Twin Heirs to His Throne

by Olivia Gates

  Bracing herself for what she knew would come, she plastered a smile back onto her face.

  Selene was the first to rise to her feet, despite being the most heavily pregnant of them all. Yes, they were all pregnant. Again. Selene and Caliope were now on their third babies. Naomi, too, even if it was only her second biological one, with her first child being her late sister’s.

  After kissing and hugging her, Caliope and Naomi let Selene, as her oldest friend, lead the interrogation.

  Selene shot her opening salvo, getting to the point at once. “What exactly is going on with Leonid?”

  Kassandra’s lips twisted. “You tell me. Your husbands are the ones who have answers.”

  Something that resembled annoyance tinged Selene’s deep blue eyes. “They haven’t been forthcoming, for the first time since the days they were closed-off icebergs. Each aggravating man only said it’s for the best that you and Leonid work this out alone.”

  Kassandra flopped down on an armchair across from the couch where they sat facing her like a tribunal. “And you clearly disagree and that’s why you’re here.”

  “You scared the hell out of us when you called!” Caliope exclaimed. “We’ve never heard you so distressed. And when it comes to you, even our men’s words aren’t enough.”

  Naomi nodded, looking as concerned. “We had to get the final word from the source.”

  Kassandra huffed a mirthless chuckle. “And that’s me?”

  Selene’s gaze softened and hardened at once. “You don’t call for the big guns—who clearly didn’t fire a shot—then answer our messages with more vagueness, and expect us to sit back and wait.”

  Kassandra squeezed her friend’s hand fondly. “Vagueness is an achievement in my situation, since I’m as in the dark as any of you. Your men left this office promising me they’d leash Leonid away from me and the girls. Then each called me to cajole me into giving him a full and fair chance.”

  “A chance at what exactly?” Caliope sat forward, reaching for Kassandra’s other hand, her smooth brow furrowing. “This is the part no one is clear on.”

  “At being the girls’ father.”

  “Is that all he wants a chance at?” Naomi probed.

  “Yes.”

  “You mean he didn’t...?”

  “Didn’t ask for a second chance with me? No. According to him, he never wanted a first one.”

  “He said that?” Selene’s gaze hardened to granite.

  Knowing she was sealing Leonid’s coffin where her friends were concerned, Kassandra sighed. “What amounted to that. When he was breaking it off, he made it clear he considered our liaison only sexual entertainment and he’d had enough long before he told me to get the hell away from him when I failed to take a hint.”

  Caliope, the softest heart among them, piped up. “He was at his worst when he said that. It could have been his frustration and anger at the whole world talking.”

  Exactly what Kassandra had thought at first. She shrugged. “He disappeared for over two years. Too long to be at your worst.”

  “Maybe he realized the gravity of his mistake,” Naomi offered, her newest bestie, the one clearly trying to keep emotions out of the equation. “But didn’t know how to fix it.”

  “You mean he stayed away because he couldn’t face me?” Kassandra huffed. “This is a man who has faced tens of thousands of people on the athletic field, the rest of the world when he was in the rabid spotlight of the media, not to mention the sharks of business he wrestled under the table on a regular basis. He squared off with your unstoppable predators and turned them into purring pussycats.”

  Selene exhaled heavily. “This last bit is something we’re all beyond perplexed about. We thought only us and the kids could do this to our Triumvirate.”

  Kassandra gave a there-you-go gesture. “Since you know your endless power over your men, you can measure Leonid’s.”

  Caliope’s eyes shone. “Maybe that’s your answer, since when it comes to us, our men’s rules are inverted. Maybe it’s the same with Leonid. The man who can make the world heel could be powerless when it comes to you.”

  That was the last straw. She had to put a stop to her friends’ efforts to give her hope that her story could end as happily as theirs.

  Sitting forward, she let any lightness she’d painted on drain from her face. “Okay, let me make one thing clear. My situation with Leonid is nothing like yours with your men. Those men were more than ninety percent in love with you when each left you or let you go or did whatever they did. Leonid never felt a thing for me, and he’d been itching to move on. He would have done so without the accident, but it gave him the opportunity to do it abruptly.” And viciously. She’d never been able to bring herself to tell them just how viciously. “Now he’s only back for the girls. He made this far more than clear.”

  Echoes of her hard tone and words rang in the silence that stretched afterward. A myriad of emotions streaked across the women’s faces, each according to her character and relationship with Kassandra. What they shared seemed to be mortification, empathy...and fury.

  Selene was first to gather her wits enough to ask another question. “Are you even considering giving him that chance?”

  “Since I don’t have a way of keeping him away, and since my reasons for wanting to do so no longer apply, I don’t have the choice not to.”

  “So you’re feeling forced into it.” Naomi chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Would you have considered his return and his demand more favorably if he was back for you, too?”

  “No.” Kassandra paused, then had to add, “Not at first.”

  And that told them everything. That after everything he’d put her through, she still wanted him. That after her initial anger and rejection, her buried emotions had resurfaced, and she now wished he wanted her, too. Which he didn’t.

