Page 29 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

“I found your diary,” he murmurs. “The entry about you being pregnant. I don’t know of many other veterinarians who have sex with a stranger at work, so I figured you must be the woman from that night.”

My face flushes.

We’ve had sex. He literally delivered my baby.

And yet somehow, him reading my diary feels far more intimate.

If I remember right, I put a fair amount of detail into that entry. And Idoremember it right because I’ve gone back and read it several times since then. Whenever the details began to grow a little fuzzy.

“How did you find me?” I ask. “I wasn’t even at home. I was on the side of the road. Were you following me?”

“You think I’m so desperate for some pussy I’d have to follow you around for nine months?”

I scowl. “Just how every woman loves being referred to—‘some pussy.’”

Dima just laughs humorlessly. “No,krasavitsa,I didn’t follow you. I didn’t even know who you were until I went back to your house.”

I hear what he’s saying, but I can’t believe it. The coincidence is too unreal. “You mean to tell me it was a complete and total accident that you showed up to help me give birth?”

He nods and snaps the straps together around Lukas’s little chest. “Believe me: I wouldn’t have willingly shown up had I known what I’d have to do. I planned to steal your car, actually. But I thought I should help you out first.”

“And then you stole my car anyway,” I point out. “And broke into my house to boot.”

He shrugs, completely unapologetic. “I found your address on your ID and used your keys to get inside. I figured I’d stay there for the night and head out in the morning. Then I saw pictures of you on the wall and read your diary entry. And… I remembered you.”

The story sort of makes sense, but only in the most technical sense.

“Or,” I offer up as an alternative, “you figured out my name and address because you knew where I worked, you found out I was pregnant, and you stalked me.”

“You think very highly of yourself,” he drawls. He drops back into the driver’s seat and takes off towards the on-ramp to the highway.

“No. I have to be right. Because your version is too wild to be true. It makes way more sense that I gave you mind-blowing sex, and now you want to keep me as your sex slave.” I say it as a joke to try and dispel some of my own tension. But the thought takes root in my brain and my heart starts to race.

Dima doesn’t laugh. “Your words, not mine.” His eyes are locked on the road ahead, grim and distant.

My face flushes and I slap his arm again. “You shouldn’t invade people’s privacy. Or break into their houses. Or break into their places of business!” I shout, frustration and fear bubbling over. “This is all your fault! You did this to me!”

“If you’re talking about being on the run right now, then yeah, probably. When it comes to him,” he says, hitching his thumb over his shoulder to point at Lukas, “that was a team effort.”

“You blocked the door!”

“I would have let you out if you wanted to leave.”

Touch me,I’d whimpered to him that night.Make me come.My cheeks burn even hotter at the memory.

“Instead,” Dima continues, “you practically begged me to—”

“Enough! That’s enough. We don’t need to rehash the past. We just need to sort out the future. Where are we going?”

Dima shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have a plan?”

“I had one, but that was before I knew I’d been traced to your house. Now, I have to scrap those plans and make it up as I go.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t work for me.” I cross my arms over my chest.

I always imagined going on the run to be a fun kind of Bonnie-and-Clyde-style adventure. Wind in my hair, open road ahead, the law and my enemies fading behind me in the distance as I cackle and throw cash into the air.

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