AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So long,” he said quietly. “That must have been torture.”
Not the torture he must be feeling knowing he might never get his brother’s body back... Never get that closure.
“I’m not telling you this story for your sympathy. It explains me, Nik. What I’m feeling. When you said that night in New York my father’s death must have affected me deeply, it’s hard to even describe what it did to me. I was so young. I was only eight. I didn’t really understand the concept of death. I was dependent on my mother to help me understand, but she wasn’t there.”
He frowned. “Where was she?”
“Emotionally, I mean. Mentally she was...gone. My father and she, they were a team when they came to America. They’d fought so hard to make a life there. But when he died, I don’t think she knew what to do. She had me...so much fear about the future. She fell into a deep depression that lasted for years. It was only because of my aunt that I wasn’t taken from her.”
Nik’s gaze darkened. “That must have been very scary for a little girl.”
She nodded. “I was lucky to have my aunt. She helped until my mother could function again. Hold down a job. But my mother was never the same. It’s only recently that she’s started to recover some of who she once was. She is going to marry a surgeon in the fall—a doctor who works across the street from the café where she’s worked for years.”
“A good ending, then.”
It was so, so much more complex than that simple statement. But it was easier to nod and agree than get into it. “What I am trying to tell you is that the ground shifted beneath my feet that morning, Nik. Life as I knew it ceased to exist. Everything I thought was predictable became unpredictable. Everything that was stable was suddenly unstable. I developed severe panic attacks I had to learn how to manage. I coped by having to have control at all times, by being self-sufficient in every aspect of my life.”
He shook his head. “That’s impossible, Sofi´a. No one has control over their lives. We all have to work with the cards that are dealt to us.” He waved a hand. “This, this I did not expect to happen. But it’s what is. We all have to make sacrifices in this situation.”
She thought about what he had just been through. Was still going through. “I know this is a difficult situation for you. I understand what you’re saying. But my business, my life in New York is what keeps me grounded, what gives me the stability I need. I’ve spent the past seven years building Carlotta up. You can’t ask me to throw that away.”
“I’m not asking you to give it up. I will fund the business. You can hire the staff you need to help Katharine. And you can spend your free time here designing the line you’ve always wanted to.”
“Thousands of miles away from my friends and family.”
“They can visit. You can make regular visits to New York to check on the business.”
She slid her hand out of his. She knew what it was like to grow up with only one parent, with an ever-present ache in your chest for what had been taken away from you. She would never do that to her child. But stay here with Nik, a man who didn’t trust her? Who thought she’d trapped him into marriage? Was that even possible?
Nik’s gaze held hers. “You of all people will be able to understand the chaos our child will undergo as heir to Akathinia. The pressure. The need for a support system. They will need you.”
Her stomach tightened at his unfair bargaining techniques. “Always the hard-nosed negotiator, Nik. Going for the jugular.”
His jaw hardened. “Our child cannot be raised anywhere but here, Sofi´a. You know it and I know it. The only question is what you do. What I can promise you is that I will be here for you. I will protect you. Things will not fall apart. We will give our child the security and stability you were left without. We will do this together.”
A cloud of confusion descended over her. She couldn’t deny this baby was bigger than the both of them. The part of her that had always trusted Nik knew he was telling her the truth, that he would protect her. But would it be enough for them to make this work?
A knock at the door signaled the arrival of their dinner. She wasn’t in the least bit hungry, but Nik made her sit down and eat anyway, a few bites of each thing so she wouldn’t pass out on him likely.
She’d expected him to go off and work in his office after dinner. Instead he made a few phone calls and sent a couple of emails from his laptop in the salon while she got ready for bed. Maybe he was afraid she was going to bolt and run? But where? His security would catch her before she got thirty feet from the palace.
