Page 107 of Scarlet Secrets

He closes the gap and kisses me slow, leaving me spinning, then he’s out the door before I can hit the ground again. “Bastard,” I mutter. I know he’s lying.

It’s the truth, but also a lie because he’s hiding something.

What I should do is really push, but that was as far as I dare go. This morning, he was in a good mood. But he can turn on a dime right now, and his temper worries me.

What if he just decides to get rid of me and keep Sasha?

I swallow, getting up and showering. Asking him to send us away was stupid. It’ll put the idea in his head. As in sending me away.

After all, Alina plays ball with him. I don’t. I don’t know how. I don’t know how a crime boss’s future wife is meant to be.

I don’t even know if he’ll still want me if I push him too hard. And the thing is, I’m falling for him. Hard. I don’t think it’s in love yet. That takes total trust, letting him in, and it frightens me he wants me to rely on him, trust in him when this doesn’t feel like it’s reciprocated.

It’s been me and Sasha against the world for two years and when Toby cheated, he hurt me on such a base level it was like a seismic shift.

Not even the fact he and the woman split and he’s with someone else, according to Kara, searching for another me because he knows he burned that bridge and would have to go through his sister to even get near me, not even that helps.

He opened an internal rift.

And I don’t know how to close it.

I don’t even know who to talk to about it. Demyan would think I wanted him. I’m already scared he might go after my brother; I don’t want him to do something to Toby. I don’t want Toby. I don’t have feelings either way about him anymore. But I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s pain, someone’s death, Kara’s heartache.

The closest person to talk to here would be Alina. But she’s his sister. And she’s grieving.

“Fuck.” I dress and stare at myself in the mirror, the sounds of a waking Sasha coming through the monitor on the bathroom counter.

I look drawn. Tired. I look like I need a good meal.

Demyan’s shift from me as prisoner to being ordered tomarry him to a fancy prisoner with Sasha and his sister is one I could take as a learning curve on his side. He’s learning, he’s trying to protect his family.

Or I could see it as Demyan being one step from sending me back under lock and key in that room.

With a sigh, I pull my blonde hair back into a ponytail and head off to see my son when someone speaks through the baby monitor.

“Good morning, little man. It’sdyadyaIlya.” The man chuckles, and remarkably, so does Sasha.

I hurry into the room as he speaks Russian to Sasha as he changes him, entertains him, and then dances him in the air to uproarious screams of laughter.

The black-haired man, who’s maybe Demyan’s age and just as handsome, looks strange, and suddenly I realize what it is.

His green eyes dance and a smile adorns his mouth as he hangs Sasha upside down.

My son’s screaming with giggles. “No. Eelya. No! I’m not a sack!”

“You are. Potatoes. And it’s dyadya.”

Sasha makes a mess of the word, and Ilya sighs dramatically, plopping Sasha on his shoulders. “You can call me uncle in English.”

“Unca in English,” Sasha yells.

And my heart swells. The only dampening thing is the thought Demyan might be angry at this. At how Sasha takes to the grinning, full-of-fun man.

“Hey Erin, I thought I’d help out. Demyan’s going to be very late tonight.” Though he still grins, some of the light turns hard in his eyes. “Say good morning to your mama.”

“I’m taller than you, Mama!”

Ilya starts to pull him off to hand him to me, but Sasha grips his hair.

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