Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Dmitri waited for the blonde to release her and nodded at the door. “Let’s go.”
He scanned the street as he paused on the front step. Pavel leaned against the town car and nodded—nothing was amiss. Knowing Mae’s fondness for drive-by shootings, that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but at least no one had tampered with the car in the meantime. Dmitri handed over the suitcase to be stowed in the trunk and then held the door open for Keira.
She didn’t look back as she strode down the steps and climbed into the car, and he wasn’t fanciful enough to see it as a sign. Keira was his. She might not have made her peace with that—yet—but it was the truth. The sooner she accepted it, the better for both of them.
He joined her in the backseat and waited tensely for Pavel to drive them away from the town house. It wasn’t until they left the Boston city limits behind that he relaxed against the seat.
“You thought he’d do something.”
“No.” He hesitated and then relented. “Your brother has a long history of doing the logical thing as long as one remembers that he puts his family above all else. But there are never any guarantees.”
Keira watched him closely, her hazel eyes narrow. “You must have been desperately lonely as a kid, huh?”
He had to fight not to react. “What makes you say that?”
“No one becomes that good at observing other people unless they spent a whole hell of a lot of time shoved in a back corner by themselves. The other reason is if they’re victims of abuse—their life can depend on reading people right.” She didn’t move. “Andrei never laid a hand on Olivia. I’d bet good money on that, though he had other ways of terrorizing her—both of you did. Did he hit you?”
She’d been closer to the mark with the first assumption. “Nyet. My father wasn’t a good man, but he wasn’t abusive.”
“Lucky you.”
There it was again. There’d been a few times where he’d wondered at the extent of Seamus O’Malley’s crimes against his children. Andrei Romanov was hardly father of the year, but he never raised his hand to either of his children. “Did your father hurt you, Keira?”
She shut her eyes, closing him out. “It doesn’t really matter what my father did or didn’t do. I’m more out of his reach now than I’ve ever been. The past is the past.”
“The past shapes us.” A person was an accumulation of all that happened to them. Knowing the past meant Dmitri had a better than decent chance at predicting the future—or at least future actions. People could change, elements could change, but the core of a person remained the same.
“If you say so.” Keira didn’t look at him.
She looked younger than her twenty-one years with her face relaxed and the knowledge she kept in her hazel eyes hidden from view. Even knowing she was far from innocent, he found himself wanting to… What? Protect her? The very idea is laughable.
And yet it dug down deep and refused to budge. Dmitri slid closer to her and picked her up to tuck her into his lap.
Keira shot straight up, and it was only some creative maneuvering that kept her from slamming her head into the roof of the car. “What the hell are you doing, Russian?”
“Hush and let me hold you for a little while.”
She stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “Did my brother slip you some drugs while you were in his office?”
“Nyet.” It stung more than it should have that she thought he had to be drugged to want to hold her. Dmitri forced himself to relax his grip on her. “Let me hold you, moya koroleva.”
“Tell me what that means.”
He permitted himself a small smile. “Another time.”
She glared, but didn’t move away. “Why?”
There was no misunderstanding her question, and he didn’t bother trying to pretend. “You are my wife.” Something so simple and yet infinitely complicated.
Keira sighed and it was as if the strength left her body. She melted into him, nestling her face into his chest. “It’s criminal how good you smell. What cologne is that?”
“No cologne. I dislike them.”
She lifted her head enough to frown. “That’s just wrong. No one should smell this good naturally.”
“Lucky you for marrying a man who does, then.” He shouldn’t keep pushing her on that fact, but her insistence on thinking the worst of him irked. He wanted her as his wife in truth.
Patience. You’ve waited this long. You can wait a bit longer.
He just hoped like hell that Keira didn’t make him wait forever.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Keira did the one thing she’d thought impossible—she fell asleep in Dmitri’s arms. She didn’t mean to. She had every intention of holding still for the allotted time and moving away, but his warmth soaked into her body, and the strength of his arms felt more like he was protecting her than caging her in. Even though she knew it was a lie, she let her eyes slide shut.