Page 155 of Cruel Demands

“Nothing,” I sniff. “I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

He studies my face as though I may be concealing internal bleeding. “Are you ill? In pain? Bleeding?”

“Oh my God, no. I just need, I mean—I want pancakes.”

Mikhail stares at me. “Pancakes.”

“Yes.” The way he’s looking at me makes me feel ridiculous, and I almost dissolve into tears again, but I don’t. I shake my head. “It’s okay, it’s just hormones. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

He looks toward the clock and reaches for his phone. I catch his wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you pancakes.”

“It is almost three in the morning.”

“I can read the clock.”

I stare at him, my forehead wrinkled and my mouth twisted. “Are you planning on sending your terrifying security team on a midnight grocery run? They’re going to hate me.”

“They will survive. They need something to do.” Mikhail settles his palm against the enormous curve of my stomach. The baby shifts beneath it, pressing something hard enough into my ribs that I wince. “You are carrying my child. You should have anything you want.”

The words are sincere. That is the problem with Mikhail. His excesses are rarely performance. He genuinely believes three armed men searching Moscow for pancakes is a proportionate response to my hunger.

“Mikhail,” I say softly, letting go of his wrist and sliding my hand down to hold his, his phone in both of our hands.

For a moment, I expect him to pull free and make the call anyway. It is what he does. He identifies a problem, decides on a solution, and considers anyone else’s opinion an administrative inconvenience.

Instead, he pulls away to put the phone back on his side table. “All right,” he says.

I stare at him.

“What?”

“You listened to me.”

“I listen to you frequently.”

“You hear me frequently. That’s different.”

His mouth tightens. I have apparently offended him with accuracy.

He pushes back the covers and gets out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

“To make pancakes.”

I roll onto my side, push myself upright with considerably less grace than I once possessed, and stare at him. “You know how?”

He looks over his shoulder. “Taylor, I am a grown man.”

He holds out his hand. I take it.

The kitchen is dark when we enter, but Mikhail doesn’t turn on the overhead lights. He switches on the lamps beneath the cabinets instead, filling the room with a low amber glow. He rolls up his sleeves and rifles through cabinets, taking out a large bowl first. He locates flour, sugar, eggs, and milk.

I settle onto a stool at the island and watch. He doesn’t measure anything. When he cracks an egg into a bowl with one hand and doesn’t even have to fish shells out, something stirs low in my stomach. Pregnancy has made me even more humiliatingly attracted to him.

Mikhail pours batter into the pan. The first pancake is too dark.