Page 50 of Nine Months to Love
The Antoniais transformed.
“Oh my God.”
The yacht is decked out in fairy lights that twinkle like stars against the darkening sky. Flowers—white orchids, obviously—are arranged in elegant clusters along the railings. Candles flicker in hurricane lamps, casting golden shadows across the deck.
“I believe it’s called a ‘grand gesture,’” Taras says dryly.
“I was gonna go with ‘emotional manipulation.’”
“That, too.”
I should turn around, get back in the Lamborghini, and demand Taras take me home. This is too much—the dress, the diamonds, now this floating fantasy. It’s designed to make me forget all the reasons I shouldn’t trust Stefan Safonov with my heart.
But my feet are already moving toward the gangway.
“Aren’t you coming?” I ask Taras when he releases me and stays in place at the foot of the gangway.
“And third-wheel your not-a-date? Pass.” He’s already backing toward the car. “I’ll be at the bar down the street. Text me when you need extraction.” He pauses at the driver’s door. “Olivia?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful. Stefan’s trying, in his own fucked-up way. But trying and succeeding are different things.”
“Noted.”
“And if he hurts you, pregnant or not, I’ll kick his ass.”
“I can kick his ass myself, thanks.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He slides into the Lamborghini. “But it never hurts to have backup.”
The engine roars to life, and then he’s gone, leaving me alone on the dock in my Dior dress and borrowed diamonds, staring at a yacht that looks like someone Pinterest-boarded “romantic dinner” and went absolutely feral with the credit card.
I take a breath. Then another.
Then I climb aboard, because I’m exactly the kind of idiot who walks into beautiful traps with her eyes wide open.
18
STEFAN
AN HOUR EARLIER
One of my soldiers, Denis, enters my office as I’m adjusting my cufflinks for the fifteenth time—a nervous habit I thought I’d killed years ago. But here I am, fidgeting like a teenager before prom, all because of a dinner with a woman who currently hates my guts.
I offer him only a cursory glance from the mountain of paperwork covering my desktop. This is what the movies get wrong about Bratva life—there’s a fuck ton more paperwork involved.
“Boss, got a sec?”
I force my hands to still, putting down my pen. “It better actually be a second. What is it?”
“The team has a lead on your... erm... on Natalia.”
My blood goes cold, then hot. I lean back in my chair, my back aching from hours hunched over this damn desk. “What kind of lead?”
“A woman matching Natalia Safonova’s description. Spotted in Brookline, residential area. She’s been seen entering and exiting a house on Cypress Street multiple times over the past forty-eight hours.”
My blood goes cold, then hot. “You’re certain?”
