Page 88 of The Primary Pest
“I know you don’t like my job, but it pays the bills.”
“Oh, I like your job. But I love your children. I could spend the rest of my life caring for them, but I don’t want it to be because you’re dead.”
“You won’t have to do that.” She’d never been quite so adamant before. “Look at me. I’m fine.”
“This time.” An explosive sound escaped her. “You can’t guarantee anything so long as you work in the field.”
“I don’t want to argue about it now, all right?”
She nodded grimly. “Call when you’re signed out, and we’ll come. Zhenya has arranged for the private jet to take us home. The girls are over the moon.”
He could imagine. “That’s awesome.”
She paused. “You talk like your young friend now.”
“You’ve seen him?” He held his breath.
“I see him every day. He asks how you are, and we talk.”
“Why didn’t you let him come in?” Dmytro’s heart hammered so hard his pulse deadened all the noises of the busy hospital. “Are you purposely keeping him away?”
“My God. What do you think?” She shot him a murderous glare. “I’m a dog who chases people away from you? He told me he isn’t ready to see you. He wants to wait until you’re ready to leave and say goodbye then.”
Ajax wanted to say goodbye? Dmytro’s heart sank. “Did he meet the girls?”
“Yes.” Her face softened visibly. “He’s good with them. Seems very nice. A little scatterbrained.”
“That’s camouflage. He’s nothing of the kind.”
“If you say so. I thanked him for saving your life. The girls took him flowers.”
“And you never said?”
“He asked me not to.” She came to the railing of his bed. “Mitya, have you… Did you fall for this boy?”
He glanced away.
“Oh, Mitya.” That was all. Her gaze held no judgment. No recrimination. Tremendously practical Liv didn’t waste her time with emotion when she had better things to do. “Falling for a client is foolish.”
“So you told Yulia,” he reminded her.
“Indeed I did.” Her smile was never as warm as Yulia’s, but it could take the chill off a cold, hard fact. “I suppose it could happen once in a lifetime. I can’t imagine a miracle like that a second time in mine.”
“I love him,” he whispered.
“He was your job.”
“I know.” He put his petulance down to drugs. “I know he was my job. And I know all the reasons it can’t work between us. He’s too young. He’s wealthy beyond imagining. He could have anyone, anything, he wants. And I’m a thug, a widower with children looking for redemption I will never find in the next protection detail, or the next.”
“He would be very, very lucky to have you.”
The way she said it, it sounded like she actually meant it. As if she might have forgiven him for taking Yulia away from her and promising to protect her, then failing so very spectacularly.
“There is so much to be sorry for,” he admitted. “So many things I’ve done, people I’ve hurt—”
“You’re a man, Mitya.” She patted his shoulder. “Just a normal, imperfect, but surprisingly decent man.”
He closed his eyes. “Never very decent.”
