Page 39 of The Primary Pest (Iphicles Security #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Dmytro

Dmytro held one girl in each arm and breathed in the sweet fruity scent of their hair. Liv looked on from a seat by the bed, smiling softly.

Liv looked enough like Yulia to be her twin, but while Yulia’s nature was sunny and calm, Liv was a bit austere. Zhenya sat by her side, casting glances her way every so often. Since Zhenya had flown his family in and put them up in a nice room at a nearby hotel, they’d visited Dmytro every day.

Now his table was cluttered with drawings and flowers and carefully lettered get-well cards from Sasha. Glitter covered his sheets. He knew how lucky he was, and he should be grateful, but he had begun to worry about the one person who should be there and wasn’t.

Why hadn’t he heard from Ajax? Introductions might be awkward at first. Hello, meet Ajax, the very young man I love. Liv might be shocked and even stubborn at first but not because she didn’t want him to be happy. She told him to find someone new all the time.

Yet she could be a little controlling.

He’d done himself a favor by keeping any suggestion that Ajax and she meet to himself while he was still healing, but now, perversely, he wondered why Ajax hadn’t insisted.

Ajax was normally an insistent man.

Perhaps Ajax wanted to know why he hadn’t gotten in touch? He’d still been recovering while Ajax was in the hospital, but after they let him out of the ICU, why hadn’t he contacted Ajax?

And why was it so much harder to pick up the phone with every hour that passed?

“We’d better go.” Liv picked up her handbag. “If they fall asleep here, I’ll never get them down when we get back to the hotel.”

“Thank you for coming.” He held the half-asleep Penelope out to Zhenya, who stood ready to walk Liv to her car.

“Night, Daddy.” Sasha grabbed his face and gave him a smack on the cheek before holding hers out for his kiss. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

“Be a good girl.”

“I will, Daddy.”

He kissed them both one last time while Zhenya made silly faces.

“Liv, they weigh a ton. What do you feed them?”

Though he joked, Zhenya looked as tired as Dmytro felt. He barely took his eyes off Liv, but she was oblivious to his crush on her. Dmytro wished he could put him out of his misery.

“Liv’s cooking is so delicious it’s addictive.

I’m surprised we don’t all weigh a ton.” Dmytro gave matchmaking a shot via an order he knew his sister-in-law could not refuse.

“Liv, for God’s sake, invite Zhenya over to dinner at the house when we go home.

I don’t think he eats anything but takeout. ”

“ Mitya .” Her face flushed bright red.

“That’s all right.” Zhenya tried to look anywhere but at Liv. “Liv doesn’t need to feed me.”

“No.” Liv straightened her shoulders. “Mitya is right. As soon as we get home, you should come for supper. Allow us to thank you for all you do for our family.”

A smile bloomed on Zhenya’s weathered face. “I would be delighted to accept, but you owe me nothing.”

Charming pink spots dotted Liv’s cheeks.

“Come, girls.” Zhenya put them down and offered his hands to hold. The three of them walked to the door together. “Let’s go.”

Dmytro watched his boss and daughters leave. It might be nice for Liv to have a boyfriend. No one could be better. He trusted Zhenya with his life every day.

“I should be released tomorrow.” He returned his gaze to Liv. “I’ll call you when I need a ride, shall I?”

“Where do you plan to go? After, I mean,” she asked.

What did she know? “Zhenya has given me ample time off to recover.”

“He should,” she muttered. “Fine for him to send men out to risk their lives. But when they have babies at home—”

“I know you don’t like my job, but it pays the bills.”

“Oh, I like your job. But I love your children. I could spend the rest of my life caring for them, but I don’t want it to be because you’re dead.”

“You won’t have to do that.” She’d never been quite so adamant before. “Look at me. I’m fine.”

“This time.” An explosive sound escaped her. “You can’t guarantee anything so long as you work in the field.”

“I don’t want to argue about it now, all right?”

She nodded grimly. “Call when you’re signed out, and we’ll come. Zhenya has arranged for the private jet to take us home. The girls are over the moon.”

He could imagine. “That’s awesome.”

She paused. “You talk like your young friend now.”

“You’ve seen him?” He held his breath.

“I see him every day. He asks how you are, and we talk.”

“Why didn’t you let him come in?” Dmytro’s heart hammered so hard his pulse deadened all the noises of the busy hospital. “Are you purposely keeping him away?”

“My God. What do you think?” She shot him a murderous glare. “I’m a dog who chases people away from you? He told me he isn’t ready to see you. He wants to wait until you’re ready to leave and say goodbye then.”

