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“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dmitri. In terms of clothes, does she like pants, dresses? Does she have a preference when it comes to color or fabric or fit? What about food? Are there any cuisines she prefers? Snack foods that she enjoys?”
“I don’t have the faintest fucking idea, Ro.”
“Well, find out and let me know.” Her voice is alert and clipped. I hear the scribbling of a pen and the typing of a keyboard roar to life in the background as she gets to work. “Oh, and Dmitri?”
“Yes?”
“Congratulations. Parenthood is one hell of an adventure.”
9
DMITRI
Egorov Industries is still and silent at this time of night. The only people moving around are the cleaning crew, who are just finishing up when I arrive. Most of them barely notice me as I move quietly through the halls, but a few stand at attention when I pass.
As I approach my office, I notice a woman rifling through Wren’s desk drawer. “Snooping is not in the job description,” I snap.
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” the woman cries, upending a stack of papers and sending them fluttering in every direction. “Sir… I didn’t see you there.”
“If you had, you wouldn’t have been caught with your hand in the cookie jar, would you?”
Her cheeks flush. “I-I was just straightening up…”
“Spare me.” I hold up a hand to silence her excuses. “Put the papers back on the desk and leave. This is your first and last warning.”
She nods frantically, chin wobbling like a bobblehead. The moment the papers are stacked back on Wren’s desk, she grabs her cleaning cart and pushes it down the hall. I sit down in front of the desk and scan.
Her computer screen is framed with Post-it Notes. Mostly to-do lists and task reminders, though I catch a few affirmations in there. Patience, reads one.
I snort—I have a feeling that might be directed at me.
I start going through her drawers. Most are filled with generic files, company stationery, printer supplies. But one contains a wealth of junk food, including a five-pound bag of gummy bears.
Beneath that…
“Well, well, well,” I murmur to myself. “What do we have here?”
I pick up both books from the bottom drawer. The pages are yellowing, the covers well-worn from endless rereads. Both feature handsome, shirtless men with their muscled arms wrapped protectively around women who seem to exclusively dress in torn blouses three sizes too small for their bosoms.
The thinner book is titled The Ballad of the Blood Rose. I crack it open to a random page and take a look.
… Esme tried not to look in Cedric’s direction. It was harder than she would have imagined to keep her eyes averted. Especially when her body, her heart, her very soul cried out for him with reckless abandon. She hadn’t said more than two sentences to him since the last harvest, but those two sentences held a lifetime’s worth of longing in them. It was almost supper now. If she didn’t go in now, Mama would be out soon, looking for her. She didn’t want to be caught staring at Cedric again. Not after the last time…
I flip to a different point in the book.
… muscles rippled under the fading light. Sweat glistened like beads of molten silver on his divine body. Esme tried to calm her racing pulse, but all she could feel was her own desire. And there was nothing calm about it.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I wanted to thank you for helping me yesterday.”
Cedric’s eyes danced over Esme’s body without shame or apology. “But that’s not really why you’re here… is it?”
He moved forward, forcing Esme back against the barn door. She could hear Trotter neigh from the corner stable. He never did like the rain.
“What do you really want with me, madam?”
Esme’s heart fluttered with anticipation. She knew she ought to be scared, but curiously enough, she wasn’t. She felt as though her whole, boring, cloistered life had been building up to this moment, like a caterpillar preparing to emerge from its chrysalis, born anew.
