by K T Bowes
Emma gulped. “Don’t swear. It only did it once, just then.”
“Nyet, it rang a few times. Want me to get it for you?” Rohan lifted his head from Emma’s neck and peered over the side of the bed, raking the floor with his blue eyes.
“Leave it, it’s too far away. It won’t be Nicky; he knows to call you, not me.”
Rohan rolled onto his side and stroked Emma’s damp hair away from her face. His eyes were perceptive as he studied her and Emma felt her heart give a nervous skip. Rohan was a human lie detector and Emma focussed on relaxing under his scrutiny. “What’s wrong, Em?”
She sighed and leaned towards part of the truth. “I’m worried about you leaving me here. It’s a big house and we’re miles from anywhere. What if something goes wrong?” Her brow knitted and she bit her lip, trying not to cry genuine tears.
Rohan tutted. “Dorogaya, you’ll be fine.” He ran his thumb under Emma’s eye and kissed the end of her nose. “I feel like we shouldn’t have moved out here. You felt safe in town, da?”
“No, I wanted to move out here. Your brother left us the house and wanted us to live in it. I just didn’t know you’d be heading off again, leaving me alone and pregnant.” Emma struggled to keep the pique from her voice.
Rohan sighed. “We never discussed it, Emma. You knew how I made a living and I’d have to work away sometimes.”
Emma swallowed. “I hoped you’d stop. Or at least not take another risky job until the baby came.”
“This isn’t a risky job, Em,” Rohan snuffed. “It’s one of the easiest I’ve done. Fred’s bringing the whole gang and we’ll diffuse it quickly.”
“But you don’t need the money.” Emma heard the whine in her voice and knew she ran on thin ice with her husband once she went along that track. “Anton left me a fortune and you said your stocks alone made more than a million pounds since Christmas. You could stay home if you wanted.”
Rohan’s lips quirked into a lopsided smile. “Emma Andreyev! I’m shocked. Is this your way of forcing me to say I don’t want to stay home with you? You devious little obez’yana!”
“Well, don’t you?” Determination lit her eyes with inner fire. “You don’t have to work as the Actuary if you don’t want to.”
Rohan inhaled deeply and Emma felt her fringe move as he breathed out again. She tensed. He ran his finger between her eyebrows, smoothing out the worry lines before tracing the outline of her nose. “Emma Andreyev, I keep no secrets from you. I don’t work as the Actuary, printsessa. I am the Actuary. It’s who I am and what I do. I won’t ask you not to be an archivist and work with dusty photos because it’s what you love. If the school didn’t pay you a salary, you’d just go anyway and do it for free. It’s rarely about the money.”
Emma blinked back tears unsuccessfully and they escaped down the side of her face and plopped onto the pillow. “Ask me not to do it and I won’t. I’ll stop work and stay home,” she whispered.
Rohan shook his head, his fringe falling into his eyes. “I won’t ask you, Em.”
Emma put her hand over her mouth and tried to suppress the huge sob which began in her chest. As usual, the mathematician had checkmated her. The misery welled up quickly, spilling from her mouth without restraint and Emma was powerless to hold it. Her chest heaved and her words were unintelligible, punctuated by hysterical jolts. Rohan pulled her face into his chest and held her, his biceps bulging against her tiny fingers as she sought to cling on and keep him pinned down. She sobbed and fought for breath, knowing it was futile. The Actuary was as much a part of Rohan Andreyev as the oxygen he breathed and she loved all of him. “I didn’t know you felt like this,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry, Em. I’m truly sorry.”
Emma collected herself enough to allay Rohan’s suspicions, sliding from the bed and washing away her salty tears in the ensuite shower. Will phoned from the front door and Rohan donned his jeans and shirt to greet his excited son. Nicky powered up the stairs to seek his mother, waving a new Leicester City scarf and towing Kaylee behind him. “I won’t be long, Nicky,” Emma called. “I’m just getting into my pyjamas.”
“Ok, Mum,” he called back graciously. “Kaylee just wanted you to see her hat before she goes home.”
“I’m coming.” Emma swiped at her puffy eyes with a towel and pulled on her pyjamas. She pushed her wet hair back from her face and straightened her shoulders, fixing a tight smile on her lips.
