by Olivia Gates
“Settle down, Maksim.” That was Andreas, Aristedes’s younger brother and the most dangerous of the lot. “If there’s punishment to be doled out, we’re all getting a piece of him.” He swung his icy gaze to Kassandra, making her almost regret recruiting their help. Andreas had once been involved in organized crime, and remained as lethal, if not more so, now that he’d gone legit. “But this guy says he’s back to atone for his mistakes. Any reason to believe he doesn’t mean it?”
“Oh, I believe he means it,” she groaned. “As much as I believe the road to hell for me and the girls is paved with his good intentions.”
Aristedes pursed his lips, propping an elbow on a knee. “But if he’s owning up to his responsibilities, perhaps you should give him some leeway, in a limited wait-and-see fashion, without making any promises or changes in your lives?” Aristedes looked first at Maksim and then Andreas. “I think I speak for all of us when I say we were all once in more or less his same position, and we would have given anything for a second chance with the women we love and the children we fathered, or in Andreas’s case, the child he was named guardian of.”
Maksim’s dark fury ebbed as he considered his brother-in-law’s point of view. “Now that you put it that way, I can’t even think what would have become of me if Caliope hadn’t given me a second chance. One I didn’t think I deserved and she had every right not to give me at the time.”
Heart contracting at the turn in conversation, she choked out, “None of your situations was anything like mine with him.”
Maksim winced. “Now that I think of it, I almost did the same thing to Caliope. I, too, abandoned her when I knew she was pregnant.”
“It’s not the same at all,” she protested. Maksim had had the best of reasons for walking away. His father had been abusive. He’d feared he’d inherited his proclivities and had been terrified of hurting his vulnerable loved ones. “You thought you were protecting her and your baby.”
Maksim sat back down, gaze gentling. “Maybe he has a valid reason, too? At least one he believed to be valid?”
Feeling cornered, she realized she couldn’t get them on board without telling them everything. What he’d said to her in the past, and in the present, that she’d never meant a thing to him, that he was only back now for his “heirs” because he believed it was his duty and destiny, now that he was going to be king of the land of the two goddesses.
By the time she’d finished, all three men’s faces were closed with so much wrath, she felt anxious about the extreme measures they might take in dealing with Leonid. In spite of everything, she found herself worried for him.
As she tried to think of a way to mitigate their outrage and their consequent actions, Maksim heaved up to his feet again, clearly bringing this meeting to an end.
“Don’t worry about Leonid anymore, Kassandra,” Maksim said. “I’ll deal with him.”
Following him up, Andreas corrected, “We’ll deal with him.”
Troubled by the respectively murderous and predatory looks in the two men’s eyes, she turned to Aristedes, her oldest acquaintance among them, and ironically, since he was generally known as the devil, the one who scared her the least.
Sensing her anxiety, Aristedes gave her shoulder a bolstering squeeze. “I’ll keep those two in check, and resolve this situation with the least damage possible.”
As they each gave her pecks on the cheek, she was torn between being alarmed she’d let loose those hounds of hell on Leonid, and being relieved she’d soon have this nightmare over with.
By the time she leaned back on the door, panting as if she’d run a mile, she decided she should be only relieved.
Leonid had only himself to blame for whatever they did to him. If he wanted to escape those men’s punishment, he should have settled for being a king, away from her and the girls.
* * *
“Yes, I understand,” Kassandra said to Maksim.
She’d said almost the same thing to Andreas and Aristedes before him, just to end the calls with them, too.
For she certainly didn’t understand at all. How the three predators, who’d left her office out for blood yesterday, had each come back to her less than a day later, purring a totally different tune. That of urging her to give Leonid a chance.
How had he managed to get to them all? What had he said to have them so wholeheartedly on his side?
But why was she even wondering? Didn’t she already know how irresistible he could be when he put his mind to it? He’d worked the three men over but good. It was clear that their initial thoughts about having once been in Leonid’s shoes and in need of clemency were back in full force. Anything she said now would be her intolerant word against Leonid’s penitent one.
Putting down her cell phone, she pressed her fingers against burning eyelids.
So. She was out of options. There was no way she could stop Leonid herself. All she could do now was make sure he didn’t turn their lives upside down.
Suddenly, another bolt of agitation zapped her.
The bell. Leonid. He was here. Exactly two hours before Eva and Zoya’s bedtime, as promised.
She wouldn’t even wonder how he knew at what time she put them to bed. She had a sick feeling he knew everything about her life with the girls over the past two years. And that there was far more to this whole thing than he was letting on.
Yet she could do nothing but play along, and see what exactly he wanted, and where this would lead.
Crossing from her home office past the living room, she signaled to Kyria Despina that she’d get the door.
She took her time, but Leonid didn’t ring again. Stopping at the door, she could almost feel him on the other side, silently telling her he’d wait out her reluctance and wear down her resistance.
She pressed her forehead against the cool mahogany, gathering her wits and stamina. Then she straightened, filled her lungs with much-needed air and opened the door.
