Page 67 of Fractured Empire

“Katya, don’t be sorry.” I shake my head but she steps back further.

“I should go to bed. I have to be rested for tomorrow.”

She leaves no room for me to argue as she closes her computer in a swift move and scurries out of the kitchen before I can even figure out how to stop her.

“You did make my day better,” I mutter, the words going unheard.

Fucking hell.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Leon

I’ve been useless today, barely paying attention in any of my meetings. I’ve listened enough to make it seem like I’m doing my job competently, and not a bit more.

Katya shook my world last night and then ran away like she did something wrong. That kiss was anything but wrong. It’s been the only thing I can think about all goddamn day. I’ve been replaying the interaction in detail on a loop since I went to bed last night, and since I woke up again this morning. If I had time to waste, it would have been the reason that my shower doubled in time today.

I can’t even be upset with her for ending the moment when it happened because I understand her reasoning completely. When I proposed our arrangement, I made it clear that I needed to find my sons a mother. I went so far as to call it a nanny position that would grow into the parental role. A nanny position.

Fucking hell, if I kissed a nanny like that, she could sue me for workplace harassment or something.

She kissed me, I remind myself for the hundredth time.

I didn’t imagine that she would feel called to a physical connection so soon, or if my past experiences were any indication, at all. But she was, and she kissed the fuck out of me.

I wanted to make your day better.

The sweet declaration sounded like it could have been insulting, like she didn’t truly want to kiss me, she just thought it would make me happy so she felt like she should. But that wasn’t how her words came across at all. No, I knew exactly what she meant when she said it.

Katya was too kind to think of kissing me as some kind of pity gift to give me after a long, stressful day. She wanted to kiss me because she thinks of kissing me as something good. A sweet gesture to give us both some joy at any given time. But after our connection heated up, she was quick to remember the stupid fucking boundaries I created for us.

She wasn’t wrong to stop, I know that. We haven’t had a conversation about us since we became man and wife. Our focus has been on making the children comfortable as she moves in and becomes a part of their lives, just like we agreed it should be. But I don’t think that Katya or I thought we would feel so connected so early on.

We were drawn to each other easily. At least, I know I’m drawn to her.

I can’t stop staring at her whenever we’re in a room together, and I can’t stop thinking about her when she’s not near. And now, I’ve found myself sinking to another concerning new low.

I’m fucking stalking her.

“Kat, we have cookies?” Leo asks, his little voice cracking over the security camera microphone.

“Yes, little love,” she agrees, chuckling since he’s asked this three times already since I started watching them. “They’re in the oven, remember? You and Bastian did such a good job helping me mix the dough, but they need a little bit longer to bake and then to cool down.”

“Right,” Leo agrees and I swear I can see his eyes sparkle through the feed.

I only meant to check in on them, to see if Katya was doing well on her second day alone with the boys, and to make sure that they didn’t wake up upset. It’s been a while since I wasn’t there to see them when they wake up, and now it’s been two days in a row. I was glad to see that neither of them were teary-eyed but it didn’t hurt to check.

Well, checking turned into having the security feed playing on my phone and computer on and off for over two hours. I tried to only peek at it at first, and every time I would close out the live video, I would come up with some reason to pull it back up again within a few minutes.

I should be disgusted with myself for watching Katya like some kind of creepy internet freak, but I can’t help it. She’s like a fucking magnet, and seeing her with my kids only makes my admiration of her grow. My only saving grace for keeping the guilt at bay is that she knows about the cameras.

When she moved in, I gave her a rundown of the house’s security measures, and that almost all rooms minus the bathrooms and a few others are covered by audio and visual. She knows that guards or I can access the security at any time, to keep safety the highest standard.

I assured her that neither I, nor my security guards, would check in on her private rooms’ cameras unless there was an emergency, and so far, I’ve kept my word on that. She deserves a space where she can be herself without being watched, especially since she could be undressed or in a vulnerable position at any given time in her bedroom.

“Daddy will like our cookies?" Leo asks, seeming eager to hear her answer as he leans closer to her on the couch. They’ve been watching a movie while playing with toys and stuffed animals since putting the cookies in the oven, and Leo has been glued to her side the whole time.

Bastian seems equally drawn to Katya but much less enthusiastically. He gravitates toward her quietly, and shares soft words with her more and more throughout the day from what I’ve witnessed so far.