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I cling to him. “Then sit down and let me hold you for a minute. I need to feel like this is real.”
He settles back into his desk chair and guides me onto his lap, arranging me carefully so my belly isn’t compressed. I wrap my arms around his neck and let myself sink into the solid warmth of his body, basking in the certainty this is going to last. “I used to think love was supposed to be hard,” I say quietly. “Complicated and dramatic and full of obstacles you had to overcome to prove it was real. Most times, those obstacles win in my experience.”
He gives me a gentle smile. “And now?”
“I think the best kind of love makes everything else easier.”
His spreads a hand wide over the curve where our daughter grows. “She’s going to be so loved. So protected. She’ll never know what it feels like to want for anything.” His expression grows more serious. “There’s something else we need to talk about that I should have told you before now.”
The change in his tone makes anxiety flutter in my stomach. “What is it?”
“The woman I mistook you for—Irina. She was connected to my brother’s death in ways I didn’t initially understand.”
I shift on his lap to face him more fully. “Connected how?”
“Yaraslov was in love with her and had been for months before he died. She was an escort, but to him, she was everything.” His jaw tightens with remembered pain. “What I didn’t know then was she was also feeding information to Vadim Morozov about Yaraslov’s movements, his security protocols, and his vulnerabilities.”
The name Vadim makes me shudder. “The man who’s been having me watched?”
“Yes, and the man who killed my brother, using intelligence Irina provided.” His hand stills on my belly. “Yaraslov walked into what he thought was a private meeting with her. Instead, it was a trap.”
“She set him up,” I say with quiet certainty.
“She lured him to an abandoned warehouse where Vadim was waiting. Yaraslov died believing the woman he loved had betrayed him, and she had.”
The pain in his voice cuts through me. I can’t imagine the agony of losing someone you love to such a brutal betrayal, or the rage that must have consumed him afterward. “You want to find her for revenge.”
“Da, and for the chance to look her in the eye and make her understand what her choices cost.” He meets my gaze steadily. “When I found you instead, everything changed.”
“Because you realized I wasn’t her?”
He shakes his head to my surprise. “Because I realized holding onto that much anger was killing me slowly. Some things matter more than revenge.”
“Like what?”
“Like you and our daughter, along with the possibility of building something beautiful instead of just destroying what’s ugly.”
I trace the sharp line of his jaw with my fingertips, marveling at how much this man has changed in such a short time. “But Vadim is still out there and still a threat?”
“Yes.” His admission is quiet but resolute. “I’ll have to deal with him before we can truly be free or I can guarantee our family’s safety.”
The words send a chill through me, even though I understand the necessity behind them. “What does dealing with him mean?”
He hesitates for a moment. “It means finishing what he started when he took my brother from me. It means making sure he can never threaten you or our daughter. He has to die so we can be free to really live. “
“And after that?”
“After that, we become a family that no one from my old world can ever find or touch.”
The promise should comfort me, but instead, it fills me with dread. “What if something goes wrong? What if you don’t come back?”
“I will come back.” The confidence in his voice leaves no room for doubt. “I have too much to live for now to take unnecessary risks.”
I put a hand to his cheek while staring at him. “Promise me.”
He presses into my hand. “I promise you I will do everything in my power to come home to you and our daughter. I won’t take any chances I don’t have to take.”
The urge to cry again hits me once more. “That’s not the same thing as promising you’ll be safe.”