  Clearly realizing all that, anger set Selene’s exquisite features on fire. “I don’t care how he got Aris and the others on his side, I’ll make them wipe him off the face of the earth. And if they don’t, we three can still do a lot of damage on our own.”

  Caliope nodded. “You know we would do anything for you.”

  “Even if it means standing against your husbands?”

  The three women’s exclamations were simultaneous.

  “Just say the word.”

  “Without hesitation.”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Kassandra’s eyes stung, a smile shaking her lips. “And I love you, too. But that won’t be necessary. Everything changed, literally overnight. He came to visit the girls last night. And no matter what I feel, how he was with them, how they were with him, makes him deserve that full and fair chance he’s convinced your men he should get.”

  “That man crushed your heart,” Selene ground out. “And I have a feeling if he invades your life again to be with the girls, he’ll hurt you again.”

  Kassandra sighed. “And I can’t do anything about it. It’s not his or the girls’ fault he feels nothing for me.”

  Caliope threw her hands up in the air. “You should have moved on when you got the chance. All those chances. There were at least three men who could have been perfect for you! And they’re all still waiting for your slightest signal.”

  “Could any of you have moved on when you were estranged from your own member of the Triumvirate?” The three women winced, lips twisting in concession. “Exactly. Same here.”

  “But if you know nothing would come out of it because you’re feeling this way about the wrong man...”

  “The problem is he isn’t the wrong man,” Kassandra said, interrupting Naomi. “Apart from his treatment of me and his lack of feelings for me, he remains everything I admire in a man. And though I hate it and wish it wasn’t so, the fact remains that no one withstands the comparison to him i
n my eyes.”

  “But you can’t just resign yourself to being miserable like this!” Selene exclaimed, her face reddening.

  “As long as Eva and Zoya are happy, it’s a price I have to pay. You would pay the same price and more for your kids.”

  “How do you know he’ll make them happy?” Selene countered.

  “Surely you can’t tell from one meeting!” Calliope added.

  Kassandra sighed. “Regretfully for me, and fortunately for them, I can. You have to see them together to understand.”

  Selene wouldn’t give up that easily. “What if, once the novelty wears off, he becomes the son of a bitch he was with you with them?”

  Kassandra set her teeth. “If he even breathes wrong around them, I’ll rip out his jugular.”

  “That’s our Kassandra!” Selene’s approval was ferocious.

  Caliope’s face fell. “So the only thing that can make you hate him is if there’s a hint of mistreatment or neglect toward Eva and Zoya. Which you don’t seem to think would happen.”

  Naomi was as crestfallen. “And we can’t even wish it.”

  “Can’t we?” Selene growled protectively. “They wouldn’t lose anything if he exited their lives as he entered it. They were perfectly fine without him after all.”

  “They were.” Kassandra exhaled heavily. “But with him in their lives, they could be far more than fine. You really have to—”

  “See them together to understand?” Caliope sighed. “Not really. If his effect on the girls is anything like Maksim’s effect on our children, I know exactly what you’re talking about.”

  Selene looked more horrified by the second. “So you’re stuck with him? You have to suffer forever and we have to watch it and be unable to do anything about it?”

  Wanting to alleviate her friend’s distress on her behalf and end this debate once and for all, Kassandra decided to placate them. “Who knows? Maybe I’m just experiencing echoes of what I once felt for him, and being around him again will show me I’ve blown everything out of proportion, allowing me to move on at last. Maybe this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise after all.”

  The three women looked at her, then exchanged a look among themselves before finally nodding. It was evident they hoped so with all their hearts. But even though they let her change the subject, she knew they didn’t believe this was even in the realm of possibility.

  Not for a second.

  At last, Selene rose to her feet, prompting the others to do so, too. As Kassandra followed suit, Selene waddled toward her, holding out both hands to pull her into a tight hug. At least as tight as her burgeoning belly allowed.

  Drawing back, Selene’s dark blue eyes were almost grim. “If you change your mind and you need help getting rid of him, I’ll do anything.”

  “Ditto,” the other two chorused.

  Choking on a cry, Kassandra surged to envelop them in a group hug, thanking the fates for them.

  Pulling back, she gave her friends a wobbly smile. “Next time I know who to run to when I need impenetrable barriers against unstoppable missiles. What was I thinking asking for your men’s help when I have you?”

  Selene’s features relaxed into a mischievous smile. “As long as you’ve learned your mistake. Right, ladies?”

  Caliope and Naomi expressed their enthusiastic agreement, and the meeting that had started out tense ended on a merry note.

  As merry as a breather in the ongoing drama that had become her life could be.

  * * *

  After her friends left her office, Kassandra struggled to get any work done. But as all the lightheartedness and optimism their love and support had brought her started to dissipate, she was dragged back into the bottomless well of worries and what-ifs.

  Though she’d planned to stay at work hours longer, and she’d only done a fraction of what she’d set out to do, she gave up. At least at home she wouldn’t have to make decisions that had millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs riding on them. Decisions she was starting to doubt she’d be able to make again.

