Page 104 of Santa Daddy
His gaze swept my neck, where I knew the bruises would come up later, then dropped back to my face.
“Those things I can fix,” he said. “I already started.” The faintest ghost of something like humor touched his mouth; it died fast. “This is different. You are… somewhere else. In your head.”
Of course I was. I had a second passenger up there now, running worst-case scenarios with me.
“Maybe I’m just tired,” I said. “This world of yours is exhausting.”
He stepped in until the counter edge pressed against my lower back. His bandaged knuckles brushed the side of my arm, the gentleness at odds with the damage.
“You are not just tired,” he said. “You are scared. Hiding. I do not like it.”
My laugh came out brittle. “I don’t like it either.”
He held my gaze. “I cannot protect you from what I do not see,” he said. “What I do not know.”
The irony of him saying that—Mr. Cameras Everywhere—would have been funny if it didn’t land so heavy.
“You want answers?” I asked. The sharpness in my voice surprised even me. “You really want to know what’s ‘wrong’?”
Something moved in his eyes. Not fear exactly. Anticipation with teeth.
“Da,” he said simply. “Tell me.”
The words jammed in my throat.
Saying it out loud made it real on a different level. No going back to pretending my late period was trauma or diet or stress. No more telling myself it was just “probably nothing.”
I thought of Maksim’s hand on my throat. The council watching doors open and cameras go dark. The crosshair photo. The way Konstantin had thrown himself between me and every threat so far without asking if I wanted to be there in the first place.
Fuck it.
Let the whole thing burn.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. The words dropped between us like a pistol shot. “You cold-blooded psycho. I’m pregnant.”
Silence.
The real kind. The kind that sucks all the air out of a room and hands it to someone else.
Konstantin went very, very still.
His face—usually so controlled it might as well be carved—went loose. The color drained. His eyes went wide, pale and sharp all at once.
For the first time since I’d seen him in that tree lot, he looked like someone had actually surprised him.
“There it is,” I said, heat rushing up my neck. “The truth.”
His mouth opened.
Closed.
When he finally managed words, they were the wrong ones.
“Is it mine?” he asked.
It hit like getting slapped.
My eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious right now?”
