Page 115 of Sinful Blaze

Pasha chuckles. “What did you expect? A Russian ogre?”

“No! Just… I don’t know? Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. Sofiya is stunning, too. With any luck, our daughter will be blessed with some of the same.”

“Just like her mother.”

“And you,” I correct with a blush. “Although you’ve got more of that handsome ruggedness, all polished and professional but… dangerous. Like you’re not a man to mess with.”

“Keep going,” he teases. “I’m almost there.”

I swat him on the shoulder. “Is your father like that, too?”

Pasha falls silent. I instantly regret asking. I don’t even know where that came from—asking about his father. But maybe there’s a part of me that wants to know everything. For myself as much as for my baby girl.

“He’s dead,” he answers shortly.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

“What… I mean, may I ask what happened?”

“Fucked the wrong woman. Got himself killed.”

“Your mother?” I could definitely believe someone would kill a man for touching her.

“No.”

Well, shit. The plot thickens. “Oh.”

I’m not exactly a wordsmith right now, and Pasha isn’t in any hurry to offer an explanation. So, since I’m feeling like I’ve delved too deep into his personal life already, I leave it alone.

We drive the rest of the way in a not-as-comfortable silence.

At least he’s still holding me.

But I can’t help feeling like I kicked a hornet’s nest I never should’ve wandered near.

44

PASHA

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Sofi protests. “It’s not like I’m?—”

“Stop. Don’t try to moonwalk into the conversation you’re clearly angling for.”

“Rude,” she sniffles. “Extremely rude.”

I roll my eyes. “You want polite? Fine. I’ll thank you for keeping your thoughts to yourself. How’s that for polite?”

“Which thoughts specifically?” Sofi tilts her head to one side in mock concentration. “The ones about you being head-over-heels in love with Daphne?”

I clench my jaw. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Oh? So, you don’t find it interesting that, after your gushingly romantic date, you’re brooding in your office instead of home with her?” She lifts a hand. “Don’t start with me on that ‘I have work to do’ bullshit. You don’t. This isn’t work; it’s avoidance.”

It wasn’t gushingly romantic, I think to myself. Matter of fact, it was a silent, bitter disaster. After she brought up my father, I shut down, and it’s taken hours since dinner ended for me to claw my way back out of the psychological hole I jumped into.

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