Ajax wanted to say goodbye? Dmytro’s heart sank. “Did he meet the girls?”

“Yes.” Her face softened visibly. “He’s good with them. Seems very nice. A little scatterbrained.”

“That’s camouflage. He’s nothing of the kind.”

“If you say so. I thanked him for saving your life. The girls took him flowers.”

“And you never said?”

“He asked me not to.” She came to the railing of his bed. “Mitya, have you… Did you fall for this boy?”

He glanced away.

“Oh, Mitya.” That was all. Her gaze held no judgment. No recrimination. Tremendously practical Liv didn’t waste her time with emotion when she had better things to do. “Falling for a client is foolish.”

“So you told Yulia,” he reminded her.

“Indeed I did.” Her smile was never as warm as Yulia’s, but it could take the chill off a cold, hard fact. “I suppose it could happen once in a lifetime. I can’t imagine a miracle like that a second time in mine.”

“I love him,” he whispered.

“He was your job.”

“I know.” He put his petulance down to drugs.

“I know he was my job. And I know all the reasons it can’t work between us.

He’s too young. He’s wealthy beyond imagining.

He could have anyone, anything, he wants.

And I’m a thug, a widower with children looking for redemption I will never find in the next protection detail, or the next. ”

“He would be very, very lucky to have you.”

The way she said it, it sounded like she actually meant it. As if she might have forgiven him for taking Yulia away from her and promising to protect her, then failing so very spectacularly.

“There is so much to be sorry for,” he admitted. “So many things I’ve done, people I’ve hurt—”

“You’re a man, Mitya.” She patted his shoulder. “Just a normal, imperfect, but surprisingly decent man.”

He closed his eyes. “Never very decent.”

“I’m going to go now because, if I don’t, we’ll start singing and crying, and I need vodka to blame for that.”

“Thank you, Liv. For everything.”

He watched her double-check her belongings—triple-check—and walk to the door. “You want the light on or off?”

“Off, please.” He watched the door close before he picked up his phone to search his messages.

Nothing from Ajax.

Maybe that wasn’t so surprising. They’d taken all Ajax’s electronics. Maybe he hadn’t gotten the chance to buy a new phone. Maybe he didn’t know Dmytro’s phone number.

Dmytro dropped the thing onto his bed and ruthlessly told himself he didn’t wait for people to call. For men to call.

He wasn’t some lovesick boy.

He didn’t pine, for God’s sake. When he got back to work and his life was normal again, he’d get Ajax’s new number from Zhenya and call him if only to see how he was doing. To feel things out.

And if Ajax was embarrassed by or ashamed of the things he’d said in the heat of the moment, Dmytro would be a man about things and let him off the hook.

He lay back and glanced out the window, into the darkness, and tried not to imagine Ajax worrying about letting him down easy.

People did things.

They said things when they thought it was the end.

If Ajax came to tell him he’d reconsidered, then Dmytro would say he’d reconsidered too.

There would be no harm done. No hurt feelings.

They’d remain friends, of a sort, and that way, if Ajax ever felt he needed protection again, he could call Iphicles without hesitation because Dmytro wanted him to have the best.

Even if it wasn’t him.

That’s how he knew it was love he felt for Ajax. He’d even suggest Bartosz for the job.

He swallowed a groan when he shifted in his bed. He was still sore everywhere. He found the television control and turned on the monitor without the sound to watch the local news.

The door opened a crack. A slice of light spilled in from the hallway. At first, he didn’t see anything. Maybe it was one of the nurses coming to check on him. He let his gaze go back to the television, afraid to hope.

“Hey,” Ajax said softly from just outside the door. “I hear they’re releasing you tomorrow.”

Dmytro asked, “Are you afraid to come in?”

“No. I—” He stepped forward. “I just wanted to make sure you were alone.”

Dmytro turned off the television and tossed the remote. “As you see, I am totally alone.”

“I see.” Ajax nodded. “So, I wanted to come by—”

“Then why didn’t you?” Dmytro couldn’t help his glare. “I’ve been in this room, able to accept visitors, for over a week. So why didn’t you come?”

“It’s complicated.” Ajax held his hands up. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me here.”

That got Ajax a look the words deserved. “I see. So why come now?”

“Because I wanted to say goodbye. And to let you know what my plans are. I thought you might like to visit sometime, once things are back to normal.”

“Visit.” Dmytro examined the word visit next to the words love and hope and a shared future and found it didn’t have quite the same tone.

“Well, yeah.” Bright flags of color stained Ajax’s cheeks. “Bring the girls.”

“Bring the girls.”