In the bedroom, Kaylee bounced on the balls of her feet and as Emma emerged, performed a beautiful pirouette. “Look Emma! Daddy bought me a hat and Nicky a scarf. It’s got Leicester City on it and the fox. Does it suit me?”
“It does!” Emma complimented her. “Blue suits you, Kaylee. How lovely of your daddy.” She turned to face her son and her breath caught in her chest. Nicky observed her with concern in his intense blue eyes. He didn’t smile and pulled the long woolly scarf from his neck, allowing it to trail on the floor.
Emma swallowed and dabbed at her red nose with a piece of toilet roll. “Let’s go and thank Will for taking you to the soccer, Nicky?”
The child shook his head. “No, Mummy. You stay here. I’ll take Kaylee back to her daddy and then I’m comin’ up here to talk to you.”
Emma opened her mouth to reply and then closed it again. Kaylee skipped into the wide hallway and Nicky started to follow her. He paused in the doorway and held out the scarf. “For you, Mummy.”
“No, baby. Will bought it for you.” Emma produced a watery smile for her son but could see he wasn’t convinced. He threw it on the chair between them and followed his little friend to the staircase and Emma listened to them clump down the wooden treads. “Oh no!” She sank onto the unmade bed and put her head in her hands. Nicky inherited Rohan’s interrogative nature and Emma worried for her ability to deceive both of them with any degree of success.
The phone buzzed on the rug again and Emma’s patience snapped. Stalking across to the roaring fire, she seized the poker in an angry fist and smashed the handle onto her balled up sweatshirt. There was the sound of glass shattering as the mobile phone bore the impact. The noise shocked Emma and she stepped back horrified, the poker still raised.
At the sound of Nicky’s feet on the stairs, she laid the poker back on the hearth and threw another log on the fire. Dry wood crackled against the super-heated coal beneath and after a moment’s hesitation, the orange flames licked around it. Her phone was Rohan’s Christmas gift and Emma felt sick at her foolish ingratitude. Misery descended around her head and by the time Nicky reached the bedroom, she was in tears again. “I knew it!” the boy huffed, pressing his face into Emma’s stomach. “I seed you done cryin’ from your red eyes.”
“I’m fine,” Emma sniffed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “There’s nothing to worry about, Nicky. I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was spoil your night. Who won?”
“Leicester. Love you, Mummy.”
“I know, baby. Love you too.”
“You don’t need to tell me what’s wrong.” Nicky’s tiny hands caressed the bottom of Emma’s back through her pyjama top.
“I don’t?” she asked, feeling a wave of relief.
“Na, I already know. You’re scared like when we lived on the estate and you did cryin’ at night when you thinked I didn’t know.” He tipped his head back and rested his chin on her stomach. “But it’s gonna be fine, Mum. I’ll take care of you just like I always did when we was alone.”
“Oh, baby.” Tears poured from Emma’s eyes and dripped onto Nicky’s head. “I’m just so tired of it; I want to be safe, I really do.”
“But Dad’s got big muscles. He can fight the baddies.”
“Yes, he can,” Emma sniffed. “I’m just being silly. Sorry, baby.”
Nicky snuggled in, linking his fingers behind her back. He squeaked as his mother’s tears dropped onto his head but didn’t move. Emma smoothed his soft blonde hair and gathered herself, controlling her breathing and sniffing away her tears. “Nick, I do
n’t want Daddy to know I had a little cry, ok?”
Nicky looked up at her, his eyes filling with suspicion and Emma scrabbled to qualify her odd request. “He’s going away tomorrow for a few days and I don’t want him worrying. I need him to concentrate and come back soon. Yeah?”
Nicky nodded. “Is he leaving us?”
“No, no! I promise he isn’t. It’s just work. He’ll be back.”
Emma’s son looked doubtful and she chastised herself inwardly. He was six years old and already far too wise for his years and just as he started settling and behaving like a normal little boy, she dumped a world of problems on his slender shoulders. “Everything’s fine, Nicky. I love you sweetheart. I don’t want you to worry.”
“Ok, I won’t,” he lied.
The dull thud sounded through the old house as Rohan closed the front door. Emma ruffled Nicky’s hair. “Come on you. It’s way past your bedtime. Have a quick wash in my bathroom and hop into bed as fast as you can.”
