Page 33 of Killer Love

“You’re not intruding.” He chuckles. “Be my guests. I’ll have the chef make a nice dinner. I’ve been saving a bottle of vodka imported from your neck of the woods just for an occasion like this. We’ll get shit-faced, have a good time. You’ll sleep it off and leave tomorrow afternoon. I will be utterly insulted if you turn that down. Sofia, too. We both insist.”

Yuri throws up his hands. “Well, when you put it that way, how can we say no? Of course, we’ll stay. I refuse to insult the lady of the house.”

Gio smirks. “Excellent.”

As if on some horrible cue, Sofia passes by the study doorway and my heart sinks even deeper in my chest.

“Sofia!” Gio stands up and claps his hands to make her come back. “Please alert the staff to make up the guest wing. The Lutrovas are staying the night.”

She locks eyes with me, but she turns away just as quickly. “Yes, sir,” she says, casting a sweet smile at him.

It’s enough to make me nauseous. Not only will I have to endure an entire evening of watching Sofia suffer through Zappia tradition, I have to do it with her taste on my tongue. Again.

But I suppose there is a silver lining this time.

I’ll get to spend time with my son.

* * *

“His eyes are quite bright. Aren’t they bright?”

Fucking hell, Yuri.

I glare at his pink, drunken face beside me at the dinner table as he and Gio lean in to get a better look at Lucian. Even Rosalie casts a quick glance at her nephew before dropping her eyes back down to her plate again. Occasionally, I’ll catch her sneaking a harsh peek over at me, but I imagine if she were going to say something about what she saw earlier, she would have done so already.

Sofia looks at me from her place across the table. Her spine straightens as she silently waits for Gio’s reaction.

Finally, he leans back and waves his hand. “It’s just the light in here, I think,” he says, reaching over to poke Lucian’s chin.

The boy twitches in his highchair between Gio and Sofia, obviously favoring the attention of his mother over his not-so father. He whines and Gio rolls his eyes before grabbing his drinking glass.

“Besides,” he adds, pausing to take a long sip, “he takes everything from Sofia and there’s not a bright feature on her entire face.”

Yuri frowns. “I don’t know…”

I clear my throat. “Where did you say you got this vodka, Gio?” I ask. I don’t even pay attention to his answer. I just wanted to pull Yuri’s eyes off my son’s and the best way to distract a Russian is to bring up decent booze.

Sofia relaxes her shoulders. I stare at her chest as it softly deflates.

“Well, it’s great,” Yuri slurs. “Excellent choice, Gio.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Gio chuckles. “There’s plenty more in my study and I’ll be more than happy to break it out. The night is still young.”

“Here! Here!” Yuri tips his glass down his throat and I take a sip to participate.

Lucian. It’s definitely not the light in here and I wasn’t just seeing things earlier. His eyes are bright, enough to make anyone take notice. Sofia and Gio have brown eyes. I’m no geneticist, but I can’t imagine the odds of brown plus brown equaling gray are that high.

I try to keep my head down, but I can’t stop staring at him across the table from me.

He stares at me, too.

Gio claps his hands. “Let’s go break open that other bottle now, shall we? The ladies will clear the table.”

As he stands up, his chair legs grind loudly across the floor and Lucian reacts to the harsh sound. His face squishes up and my gut aches as tears fill his little eyes.

Sofia throws on a soft face — one far more convincing than mine would be — and quickly tries to comfort him enough before the waterworks start.

Instead, he cries, letting out a piercing wail.

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