Page 8 of Secret Baby and the Bratva

“Mothers around the world need help with babies.” I motion around the room. “Who else is here for you? I don’t see…” I hesitate. My lack of knowledge about her life glares at me. “I don’t see anyone but us.”

“I can do fine on my own.”

“We have a right to be involved. We have plenty of space in our house. You won’t have to do any cooking or cleaning. You’ll be able to spend more time with the baby. How can you not see the value?”

She fusses with the edge of her sheet and keeps a close eye on Yulian’s pretty decent cradling technique.

I continue my efforts to convince her. “We’ll all learn to change diapers.”

Maxim grumbles. He better not fuck this up.

“Yes, you’re going to change diapers. We all will.”

“I appreciate that but I’m not ready to move in. I’m keeping Maverik at my place.” Tiredness is evident in her words.

“Why don’t you take a nap? We can sort details out later.”

“I can’t sleep right now but I promise, I’ll let you see him.”

“We want to see you also, Margot. You’ve been on our minds since our night together.”

“Yeah…”

“We tried to find you.”

“I know, but what I can’t ever know is if your interest is in me or an heir. And nine months ago, was it in the potential to get me pregnant? A young, naïve virgin you could convince to not take birth control pills? I saw what happened to Harper. I can’t…” Her words fall short.

“It’s a fair concern. And we’d be lying if we said our interest wasn’t in our baby.” I motion between myself and my brothers. “We’ll work something out and we will help take care of him financially and physically. But we’ll also take care of you. Give us a chance to show you who we are.”

I don’t go into more. Now is not the right time or place. But it gives me pride that we’ll be able to show her we’re worthy to be fathers, we’re worthy to be her husband.

“I had a plan. All I wanted was a simple life. I’m not ready for lots of complications.”

“Then we’ll keep it simple. We’ll prove our worth.” I lean down and kiss her head. “Will you give us that chance?”

Six

Yulian

Withtheinfantinone arm and a cup of tea in my other hand, I meet Margot at her makeshift desk, which amounts to her laptop on top of a box on the coffee table, while she sits on the couch. It pains me that she lives in such a tiny apartment when we have thousands of square feet in our house, but she’s adamant she establishes herself without us.

In the weeks since we reunited, I expected to make a lot more progress in our living arrangement. Slow is an understatement, but she’s warming up to resuming a relationship with us. The best thing is that we get to spend time with her and Maverik, even if it is in her tiny apartment where I can barely turn around in without bumping into something.

Her rule is for only one of us comes over at a time, which might make a lot of sense given it’s the tiniest living space I’ve ever set foot in, at four hundred square feet.

I do my best to keep jealousy at bay when my brothers are with her, as I’m sure they’re doing right now while I have time to be a family man.

“You can set him down. He’s sound asleep,” she says as she opens her laptop and gets ready to take her final exam.

“I’ll hold him every chance I can get.”

“It feels really good to hold a snuggly baby, doesn’t it?” Her demeanor has softened in the past weeks. Her arm brushes mine when she reaches to touch Maverik. Does the lingering contact create swells of emotion inside of her the way it does me?

“There’s hardly anything better.” I’m sure she understands that she’s theanything.

My brothers say they’ve experienced the same with her. If we can trust our instincts, which usually we can, she’s warming up to us.

Gentle touches. Simple touches. Nothing too intimate. Although, I feel it in my heart—which is solidly in my chest now.

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