Page 6 of Triplet Babies
She scrambles to adjust the flow again, but her feet slip on the wet stone. She loses her balance, arms windmilling as she tries to stay upright. Without thinking, I move.
I catch her by the waist just as she’s about to hit the flagstones. For a moment, she’s pressed against my chest, and I feel the warmth of her body through her work clothes. She smells like sunshine and honest sweat, and nothing like the cloying perfumes I’m used to.
Her voice is steady despite what must have been a frightening moment. “Thank you. The valve was stuck, and I?—”
I help her regain her footing, noting the way she doesn’t cling to me or try to prolong the contact. Most women would have used the opportunity to their advantage. “You flooded the deck.”
She’s explaining rapidly, clearly worried about getting in trouble on her first day. “I’m sorry. I can clean it up right away. The irrigation system was backing up, and I thought if I could just adjust the pressure?—”
I raise my hand to stop her. “How long have you been working with irrigation systems?”
The question seems to surprise her. “Three years, give or take. I worked for a landscaping company in New York before I moved here. We maintained several high-end properties, so I got used to dealing with complex water systems.”
“And your assessment of this system?”
She gestures toward the valve assembly. “It’s sophisticated. Whoever designed it knew what they were doing, but it needs regular maintenance to function properly. The corrosion suggests it’s been neglected for a while.”
I nod, filing away this information. “Report to the main house tomorrow morning at eight. Ask for Mrs. Nykova.”
Her green eyes widen. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Eight o’clock. Main house. Mrs. Nykova will be expecting you.”
She frowns, making an adorable wrinkle at the top of her nose. “I don’t understand. Am I being transferred? Fired?”
Something that might be amusement flickers through me. “You’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Should I bring anything? My tools, or?—”
I turn away, then look back over my shoulder. “Just yourself. Clean up the water before you leave.”
In front of me, I hear Katya’s sharp intake of breath. She’s still standing by the car, watching this entire exchange with obvious displeasure.
She says as I rejoin her, “That was interesting.”
“Was it?”
Her voice carries a warning I choose to ignore. “You don’t usually involve yourself in personnel matters so directly.”
How would she know? She’s been in my home as my guest exactly three times now. I don’t challenge her on her assertion that she knows what I do though. Why bother? Instead, I opt for an obvious answer. “I don’t usually have employees flood my pool deck on their first day.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but Leonid is already in the car and clearly impatient to leave. She narrows her eyes at me. “Until next time.”
I watch their car disappear down the drive, then head directly to the security office. Valentin is waiting with coffee and a resigned expression.
He gestures toward the wall of monitors showing various angles of the estate grounds. “That well, huh?”
I pour myself coffee from the pot he keeps constantly brewing. “Leonid wants to place six men in our warehouse. Katya thinks she can manipulate me with guilt about honoring my father’s memory. Standard Nikitin tactics and theater.”
He grunts and nods. “Your response?”
I settle into the chair beside his desk, grateful for the familiar ritual of debriefing with the one person whose loyalty I don’t have to question. “No to the warehouse. No to the manipulation. Still yes to the engagement, unless I luck out and she calls it off.”
That makes him chuckle slightly. Valentin has been with the family since before my father’s death. He’s older than me by five years, but he’s never challenged my authority or questioned my decisions. In fact, he helped me during the time my uncle was in charge after Papa’s death before I came of age, keeping Yuri in line with help of other lieutenants, so I had abratvagroup to inherit.
I didn’t get the stars on my chest until I was eighteen, but I was unofficially running the family from the time I was sixteen, when people stopped asking Uncle Yuri what to do, since he didn’t know his ass from his head when it came to doing what needed to be done. Valentin’s role as consigliere is to advise and support, not to lead, and he’s never shown any ambition beyond that.
He pulls up something on his computer. “They’ll push back. The Nikitins don’t accept rejection gracefully.”
