Page 39

YULIAN

There’s warmth here.

It’s the first thing I notice. Mia’s apartment is nothing like what I’m used to. It’s small, messy, chaotic like a toy box. And yet, it’s warm.

Warmer than I deserve.

“Okay!” Eli chirps. “You sit here, Mommy can sit here, and Garfield?—”

“Garfield’s already eaten,” Mia says. “Kallie told me.”

“Oh.” Eli pauses for a moment, then promptly puts Garfield back in his designated chair. “Well, he might be thirsty. Here, Yulian, you can sit next to him.”

I steal a glance at Mia. She’s trying so hard to fight back a smile, it’s ridiculous. “I’d be honored,” I say.

We order food by phone. I try to wrest back control of this improvised family dinner by suggesting I foot the bill, but Mia won’t have it. “You’re our guest,” she insists. “At Winters House, we feed our guests.”

“Aunt Kallie didn’t stay to eat,” Eli complains. “She always stays.”

“Well,” Mia says, ruffling her son’s hair as she walks by, “Aunt Kallie heard her friend Maksim was waiting downstairs. She didn’t want him to eat alone.”

“Too old for her,” my ass.

That answer seems to pacify Eli. He goes back to playing with his worn Garfield plushie. Occasionally, his eyes will flit up, studying me. Every time they do, I’m struck by the resemblance. Aside from his hair—too curly, too light, too much like Brad’s—he’s the spitting image of Mia.

“Are you really not a spy?”

I almost choke on my water.

“Eli!” Mia scolds. “That’s rude. We talked about this.”

“It’s fine,” I tell her. Then I turn back to her son. “Wanna know a secret?”

“A secret?”

“I’ve never even been to Russia.”

He gasps. “No way!”

“It’s very far.” I shrug. “My parents came from there, but I never went.”

“They won’t take you? Not even for a holiday?”

They can’t. Not anymore. “Someday, perhaps, I’ll go.”

“Can we come?”

This time, it’s Mia’s turn to choke on her water.

It makes something playful flare inside me. Something that hasn’t been stirred in a long time. “Aren’t you afraid of the spies?”

“I wanna meet them!”

“Then, yes. If your mom says it’s okay.”

He turns to Mia with pleading eyes. “Can we, Mommy?! Can we go to Russia to play spies?!”

“Well, you don’t have your passport yet. So why don’t we put a pin in it until then?”

“Okay,” he concedes. “But I really wanna go.”

Eli chats my ear off some more, with Mia chiming in every now and then. It strikes me how quickly we’ve gone from awkward to comfortable. How quickly I did.

Growing up, kids were like aliens to me: tiny beings with huge eyes and secret languages I couldn’t decipher, let alone speak. The fact that I’d been a kid once too had slipped so far below the surface, I barely remembered how it went.

Now, it’s all coming back.

The pizza comes. We sit down to eat. Garfield has a little plate for himself, too, where Eli discreetly pushes his crusts.

Then, from outside the window, light flashes into the room. “Mommy!” Eli jumps down from his chair. “That phorogopher’s here again!”

“Photographer,” Mia corrects. “And I think that’s just the light from a blowtorch, munchkin. You know there’s always some road work around here.”

At night?

My instincts kick in. I feel that prickling at the back of my neck again.

“I forgot something in the car,” I tell them. “I’ll be right back.”

Mia tries to say something, but I’m already off.

I fly down those stairs. Like a bolt of fucking lightning, I rush down into the street.

And there he is.

No trench coat. No crooked tie. Just a dark pullover and equally dark pants, with a camera slung around his neck, but I know exactly who it is.

Or rather, what he is.

“Hey! What the hell, man?!”

Within seconds, I’ve got him backed against the wall. “I should be the one asking that, man. ”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“You were taking pictures of that family,” I snarl. “You just asked for trouble.”

Light from a flickering lamppost hits his face. Suddenly, I realize I’ve seen this guy before. When I was jogging in the neighborhood that day, and then earlier tonight, right outside the StarTech building.

It’s the paparazzo. The one Mia pointed out to me.

I should’ve fucking listened.

“Look,” he babbles, covered in sweat, “I’m just doing my job.”

“Good,” I growl. “I’m just doing mine, too. So I hope there won’t be any hard feelings.”

Then I punch him in the face.

The guy crumples against the brick wall, but my grip on his collar holds him up. Blood spatters from his nose, hitting my suit jacket. Luckily, I always wear black.

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t the reason why.

“Tell me who sent you,” I demand. “Or I’ll take your teeth next.”

“Shit!” He spits out a glob of blood and staggers to his feet. “Look, I promise I’ll quit, alright? But I can’t just give out the name of?—”

“Yes, you can,” I snarl. “And you will.”

Then, for good measure, I punch him again.

This time, a tooth goes flying. Never let it be told I don’t make good on my promises.

“Fuck!” he hisses. “Fine, fine! It’s that guy from the construction company! The one on all the fucking billboards!”

Brad.

I let the poor bastard go. He falls into the heap of trash at our feet, coughing and rolling as he struggles to stand back up.

“You’re lucky,” I tell him. “I’m in a good mood tonight.

So I’ll just let you off with a warning.

” I crouch down, grab his face, and force him to look at me.