Nicky nodded and dragged his feet towards the ensuite, maintaining eye contact until he walked into the doorframe. Emma laughed. “Idiot! Hurry, Daddy’s coming.”
Nicky wrinkled his nose and closed the door behind him with a click. Emma heaved a sigh of relief and wiped her sleeve across her face, struggling to disguise her desolation for Rohan’s benefit as she heard his uneven tread climbing the stairs. “It’s freezing out there!” He strode into the room bringing cold air with him and Emma shivered. Rohan wrapped his arms around her and Emma’s face sank into his chest. His fingers moved her long hair away from her neck and he kissed the delicate space under her ear. “Where were we?” he whispered.
“Will you read me a story, Mummy?” Nicky stood behind Rohan, his clothes in his hand and his nakedness pale in the lamplight.
Rohan’s body stiffened, caught out in his amorous intent. “Nikolai, it’s late, syn. Time for bed, da?”
“I need Mummy.” Nicky set his lips in stubborn lines and held his father’s gaze. “I want to hug her.”
“Da, I know the feeling.” Rohan smirked and looked to Emma for direction, respecting her six year struggle to raise their son alone. She smiled by way of apology and Rohan’s eyes widened, noticing her distress then. He cocked his head and Emma bit her lip.
“I’ll just put Nicky to bed.” She excused herself, pressing her warm lips against Rohan’s. His face felt cold, making her shudder. Moving quickly from the bedroom she caught Nicky’s hand and led him across the hall and into his room. “Come on, champ. Into your pyjamas and hop into bed.”
Nicky pulled on pyjamas, watching Emma from the corner of his eye as she checked the tepid heat issuing from the radiator. “I need to get these checked again. Surely they’re meant to put out more heat than this. I wonder if it’s because we’ve turned some off in the empty rooms. The man said they’re gravity fed so maybe it’s that.”
“Mum?” Nicky pushed his feet under the sheets of the double bed. “When Daddy’s not here, can you sleep wiv me? I’ll keep you safe.”
“My darling, if I get scared, this will be the first place I’ll come. I promise.” Emma tucked her son into the big bed, his face tiny against the pillows. She climbed onto the bed and cuddled him, stroking his soft face until his eyes drooped. It took only a few minutes.
Emma looked around the room, the powder blue decor reminding her of Anton. His death still held a rawness in her heart and she put a hand up to her chest, remembering the painful reading of his last will and testament. He left everything to her, his stepsister turned sister-in-law and she still didn’t understand why. ‘From Russia, with love’ - his last words to her as the embarrassed solicitor cemented the legal hand over. Emma sighed, remembering the colourful childhood they shared, living his theatrical fantasies to escape the miseries of his murderous Russian mother. ‘You will be the printsessa!’ Anton’s childish Russian accent giggled down the ages as he pushed her into the apple tree which formed their castle. ‘Rohan will be the tsar.’ Only, Rohan didn’t like the games. He lived in a different kind of escape altogether. His serious world was founded on fact and mathematical equations, always evaluating risk and steering a straight course; until the day he gave in and kissed his stepsister.
Emma touched her lips at the memory of the kiss which changed both their lives. The sensible Russian Orthodox boy who was always bound for the ranks of British Army Officers, stopped in the street aged fifteen and kissed the full lips of his twelve year old stepsister. She’d been fighting an older boy at school when the tall Russian waded in and pulled her out. The crowd parted for the silent, authoritative Rohan and Emma felt ashamed, especially as she wielded the upper hand sitting astride the mouthy fourteen year old, ready to smack him in the face. Rohan gripped her wrist until it hurt and Emma threw the tantrum of her life in the middle of a risky housing estate, stunning him with its ferocity. And he kissed her.
It was the first kiss for both of them and the heat and lack of control was spectacular. “Mama will hear of this,” Rohan groaned, that fact dictating the pattern of their lives for the next four years. Emma grew up living for the stolen kisses and delicate touches of their forbidden love. She excelled at school, desperate to impress the studious Rohan and yearning for the electrical jolt of his proud smile.