As always, nothing prepared her for laying eyes on him. Every time she ever had, an invisible hand wrapped around her heart and squeezed. Her senses ignited at his nearness, each time more than the time before.
Standing like a monolith on her doorstep, he was swathed in a slate-gray coat, a suit of the same color and a shirt as vivid as his eyes, radiating that inescapable magnetism that had snared her even before she’d laid eyes on him. Blood rushed to her head before flooding her body in scalding torrents.
And she cursed him, and herself, all over again. For him to still have this choke hold over her senses, when he didn’t even try, didn’t even want to, was the epitome of unfairness. But life was exactly that. As was he. Both did what they wanted to her, her approval irrelevant, her will overruled.
So she’d let him take his invasion to the next level. She only hoped after getting a dose of domesticity, he’d retreat to a nominal position in the girls’ lives, which she could deal with without too much damage to herself.
Certain she was opening the door to a new dimension of heartache, she said, “Come in, Leonid.”
Three
Leonid crossed Kassandra’s threshold.
For a second, before she retreated, he almost touched her. It was the last thing he wanted to do. The one thing he couldn’t bear.
If he could have done any of this without seeing her at all, he would have jumped at the chance. But it was out of the question. If he wanted his daughters, she had to be involved. Closely. Suffocatingly.
Mercifully, she’d been averse, keeping him at the distance he needed to remain, in every way. But right now he’d miscalculated his movement, and she hadn’t receded fast enough. A second after he’d advanced, their clothes had whispered off each other. Just being near her caused the slow burn in his every nerve to spark into a scalding sizzle.
Before he could judge if the fleeti
ng contact had disturbed her, too, she turned and strode away, leaving him to follow in her wake, a path filled with her sense-warping warmth and scent.
The glance she threw at him over her shoulder spoke volumes, making it even harder to breathe. The surface layer was annoyance that he’d showed up at all, and at the exact time he’d said he would. Then there was resignation that she couldn’t turn him away. Beneath that lay another sort of anger he couldn’t fathom. And at the core of it all, there was...a threat.
They both knew he wielded power that would give him access to the twins no matter what she did. She’d tried to recruit allies to stop him. She’d picked them well. But after he’d neutralized their threat, she must have realized there was no point in prolonging a losing fight. Being the pragmatic businesswoman that she was, she’d wasted no more time coming to the best course of action. Let him have what he wanted. For now. Until she studied the situation further and decided if she could adjust her trajectory.
But he also knew she wouldn’t use the twins in her struggle against him, not even for a cause as vital as keeping him out of their lives. She’d never do anything to disturb them. So her threat didn’t have any real power behind it.
Still, he couldn’t let her suspect how anxious he was, how uncertain of his ability to conduct himself in any acceptable manner. For what constituted acceptable with eighteen-month-old toddlers? He knew far more about astrophysics and the latest trends in nail polish than about interacting with children. And it was almost beyond him to keep his upheaval in check.
But he had to pretend equanimity as he followed her deeper into her exquisite home, the oasis of color, gaiety and contentment she’d built for her—for their—daughters, taking him to meet them for the first time. After he’d spent every day since they’d been born obsessing over their every detail.
Then she turned a corner into a great room equipped with a short plastic fence, decorative and sturdy, and just enough to keep little feet from wandering without detracting from the wide-open, welcoming feel of what must be every child’s dream wonderland. And it was empty.
“Darling...”
Kassandra’s breathy endearment made him stop. Suspended him in time.
She used to call him darling. Not always, just when she’d been incoherent with pleasure, which had been very frequently. The last time she’d said it to him he’d swiped at her proverbial jugular and severed it.
For heart-thudding moments, he didn’t understand why she’d said it now, once, then again. Then he realized.
From what turned out to be an elaborate playhouse blended into the periphery of the room, a gleaming dark head peeked out of a tiny doorway, followed by an equally shiny golden one. She held out her arms and squeaks of glee issued from both girls as they competed to crawl out first, struggling to their feet as soon as they cleared the entrance. Two young cats, reflecting the girls’ colorings, a black Angora and a golden Abyssinian, slinked out after them.
His heart contracted painfully. They were fast. He knew from his surveillance of them that their toddling had been improving every day. They were now almost running to their mother.
Kassandra went down on her haunches, preparing to receive them in her arms. But her descent only exposed him fully, bringing him into their line of vision. Their eyes rounded and their momentum slowed, both stopping just short of throwing themselves into her arms.
Knowing she was now no longer the focus of her girls’ attention, Kassandra slowly stood up and slid him a sideways glance. Among the messages there was a challenge. He might have gotten what he’d demanded, but now she’d evaluate his performance and decide her consequent actions.
If he’d had any words left in him, he would have asked her to allow him a grace period without passing judgment. He’d fail her every test right now. Being face-to-face with those two tiny entities at last felt like a hurricane was uprooting everything inside him.
Before he could find his next breath, the twins rushed to stand behind Kassandra as she turned to him, each clinging to one endless jeans-clad leg and peeking up at him from the safety of their mother’s barricade.
