Page 63 of Brooklyn Bratva

Becca sat down next to me, digging her feet into the sand.

“I had fun tonight, Becca.”

She rested her head on my shoulder and I looped my arm around her back. If she hadn’t dragged me out, I wouldn’t have come. I would have found an excuse to work, the same way I suspected Max was doing even now. Always on the job. I knew the look of that in a man.

“Me too.”

Right here, it felt like it was just the two of us in the whole world. Nothing else to get in the way. Nothing else mattered, or could ever be more important than this woman. Just us. That was all that mattered.

“It’s more than fun, though.”

She tilted her head towards me, a curious sparkle in her eyes. “Of course it is, silly. I told you that, didn’t I?”

“With you I can be myself.”

Her smile widened, and she burrowed herself deeper into my embrace. “That’s how I feel too.”

I realized she was shivering under my arm and her teeth had started to chatter.

“Didn’t I tell you this dress was too small? What’s wrong with you? You’re too stubborn.”

Becca let out a grumble. “Shh. You’re here to keep me warm. Go back to talking about the other stuff.”

Letting out a muted huff, I shrugged out of my jacket, draping it over her shoulders instead. I got the strangest kick out of it when she curled her head down to breathe in the scent of it. “Smells just like you.”

No one else in the world could affect me the way she could.

“I want to be with you.”

“You are with me, Ivan.”

“Properly. No sneaking around.”

She blinked at me slowly, chin resting on her arms which were folded around her knees. “I don’t think you could call tonight sneaking around.”

“I’m talking about your father.”

Becca grimaced. “Oh don’t do that. I don’t think he’s going to understand.”

“Then I’ll make him.”

“Ivan… can’t we just. Enjoy it being just us a little bit longer? It’s not like no one knows here. We’re together as much as we want to be. I don’t want to have to deal with Dad’s freak out yet.”

“What can he do? He can’t control you like that.”

“No. But he can stop talking to me. He can be a dick to you. Hell, he can call the police and tell them you’re up to your eyeballs with the Russian mafia. I don’t know what he’d do, Ivan, but I know I don’t want to drop it on him out of the blue. He’s not just my dad, he’s my only family. And I’m not ready to pit the pair of you against each other.”

I gritted my teeth. “Soon. He has to find out soon. I want to be your family too, and I want us to make our own. He’s going to get an even bigger surprise if he doesn’t find out until you’re having my baby.”

Becca bit her lip, leaning in to me to find my mouth in a soft but dextrous kiss.

“That’s what condoms are for.”

“I don’t want anything between us.”

She let out a slow sigh. “Me neither. I hate anything that comes between us.”

I curled her in against my chest, drawing patterns through her hair. “I want to see your belly swell with our child.”

Becca let out a contented sounding hum and she nodded. “Me too. It’s too long to wait until I finish med school.”

“We don’t have to wait. I’ll look after you. And when you’re ready to go back to school, we can get a nanny.”

“And then what happens when I’m doing back-to-back shifts at the ER?”

“You want to work in the ER?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What about a small clinic in Brighton Beach? I know a few people.”

“Maybe.” She rolled on top me, folding her arms onto my chest. “But only if you always come to me whenever you get hurt.”

“You mean, you’d be our doctor.”

“It’s more interesting than dealing with bunions and blood pressure all day long.”

“I think we could manage that.”

Becca’s eyes gleamed and her smile set in, content in a way I hadn’t seen her before.

“How many kids do you want?”

“As many as you’ll give me.”

Max hadn’t been wrong about that. With Becca, I wanted the dream. She’d be the perfect wife, and perfect mother. Together we could have it all.

“Where are we going to live?”

That, I hadn’t decided. I never planned to settle for an American, or even one of the Russian women keen to hitch themselves to someone with my standing in the community. I’d always assumed at some point, when it came to settling down, I’d find myself back in Moscow.

But Becca changed that. I couldn’t drag her to a country she had no experience with, where she didn’t speak the language. No matter how many times she told me she loved everything Russian, it was a long way from her home.

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