Page 73

“But I can’t go anywhere?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Yet?” I got out of bed, taking his hand when he offered it to me.
“Yet,” he confirmed. “I’ve never done this before—keeping a woman. We can take this in steps.”
I wanted to interpret his words as a confession that thethishe was talking about was actually a relationship between us. But I wasn’t that gullible.
Not yet.
“And right now, we’ll try another step.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Another step toward what?”
“Toward… our continued mutually beneficial situation.”
I wanted to roll my eyes.
“Okay, what’s this step?” I asked as he held my hand and led me into the walk-in closet.
“I’d like for you to meet my grandmother,” he announced, picking out clothes.
Huh. That’s new.He’d introduced me to his brothers, but I seldom saw them in the building. A grandmother would be different. It was hard to think of another woman being in this family. Everything seemed so masculine. But I tried to tamp down my excitement to see a woman.
This felt like too much of a test, and I knew damn well that Maxim would be critiquing how I handled this experience.
An hour later, he brought me to have breakfast with a regal-looking, older woman.
“Grandmother, I’d like you to meet Sloane,” Maxim said before we took our seats. While we weren’t in the fancy dining room like the day I’d met Damon, Nik, and Saul, this sunroom space with a seating arrangement was still posh and elegant. Everything about the Ivanovs was a reminder of their wealth.
“Sloane, this is my grandmother, Anastasia Ivanov.” He glanced at me.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said as I took the older woman’s hand. Her skin was cool and soft, leathery with her age, but I was surprised at how weak her grip was. I nearly crushed her hand as we shook, and I debated whether I’d shown too much strength.
“Hmm. This is a surprise,” she replied coolly, watching Maxim and barely looking at me.
Okie-dokie, then.
Her declining to reply in kind, that it would be nice to meet me, told me enough. Her posture and attitude combined in a clear effort to let me see that I was inferior to her, not an equal. As shesat with Maxim and acted like a queen, I got the impression that she’d only ever see me as an outsider, not fitting in here with her eldest grandson. In her eyes, I would be a guest and apart from her family.
She didn’t ask where I’d come from, who I was, or why I was here, but it didn’t give me a complex of insecurity. When Maxim told me that he’d never kept a woman here in his home like this, I believed him. But still, being his first kidnapped woman, I couldn’t begin to guess at how I was supposed to act around Anastasia.
She wasn’t warm. She wasn’t inviting. She spoke only to him and acted almost like an unfeeling robot. Perhaps she had been such an icy person for so long that she lacked the ability to thaw out at all.
Or maybe it’s just me.I’d never been taught how to be prim and proper like a princess, which this setting seemed to imply I should be. I’d never been an elite member of society like her. So, instead, I reverted to being quiet and observant, not speaking up at all as we ate breakfast.
After that meal that left me clueless about why he’d wanted me to meet her, he took off for a meeting with Saul. Nik offered to show me the gym, and he pointed out the access code on the elevator for me to use the brothers’ personal gym, not the one soldiers could take advantage of.
A little exercise helped to clear my mind, but when I came back to Maxim’s apartment to shower, he took over preoccupying me with a quickie in the shower. But then after a nap, that led to a longer and more intense round of intimacy on the floor, across the couch, and against the wall.
Having him control me sexually like that left me disoriented, and as such, between the workout and all the sex, I was too wired to sleep at night.
Instead of trying to toss and turn and sleep, I gave up and got out of bed to go to the kitchen.
Maybe a little snack would help.My appetite had been rather stable despite my pregnancy, and with the limited common knowledge I had to count on about pregnancies, I suspected I might be lucky to be one of those women who didn’t suffer from morning sickness.
With the well-balanced diet and care I had so far, I felt like I was at my peak health now.