Emma felt the pull of the Russian’s powerful magnetism through the solid walls of the old house. She left the lamp on in Nicky’s room and stole across the cold hallway into their bedroom. At the doorway she paused. Rohan’s white blonde head faced his laptop screen and his face creased in concentration as numbers scrolled up like film credits, performing a complicated calculation. His muscles showed through his clothes and Emma sensed her fingers twitch in acknowledgement of their hardness under his smooth skin. He removed his reading glasses and ran his hands through his hair. As he stretched, Emma heard the creak of the ancient chair under his powerful body and he groaned in satisfaction as his long body straightened.
Emma glided across the wide room like a missile, pushing her way between Rohan and the mahogany desk and planting herself astride his legs. She pressed herself against his strong body and Rohan smiled as his hands found their way under Emma’s pyjama top and caressed the soft skin of her back. His intense blue eyes softened at the sight of her and his face relaxed. “Remember the first time?” Emma whispered, brushing his lips with hers. “After Gretna Green, when we were married?”
“Da.” Rohan nodded. “Of course I remember, devotchka. Good Russian boys wait until marriage so I made it worth the wait.”
“I was sixteen and scared,” Emma continued, speaking as she stripped her pyjama top over her head. Rohan’s eyes flared and his pupils dilated. “And you looked so hot in your second lieutenant’s uniform.” Emma bent her head and kissed him again, feeling his body tense under her. She let her lips graze his. “And you looked even hotter without it.”
Rohan’s blue eyes narrowed, his lashes brushing his cheeks. His whole body felt poised and Emma revelled in it, arching her back and pressing her breasts into his chest. He was rigid, fingers locked in place around Emma’s small waist, his thumbs barely touching the underside of her full breasts. “I want it to be like that,” she breathed. “Like we don’t know what we’re doing.”
Rohan opened his mouth and Emma placed her finger over his lips, preventing him saying anything logical or literal to endanger the moment. “Da.” He kissed the slender finger instead, softly turning control back to her. She could see from the intensity of his gaze how much it pained him. Emma ran her lips up the ridged tendons in Rohan’s neck, kissing and nibbling and feeling him shift underneath her. His strong fingers subconsciously kneaded the soft skin of Emma’s back as he groaned, allowing her access to his soft earlobes and the underside of his jaw. Then he snapped.
The compulsive control freak and the army captain came together in one unhealthy moment and Rohan leapt to his feet, keeping hold of Emma as she gripped her legs hard around his hips. His eyes flashed with danger as he stumbled t
owards the four poster bed and spilled Emma onto it. She felt the bed groan under her, another of Anton’s restoration gifts to her. The oak four poster bed had seen generations of the Ayers family who slept, laughed and loved under the cover of its dark canopy. Emma bit her lip as Rohan stripped his tee shirt over his head, his eyes dark with passion. The long shrapnel scars across his stomach looked like purple lines in the flickering light from the fire and she sighed as Rohan climbed onto the bed, willing her lips not to smirk with anticipation.
Asking Rohan Andreyev to pretend naivety was like asking the sun not to shine. He probably had a mathematical equation for the probable outcome and already dismissed the odds as a long shot.
Chapter 3
“What time do you finish today?” Rohan asked as Emma buttoned her blouse.
“I’ll be home by 12.30. Why?” her fingers shook as she nurtured the faint hope he wouldn’t leave before then.
“I’ll ring you. I should be checked in by then so I’ll have time to spare before my flight boards. My taxi’s due in half an hour.”
“Oh.” Emma bit her lip and willed the tears not to come. “You won’t be able to ring me. My phone’s broken. I didn’t want to tell you.”
“Chto?” Rohan stopped and stared at Emma, his long fingers half way through fixing his tie. She knew he watched her squirm. She shook her head.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’ll get it fixed.”
“You want the documents? Receipt and guarantee. I’ll get them for you. It’s new.”
“No, it’s fine. It was my fault so they won’t cover it. Just ring the house phone while you’re away and we’ll talk on that.”
“Show me, Em.”
“No. You need to leave, so get ready. The taxi won’t be able to get in the gate so you need to be downstairs.” Emma busied herself fighting her curly hair into a long ponytail, irritated by the wet patch on the back of her blouse from its damp weight.
“Hey, go steady.” Rohan took the hair tie from her wrist and stood behind her, gently smoothing her hair back from her face. He teased it with his fingers until the curls ran in the same direction and Emma closed her eyes against the feelings his touch revived. “I need to be able to contact you.”