In contrast to their caution, the cats approached him, sniffing the air. Seeming to decide he didn’t smell of danger, they neared him in degrees until they brushed against legs that felt as if they had grown roots. His throat tightened more as he bent without conscious thought to stroke them and receive head butts and arched backs. Then, seeming to consider this enough welcome for now, they sauntered away and jumped on shelves by the wall to watch the developing scene and groom themselves.
Unfolding with difficulty to his full height again, he found Kassandra with the miniatures of both of them staring at him. Avoiding her eyes, he focused on the girls’. Emerald eyes like Kassandra’s and azure ones like his dominated faces that had occupied his thoughts since they’d been born. Two tiny sets of dewy rose lips rounded in questioning suspense.
“Vy oba...ideal’no.”
It was only when chubby arms wrapped around their mother’s legs tighter and those sparkling eyes widened more that he realized he’d spoken. Saying the one thing that filled his being. They were both perfect.
He waited. For Kassandra to say something. To introduce him. But she was silent, continuing to add the weight of her watchful gaze to theirs.
His mind crowded with everything he’d longed to do since they’d taken their first breaths. To swoop down and scoop them up in his arms was foremost among those urges.
But he knew there was no way this would be welcomed by Eva and Zoya, who were hanging on his every breath, bracing for his every move. They probably hadn’t scurried back into their hiding place only because their mother was showing no signs of alarm, calmly facing him as if he was no threat, or at least one she was capable of protecting them from. It was as if they’d never seen anyone like him. Which was strange. He knew for a fact that their world was filled with big and imposing-looking men. The three men Kassandra had sent after him, and Kassandra’s male relatives.
So why did he feel such total surprise emanating from them? Could it be they instinctively felt the bond between them?
Unable to decide, he emptied his mind, let his instincts take over. He trusted them now far more than he trusted his messed-up emotions and stalled logic.
He moved away from the trio training all their senses on him, circumventing them in a wide circle that took him to the playhouse the girls had exited. His aching gaze took in the evidence of their play session and of Kassandra’s doting care. The strewn toys, coloring books and crayons, the half-built castle, the half-eaten finger foods and half-finished smoothies.
He’d missed all that. Everything, from their first day. He hadn’t held them or comforted them or cleaned or served them or played with them or put them to bed. Kassandra had been alone in doing all that. Would any of them ever accept him into their lives, let him into their routines? Or even let him in any way at all? When he didn’t deserve to be let in?
Feeling all eyes in the room on him, he went down on his knees, one of the hardest moves for him now. As he felt their surprise spike, he started to gather the toys and books.
Without looking back, so he’d give the girls respite from his focus, give them a sense of control and security, he started to order everything they’d knocked off onto the lushly carpeted floor on the low, sturdy plastic table. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Kassandra moving toward the long couch that dominated the opposite side of the space, with both girls still flocking around her legs, their gazes clinging to him.
Sampling one of the thin pineapple spears that were laid out on a cartoon-character tray among other healthy and colorful foods, he said, “That’s very tasty. Can I have some more? I haven’t eaten all day.”
In his peripheral vision he could see the girls exchanging a glance, as if they understood his words and knew they were meant for them.
Then they both looked up to their mother, as if seeking her permission to react. He stole a glance at her, found her giving them an exquisite smile. A special one he’d never seen, no doubt reserved only for them. Then she nodded, and they simultaneously let go of her legs and advanced toward him tentatively.
As they approached, he sat down on the ground, another challenging move, putting himself more at their level. This appeared to reassure them even more as their steps picked up speed. He pointed at a blunt skewer of cheese, cucumbers and strawberries, making direct eye contact with one girl, then the other. “Can I have that?”
The girls stopped on the other side of the table, eyes full of questions and curiosity. Then after what seemed to be serious consideration, Eva, the mini-Kassandra, reached out and grabbed the skewer in her dimpled hand...and leaned over to give it to him. Zoya, who’d held back, clearly more reserved like he was, took her cue from her older-by-ten-minutes sister, and repeated her action.
Throat closing, Leonid looked down on those two skewers, offered by the girls he’d fathered and hadn’t been there for, until this moment. They were his life’s biggest reward. And responsibility.
With hands that almost trembled out of control, he reached out and took both offerings at the same time. “That’s very kind of you to share your snacks with me. Spasiba.”
As if both recognized he’d just said a word in a language different from the one they’d been hearing and processing since birth, they looked at him questioningly.
“That is Russian. In English it means ‘thank you.’” Then he repeated it a few times. “Spasiba...thank you.”
Eyes gleaming at recognizing thank-you and clearly making the connection between the two words, looking triumphant, Eva parroted him, “Patheba...thakyoo.”
His heart thundered, its chambers just about melting at Eva’s adorable lisp.
And that was before Zoya delivered the second punch of a one-two combo as she enthused, “Aseba...ankoo.”
Before he could gather his wits, Eva picked up another skewer and proceeded to nibble at it, looking up at him, as if encouraging him to eat. Zoya at once did the same. When he didn’t follow suit immediately, Zoya reached out and pushed his hand up, urging him to partake of their offering.