Page 61 of Emerald Malice

“Goodness me, I like him already.”

I’m not sure why I’m selling him so hard to Aunt Annie. Maybe it’s because, for a little while at least, I kind of want to live the fantasy.

I want it to be this easy. Like I’m just a girl having a baby with a boy who loves and dotes on me.

Forget about the girl’s PTSD and shitty job. Forget that the boy is a terrifying Russian pakhan who collects toxic red flags like they’re Pokémon. Forget that the baby is routinely referred to as “the heir.”

Forget all that, and this really is a fairy tale in the making.

“Oh, honey, I’m so happy for you. Sometimes, the best things in life are unplanned.” Her voice has turned teary. “I’m gonna be a grandma!”

“I… I wish Mom and Dad could have met their grandchild.” It’s hard to get the words out past the sudden lump in my throat.

“Me, too, sweetheart,” she croons. “Me, too.”

We talk for a little while longer before I hang up, a bittersweet feeling tucked between my ribs. The weight of telling Aunt Annie is gone, but it’s been replaced with something else.

Fear of the unknown.

Worry about the future.

Trepidation about my co-parenting situation with Andrey.

Take your pick—no matter what you call it, it doesn’t feel good.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice a woman approaching until she’s standing right over me. “Jesus!” I gasp, hand on my chest.

The woman smiles sweetly. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Have we met before?” The moment I ask the question, I’m hit with an image of her in a modest white gown swathed in lace. “Oh my…”

“If I recall correctly,” says Mila Obnizov with a wry, amused laugh, “you crashed my wedding.”

“I’m—We—You—I never slept with your husband,” I finish in an idiotic stupor. “Just so you know. Like, for the record. That was—It was—It’s just a long story, okay? But I never slept with him. I swear.”

If she wasn’t laughing, I’d probably pee myself in fear.

She sits down beside me and spreads out, perfectly at ease. “Well, that makes you one of the few women who hasn’t.”

Her face is tilted towards the sun so I’m not sure how to interpret that statement. Is she joking?

She peeks over at me with one eye. “But your friend—the blonde—she has slept with him?”

“He dumped her to marry you,” I admit awkwardly. “The interruption was her idea of revenge. You know, now that I’m saying it out loud, I guess the story’s not really that long, after all.”

To my surprise, she just shrugs. “I get it.”

“… Do you?”

She shrugs. “I wouldn’t have gone about revenge that way. But I understand the need for it. Viktor drags it out of people.”

None of this is what I was expecting. Mila might look like a porcelain ballerina, but I’m getting the feeling she’s got claws under that pretty little facade.

“I’m guessing marriage is not all you hoped it would be?” I venture cautiously.

She leans back on the grass, balancing on her elbows. “My expectations of marriage were always pretty low,” she explains in a matter-of-fact kind of way. “It wasn’t something I ever really wanted.”

“Why would you agree to marry Viktor, then?”

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