Page 107 of The Agreement

Handsome, curious, sinful.

Glancing at him, just for a split-second, she didn’t want him to think she was staring at him. She didn’t want him to mistake her for Karine. They were not the same people. They knew and saw different things that made them who they were. She wondered if he would understand that—if he truly understood them.

Roman was in profile, his knuckles whitened as he clutched the steering wheel hard. He focused on the road ahead of them, but also kept glancing in the rearview mirror. Never forgetting to check that they weren’t being followed.

“Aren’t you going to ask me where we’re going?” he finally asked, breaking the silence that had existed between them for what felt like hours. It couldn’t have been longer than one, maybe two. She didn’t mind that time stretched on.

Katina looked in the rearview mirror, too, making sure Masha was still asleep. Not that it mattered if the woman overheard her talking—out of all of them, she was the one the nanny often feared.

For good reason.

“No, I trust you,” she replied.

She didn’t look at Roman again even though she wanted to—if only to enjoy the view.

Katina couldn’t remember Karine ever being attracted to a man before. She didn’t trust men. Neither did Katina, to be fair—she hadn’t even trusted Leonid to get the job done, but she was at a point where he was her last option.

So, why Roman?

Why had she picked him?

Well, she hadn’t.

Karine did.

Katee, too.

They trusted him, but they weren’t here. She was—and so far, she didn’t have a reason to distrust Roman.

“Well, I’m glad you trust me, but I have some questions for you,” Roman murmured, watching her from the corner of his eye. “Don’t feel like you have to answer, but—”

“What?” She clasped her fists tightly, feeling the pinch of her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands, not sure she wanted to hear his question but still saying, “Just ask.”

Roman tightened his grip on the steering wheel more. He checked the mirrors again as the question slipped from his mouth. “Why did you plot to kill your father?”

Katina’s gaze narrowed.

Anything but this.

She turned away to observe the trees that passed them by in a blur of green as they left the miles of fields behind. Her eyes were unable to focus on just one. She wished he hadn’t asked her that question.

Specifically, that way.

A few more moments of silence passed, and she felt the brush of Roman’s hand on her knee. Her instinct usually dictated her to jerk away, to react violently to a man’s touch—but she didn’t. This time.

She met his gaze, then, and he took his eyes off the road to look at her, too.

“You don’t have to answer that,” he said.

“He’s not my father.”

“Karine’s, then, but you—you have the sister’s name, right?”

“She’s dead.”

Roman didn’t even blink. “And you’re definitely not.”

“Definitely not. He’s not my father.”