Page 45 of Twisted Secrets
Which, of course, was when someone decided to knock on her door.
“Damn.”
“Damn!”
She froze.Do not react. Do not react. “Hadley, that’s a grown-up word.” Hopefully if she didn’t make a big deal about it, her daughter would let it go. Keeping her face blank, she set her down and headed for the door.
Hadley laughed. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”
Great. She was going to have to explain to Mrs. Richards why her daughter was acquiring the vocabulary of a sailor. The older woman would just adore that. Olivia grinned as she unlocked the door. Well, it would make a great story later on in life. And she had four years to cure Hadley of the habit before she started school—plenty of time, at least in theory. She opened the door, and stared, her mind frantically scrambling to come up with a logical reason for what she was seeing.
There wasn’t one.
Dmitri raised a perfectly shaped dark brow. “Are you going to invite me in, Olivia?”
It’s not a hallucination. He’s really here. “I’m seriously considering slamming the door in your face and calling the police.”
If anything, he looked more amused. “You won’t.”
No, she wouldn’t. They weren’t in New York anymore, so there was no reason to think he had half the Boston police force in his back pocket the way he did back home, but that didn’t mean they would side with her. She glanced up and down the hallway. “You’re alone?”
“For the moment.”
So his thugs were around, but he was giving her the illusion of privacy. Since that would only last as long as he indulged it, she stepped back and opened the door wider. Dmitri was more than capable of having one of his men kick down her door if she decided to be difficult, and she didn’t want to deal with the questions—or the financial fallout—that would bring. “What do you want?”
He ignored her question, taking his time looking around the apartment. She tried to see it through his eyes, and cringed. The entirety of it could fit into his office back home, and the fading yellow paint now looked more like piss than the cheery sunshine she was sure the last tenant was aiming for. The carpet was old and frayed and a far cry from the thick ones that covered most of the floors in the Romanov residence.
Stop it. You didn’t invite him here. You’re not responsible for impressing him.It’s not even possible, and you damn well know it.
He grinned when he caught sight of Hadley, the expression completely at odds with the carefullycontrolled way he normally held himself. The worst part was that she wasn’t sure if it was feigned or not. With Dmitri she never could tell, and that scared the shit out of her. He crouched down. “How’s my favorite Hadley?”
Hadley ran to him, her giggle filling the room as he stood and tickled her. It made Olivia sick, but she wasn’t going to rush over there and tear her daughter from his arms. It was exactly the sort of emotional response that would please him, and she refused to give him the satisfaction. So she crossed her arms over her chest and waited. It only took a few minutes for him to finish playing with her daughter and set Hadley back on the ground. She immediately lifted her chubby arms to be held again. “Up.”
“Ah, ah. Your mommy and I have something to talk about.” He pulled a toy from his pocket, and Olivia nearly rolled her eyes when she saw it was a pretend cell phone.Perfect. “But I brought a surprise for you.”
Hadley’s face lit up. She grabbed the phone and toddled over to sit on the couch, her face a mask of concentration.
Only then did Dmitri turn back to Olivia. “This is what you left your family behind for? I never knew your penchant for playing the martyr went so deep.”
This time she lost the fight not to roll her eyes. “Considering I was more like a stray dog that you let stay in the house than actual family, I don’t know why you keep throwing that word around. I’m not family, and I never will be.”
“Andrei didn’t believe that.”
She hated that the sound of their father’s name made her flinch. “Yes, he did. Right up until he was on his deathbed. Chalk the change of heart up to dementia brought on by seeing his life ending,and let’s move on.”
“As delightful as it would be to keep beating this dead horse, that’s not why I’m here.”
She’d figured as much. “Then why are you here?”
He moved around the living room, which took him a grand total of three steps, and paused in front of a picture of her and Hadley. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was one of the tiny tokens that made thishome. Dmitri picked it up, and it was everything she could do not to rush over and snatch it out of his hands. He looked at it far too long for her state of mind. “You aren’t coming back.”
God, were they really going to go around again? “No, I’m not coming back.”
He nodded and set the picture down. She wasn’t sure how to read the look on his face. He didn’t like her. He never had. She was pretty sure if she was on fire, he wouldn’t spare the energy to even think about putting her out. The only reason he was so damn determined to get her back to New York was because his father—theirfather—had insisted she take the Romanov name, and Dmitri had given his word that he’d see it done.
Thanks, but no thanks.
“I hear you have a new boyfriend.”