“Never come back. Not to this place, not to mine, not anywhere within a ten-mile radius of me. If you do, I’ll know. And next time, I won’t be so nice.”

He glares at me. No doubt, he cannot see what I just did to him as mercy.

Good. Ignorance is bliss.

I pocket his camera and stride back towards the apartment, straightening myself up on the way.

When Mia sees me, her eyes go wide with concern. “Everything okay?”

“It is now.” She doesn’t need to know the details, especially not with Eli within earshot.

Her eyes flit to my knuckles. I’ve wiped away the blood, but it takes more than that to fool a nurse. “Oh my God. Did you just?—?”

“Later,” I whisper.

She presses her lips together, but eventually nods.

Mia’s always been too smart for her own good.

No matter how badly I want to keep this from her, it’s looking less and less likely.

She saw those flashes, saw my bruised knuckles, probably heard that P.I.

’s screams. She’s probably put two and two together already.

But Eli’s here, so she doesn’t press.

“Did you get what you forgot?” Eli asks.

I pause. “You know what? I think I forgot again.”

He giggles. “You’re silly.”

“You’re the first person to call me that. Though your mom had some choice things to say about me when we met.”

Mia shakes her head. There’s still worry lines on her face, but they’re fading quickly. “Can’t imagine why.”

“You’ve got sauce on your shirt,” Eli says. “Right there.”

I glance down. Shit. So it wasn’t just my jacket that got sprayed.

Mia goes pale for a second, but I dab at the stain with a wet napkin until it’s unrecognizable from actual tomato sauce. “I’m a clumsy eater.”

“You should wear a bib,” Eli suggests. “Like me.”

“Good idea. Next time, I’ll borrow one.”

That draws a snort out of Mia.

Dinner goes smoothly after that. Eli’s a tiny talking machine, always coming up with a topic or a question, all suspiciously related to spies.

To keep him entertained, I tell him about StarTech and the “gadgets” we make. He’s excited to learn all he can about it. By the end of the conversation, he extracts a promise from me to show him around the place.

Belatedly, I realize I actually want to.

Don’t be an idiot, that cold voice inside me snarls. You’re dangerous to be around. And these two? They’re a danger to you. They make you want things. Things you’ve lost.

Things you can never have again.

“Sweetie?” Mia calls, perhaps noticing how quiet I’ve gone. “Why don’t you go pick a movie?”

He doesn’t make her ask twice.

Once he’s out of earshot, she draws closer to me. “Please tell me that’s not my ex’s blood on your shirt.”

“Would it bother you if it was?”

She pauses. “I don’t know. Depends on how much, I guess.”

“That doesn’t sound very Hippocratic of you.”

“Technically, I’m not a doctor.”

I hand her the camera. “It’s not his.”

Her eyes go wide as she flips through the pictures. I’ve already checked them once, so I already know what she’s seeing: herself, photographed by the kitchen window. Herself on my arm, at various events, then at work in her faded scrubs.

Eventually, she sighs with relief. “Thank God—there’s no Eli.”

“He got lucky,” I agree. “Couple of inches taller, and that window shot would have caught him.”

“There’d be pictures of him at school, right? If Brad knew.”

It’s not that simple, I should tell her. This is just one camera. We have no idea what else that P.I. gave him.

But I don’t. I don’t want to be the reason the relief on Mia’s face morphs into worry again. After that panic attack earlier, I’ve realized just how thin a thread she’s been hanging from all these years.

If Brad wants anything from her, he’ll have to go through me.

“Mia.”

She turns to me. “Yeah?”

“About our contract?—”

“Mommy!” Eli calls. “Can we watch Skyfall ?”

“For the millionth time? Sure. Let’s break all records.”

“Yay!”

“Sorry,” she smiles apologetically. “You were saying?”

Tell her, the human part of me screams. Tell her you don’t want her to keep working for you. That she doesn’t need to. That you’ll pay her anyway, give her everything she needs to go far, far away.

Give her back her freedom.

But I don’t.

I can’t.

I need her.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Oh, okay.” Her face falls, just a little, but she schools it quickly.

“I’ll have my men follow Eli tomorrow,” I tell her. “Just to make sure.”

“You’d do that?” The gratitude in her eyes is blinding. “Really?”

“Of course. You’re my employee.”

She rolls her eyes, but fondly. “So you treat all of your employees to private bodyguards?”

“Only the ones who matter.”

A shiver runs through her. She’s beautiful like this, in the chaos of her home, with gratitude in her eyes and flour at the corners of her mouth. If temptation has a face, it must be Mia’s.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For everything you did for me. Today, and every day since we met.”

My chest goes dangerously warm. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing.” She takes my hands in hers. Her thumb strokes my bruised knuckles, uncaring of the blood that stained them. “It’s more than anyone has ever done for me. For us.”

It’s like the static before a storm. I can feel it in the air between us, that spark of electricity, ready to ignite into something bigger than either of us.

If I let it, it just might consume me.

Mia’s eyelashes flutter like butterflies. I lean in, close enough to kiss?—

“The movie’s starting!”

Eli shouts. The spell breaks. The moment passes. The electricity fades away, just enough to let us compose ourselves again.

Just enough to let me wonder…

What the hell am I doing?