  Half an hour later, as she entered her home, a shroud of premonition descended around her heart. Though there was no car parked outside, and there were no sounds coming from inside, all her senses rioted with certainty.

  Leonid was in there. She could scent him in the air, sense his presence in her every cell.

  Trying to curb her stampeding reactions, she leaned on the wall, only to feel it tilt beneath her. Struggling with the wave of dizziness, she shrugged out of her suddenly suffocating coat, was trying to hang it when Kyria Despina came rushing toward her, her expression the very definition of awe.

  “Kassandra, dearest, I’m so glad you’re home early!” The woman’s voice buzzed with excitement as she took Kassandra’s coat and hung it in the foyer’s closet. “Prince Voronov has been here for two hours.”

  So he was here. Seemed her extrasensory abilities where he was concerned remained infallible.

  Dark brown eyes gleaming with curiosity and pleasure, Despina linked their arms as she hurried Kassandra to the living room. “He came thinking you’d be back home at your usual time. The girls were beside themselves with delight to see him.”

  Feeling her legs about to buckle as the quietly prattling Despina led her to him, her mind was a battlefield of suspense, aversion and resignation. Confusion soon took precedence over the absolute silence emanating from the living room.

  Then they reached it and it all made sense.

  At the end of the room, Leonid was propped up against the playhouse. The girls were asleep on top of him. The cats were also snoozing, one on his legs, the other against his thigh.

  “He played with them nonstop, games I’m sure he invented just for them,” Despina whispered. “The darlings laughed and bounced around like I’ve never seen them. Then about fifteen minutes before you arrived, they climbed on his lap and turned off. The dear man made them comfortable, even crooned what must be a Russian nursery rhyme.”

  They’d slept on top of him. They hadn’t fallen asleep in her arms since they were six months old.

  “He hasn’t moved or made a sound since, even when I assured him nothing would wake them up again. You should go save him before he cramps something.” Despina patted her on the back. “Now, since you’re home and he’s here to help you put the girls to bed, I may yet catch a bit of the ladies’ poker night I had to miss to stay late tonight.”

  As if from the depths of a dream, Kassandra thought she nodded her agreement. Then everything fell off her radar but the sight Leonid and the girls made, a majestic lion with his cubs curled in slumber over him, totally content and secure in their father’s presence and protection.

  His eyes remained closed, but she knew he wasn’t asleep. She could sense it. He was savoring the texture of the new experience, soaking in the girls’ feel and closeness and trust. She also knew he was aware of her standing there. Like her, he’d always had an uncanny ability to sense her presence. She’d once thought he’d been so attuned to her, he felt her before he had reason to think she was near. That had been before she’d realized she’d never been special or even worthwhile to him.

  Swallowing the lump that seemed to have taken permanent residence in her throat, she approached the pile. He let her come within less than a foot of them before he opened his eyes, connecting with hers, and almost compromised her precarious balance. Then he lowered his gaze to the girls in his arms again.

  Forcing air into her shut-down lungs, she attempted nonchalance. “You can flip the girls in the air and they still wouldn’t wake. Not now anyway. They only wake up around an hour after I put them in bed.”

  “Did they wake up last night after I left?”

  “No.”

  She’d told herself they hadn’t because he’d kept them way beyond their bedtim
e. But apart from logic, another theory explained the unusual occurrence. She believed that they always woke up out of some sense of uncertainty. But after he’d appeared, and they’d sensed his intention of being here to stay, that anxiety that woke them up was gone.

  She exhaled. “My point is, you can move if you want.”

  “I don’t want. There’s no place I’d rather be.”

  What felt like acid welled behind her eyes. “Well, though you do look as if you make them very comfortable, I don’t think they should start considering you a substitute for their bed.”

  His lips twisted as he kept gazing at the shiny heads nestled into his chest. “Though I would fully welcome that, I can appreciate the repercussions of such a development.”

  Sighing as he secured them both, he sat up. She again almost winced at the difficulty he had in adjusting his position, of rising to his feet. It had nothing to do with the girls being in his arms, since their weight had to be negligible to him. That knot behind her sternum, the same one that had formed when she’d realized the extent of his injuries and their consequences, tightened to an ache again.

  Taking her eyes off him, so she wouldn’t focus on his stiff gait and the fact that he was looking everywhere but at her, she led the way to the nursery, her mind racing.

  Though the competition circuits were certainly out, had it been possible for him to practice his sports on any level? Being extremely fit but bulkier than before, it was clear he maintained his fitness with exercise that didn’t rely on the speed and agility of his former specialties. So how much did he resent being forced to relinquish what he’d considered the epitome of his personal achievement? How much did he miss what had once been the main pillar of his existence?

  Giving herself the mental equivalent of a smack upside the head as they put the girls in the cribs, she reminded herself how pointless and pathetic it was to wonder. Whatever his trials to adjust his path, and whatever he’d suffered or now felt about it all was none of her concern. He’d made that clear in the past. He was making it clearer now. This was all about Eva and Zoya. Beyond what she represented to them, she, and anything she thought and felt, mattered nothing to him.