Page 47

“I’m not going?—”

“You are. We’ll talk about this, but right now, my priority is getting you and… your son to safety.”

He then drags things out and car doors slam. Then he’s back and he reaches for Sasha, but I turn. “We need his seat and his bedding.”

“For fuck’s sake.” He grabs the bedding as it’s obvious it belongs to a little boy, and then he nods at me and I slowly get up. “You can hold him.”

“There are laws.”

“Like I give a fuck.”

“For safety.”

“We wouldn’t need safety items if you hadn’t run off, which was a really fucking stupid thing to do.”

I swallow and make myself say, “I wasn’t thinking. The only thing I cared about was getting to my son.”

And away from Demyan, but that I keep silent.

He finishes putting things in the car and returns, holding out his arms. “Give me the child.”

“No.”

He sighs like his patience is so thin it’s practically nonexistent. “I don’t know how to put a damn child seat in, so you’ll have to do it.”

Anger bursts bright, but I try to push it down. “I’ll just follow you.”

“Like hell you will. We go together and you’re not driving my fucking car.”

“Like I’d trust you with my child.”

“Give me the kid. Now. And put the seat in, then check I got everything.”

I don’t want to. I’d rather cut off my own foot than give him my child. My child. Not his. All he ever did was accidentally donate some sperm.

But there’s no room for that kind of fury, that argument. The man’s powerful, rich, dangerous. And I think he mightjust shove us in the car and risk Sasha’s life.

Reluctantly, I hand him over, my sobbing, shaking little boy. I suspect Demyan is smart enough to work out how to install the child safety seat, just like I’m sure he’s efficient enough to get all our things on the first sweep.

He just doesn’t trust me.

With good reason.

Given a chance, you bet I’d run with Sasha.

The furious look Demyan gives me burns deep as he takes Sasha and I hurry out to take the seat from the back of Kara’s car and put it in the flashy one that belongs to Demyan.

When I go back in, he’s holding Sasha so gently, saying soothing things to him that have him quieting down. Things in Russian, since I don’t understand them.

And it hurts.

Something big rips inside me, and I can’t help the hot tears that storm through me, tears I somehow hold back. Like my boy’s betraying me, wanting this man who hates me, is angry at me for the lies and the fact I never told him about his son.

It doesn’t matter that without Tom, I’d never have been able to find him, just like it doesn’t matter Sasha’s not betraying me; he just finds the big man soothing and he probably likes his voice.

It doesn’t matter because emotions aren’t exactly part of critical thinking or common sense, they just are.

Our eyes meet over Sasha, and it’s like the world stops.