Page 46 of Cashmere Cruelty

What the hell,I wonder helplessly for the second time today,have I gotten myself into?

13

MATVEY

I can’t stop feelingher.

The whole car ride to the warehouse, I keep touching my lips as if I’ll find her there. Where her warmth lingers like a spell.

April Flowers, what kind of witch are you?

What if I’d kept kissing a little higher? All the way up the smooth skin of her inner arm, and then higher still?

Her neck, long and velvety. Her cheeks, so deliciously flushed.

Her lips.

Get it together, I growl to myself. The last thing I need is to get rock-hard in the backseat of my own limo.You don’t get to touch her like that anymore.

A part of me rebels at the thought.

I know it would be the stupidest possible thing to do—falling back into April’s arms. With a child on the way, I can’t afford to muddy the waters. I can’t afford to let April think we’ll ever be more than a one-time fling with consequences.

Co-parents. That’s all we’ll ever be.

So why can’t I stop thinking about her?

Yuri meets me outside. He’s wearing his usual scowl—nothing strange there—and holding an unusual envelope. Without a word, he hands it over to me.

“An early birthday card?” I joke. “Brother, you shouldn’t have.”

Yuri’s scowl, if possible, deepens. “The DNA test came back. It’s a match.”

Fuck.Well, that settles that.I open the envelope and run a cursory glance over the information there. Alleles, Doctorese, yada yada—ah, there it is.

99%

Un-fucking-deniable.

“It was a long shot.” I shrug, unbothered by the revelation. Probably because it wasn’t a revelation at all. Because a part of me knew, deep down…

That child is mine.

Could I feel the unbreakable bond that ran through our veins? Blood is mysterious like that. It was the same with Yuri, all those years ago: the second I met him, Iknew.

“Are you disappointed?” Yuri asks me, voice low.

I think it over. “No,” I answer truthfully. “I expected this. One more mouth to feed is nothing.”

It’s not just that. I know it’s not. Some primal part of me is already laying claim on that child: wanting to protect, wanting to mold.Mine.

It’s not “nothing.” Not by a long shot.

“If…” Yuri hesitates. “Did you mean what you said? That if the child hadn’t been yours…”

“Of course,” I say without missing a beat, even as a part of me despises what I’m saying.Casting out the child. Casting out the mother. Turning my back on the two of them.“Who in their right mind would keep around someone who’s nobody to them?”

Yuri flinches at my words, but I don’t have time to worry about his delicate disposition. Not when the claim inside me is already extending to the mother of my child. If I want to avoid disaster, I need to nip this in the bud, no matter what.

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