Page 69 of Nine Months to Bear

I’ve never wanted a woman to cook me breakfast before. I’ve never wanted to stand in a kitchen doorway, watching the morning light play across someone’s skin, wishing time would stop.

I realize I’ve driven to my grandmother’s house only when the tires bump against the curb. I blink out of the memory and, for a moment, I consider putting the car in reverse, returning to the office. At least, up there, there are spreadsheets and acquisition plans—things that makesense.

Here is only more confusion.

I don’t leave, though. I kill the engine. Maybe this is what I need to clear my head.

The familiar scent of dill and garlic greets me before my babushka does. She must be cooking. I hear her mumbling something to herself before she opens the door.

“What brings you here on a Tuesday?” Babushka asks, eyebrow raised in a way that reminds me, uncomfortably, of myself.

On second thought, this was a bad idea.

“Security check.” It’s bullshit, and we both know it.

“I don’t see why. That handsome friend of yours was here just last night checking alarms.”

“Taras?” I didn’t ask him to do that. But he’s a professional, which means he probably knew where I was and knew I was occupied.

I’ll get shit about that later, but I won’t even be able to fire him because he was holding down the fort while I was having a sleepover.

She sighs wistfully. “Such a charming man. We had tea and he told me all about your plans to acquire a fertility clinic. I always knew you were a bleeding heart, but I didn’t think you’d ever show it to the world.”

My jaw clenches. “I’m not. Next time, Taras should do his job and cut the fucking socializing.”

Babushka takes a half-step back, not out of fear, but more of an attempt to gain a broader perspective. In all our years together, I’ve never spoken to her like that in her own home.

“Something’s wrong with you.”

I start to argue, but it’s not a question. She grabs my wrist and leads me to the kitchen without waiting for confirmation. Her slippered feet whisper against the hardwood floors.

“I’m fine,” I mutter, freeing my hand and running it through my hair. It’s eerily similar to what happened last night—Olivia stroking her fingers through my roots while I ate her out, scraping my scalp to draw me closer until I could feel her pulsing on my tongue as she?—

“Of course you are,” my grandmother replies sarcastically. “That’s why you’re here instead of working. That’s why you look like you haven’t slept. Because you’re ‘fine.’”

“I slept,” I grumble. “… A little.”

Fantastically, actually. Better than I have in weeks. That’s one perk of fucking to the point of exhaustion: I didn’t have a choice but to crash.

The countertop is littered with ingredients and something is simmering on a pot on the stove. I take in the scene, but when I look back to her, she’s still watching me with narrowed eyes.

I scowl. “Babushka?—”

“If you’re going to hover like a thundercloud, at least make yourself useful,” she interrupts, pointing me towards the cluttered island. “Thepirozhkidough needs kneading.”

The familiar ritual calls to me. I wash my hands and then slip into the routine.

The first time I made these, I was sixteen. I hid in the kitchen after my father’s funeral, too angry to put on a somber face for mourners. I wanted to crush a throat in my hand, stomp out a life with my heel. Babushka found me and wordlessly pushed metowards the pantry. She was hurting, too, but she took care of me.

I work the dough, pressing and folding. I ground myself in my senses—the silky texture of flour between my fingers, the earthy scent of yeast activating, the steady rhythm of kneading. My grandmother drifts around the kitchen, chopping onions and browning ground beef for the filling. The sizzle and pop from the pan punctuate the silence between us.

She wants to know what’s wrong, but there’s nothing to say.

Or rather, there is plenty to say, but it’s all fucking humiliating.

I let a business deal get personal. I let an acquisition get under my skin. I crossed the line, allowing my cock to lead me across town and into Dr. Aster’s bed last night, and now, I need to reverse back to the safe side of this arrangement.

She’ll carry my child, I’ll acquire her company, and then we’ll never see each other again.