoughts turned to the party she absolutely had to attend the following evening. “I really can’t afford to be missing so many work functions. It’s not fair to my clients.”
His gaze swiveled around to focus on her once again. “And yet it isn’t fair to you personally to put your health on hold for work.”
“It’s work.” She shrugged. Surely he could understand that. “My career is pretty much all I have going for me, you know?”
“No.” He looked mildly surprised. “I really don’t. I don’t know much about you at all, Maddie, and I feel like I want to change that.”
“You look surprised,” she mused. In fact, his expression was downright flabbergasted. “Haven’t you spent much time getting to know people in your life?”