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Sofia
Anxiety and morningsickness did not go hand in hand. If anything, it only spiked my urge to vomit higher. As we sat in the back of the town car in front of the restaurant where the rehearsal dinner was going to take place, sweat broke out across my upper lip and brow. Nausea roiled in my stomach and tried to climb into the back of my throat.
With fingers that shook, I popped another antacid and slowly chewed as I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes, praying I wouldn’t puke during this dinner with both our families. I couldn’t embarrass myself in front of the few people Zak trusted enough to invite to our wedding. The people he loved and called family.
He’d told me all about how Yulia had fought for him and gotten custody of him following her divorce from his brother. How her own parents had become the only true parents he’d ever had. Until then, he’d never known what a real family was. They didn’t have to love me, at least not right away, but I wanted them to like me, if only just a little.
If they didn’t, things were going to be really strained because Zak had talked me into going to stay with Olena and Oleksandr until the holidays, following our short honeymoon. It was mostly so Zak could take care of business back in his home country before we returned to New York to spend Christmas and New Year’s with my family. But it meant a lot of time under the same roof as the older couple. The people who were essentially about to become my in-laws.
Meeting Olena and Yulia the day before had been nice. Yulia had burst into tears the moment she’d seen me standing there in my wedding dress. Her mother hadn’t been far behind in the waterworks, nearly sobbing as they both hugged me and told me how happy they were that I was going to be joining their family.
It had been sweet, and I appreciated their being so welcoming. But I had yet to meet either of their husbands. Oleksandr had called Zak earlier that morning, while we were still in bed, and I’d heard the old man’s voice. He’d been speaking Russian, but I’d understood him perfectly. I might not have a hint of an accent, but I’d grown up in a multilingual home. Italian and Russian were equally my first languages just as much as English was.
I’d only caught every other word of what he’d said and figured it was to do with work. Oleksandr wanted Zak to work the day before our wedding, just as he expected my husband to work as soon as we got back from our honeymoon. Well, I had news for my soon-to-be father-in-law. Zak could work, but he wasn’t going to do it day and night. He was mine now, and there was a limit to how many hours of the day I would willingly share his attention.
Zak was aware that I wanted him home more often than not, especially once the baby was born. We were going to be a family, damn it. I had no plans of basically being a single mother, raising a child while my husband worked eighteen-hour days. My parents had shown me what marriage and parenthood were supposed to be like. A partnership.
He’d promised me that would be what we would have. Love and respect, fifty-fifty in doing the work when it came to raising our children, and no one—absolutely no one—came before the two of us and our babies.
The gruffness of Oleksandr’s voice had made me anxious, though. Something in his tone bothered me, putting a knot in my stomach that had nothing to do with morning sickness. It made having to meet him that much more nerve-racking for me. Not that I’d told Zak. He loved his surrogate family so much. I wanted him to be happy, so I needed to get along with the man who had raised him.
Zak wrapped his hand around mine, giving it a reaffirming squeeze, reminding me without words how much he loved me. “If it becomes too much for you, just let me know. We can leave. I’ll tell them we want some alone time.” His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek broadcasting his displeasure. “A few hours to ourselves before your mother carts you back to that fucking compound for the night.”
Some of my nervousness eased at the pout in his voice. He wasn’t happy about us having to spend the night apart. It would be the first time we hadn’t slept in the same bed since the day after we’d met. I wasn’t excited about it either. My greed to have all his time and attention bordered on obsession, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
With Zak, I felt like a different person—maybe even a better person. The only thing I was selfish about now was him, and from how he was with me, I got the feeling he was just as obsessed with me as I was with him.
Entwining our fingers, I leaned my head against his shoulder. “I can’t wait until I’m your wife.”
He kissed the top of my head, and I heard him inhale deeply. “Neither can I,dragotsennyy.”
Like this, there were no other problems in my world. The city could have been on fire, the entire world turning to ashes, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Because I knew as long as I had Zak holding me, I was safe and loved. Our baby and I were untouchable to everything bad in the world as long as he was at my side.
Tipping my head back, I didn’t have to wait longer than a second before he was kissing me. He showed so much passion and emotion in each brush of his lips over mine, his hunger matching my own. I thrust my fingers into his hair, and I started to push him backward onto the town car’s bench seat, thankful for the partition that separated us from the driver—
The back door opened, and the only reason I knew who had interrupted us was the vicious curse of my brother as he slammed the door shut. Tavia’s laughter greeted me as I dropped my head to Zak’s chest with a pained groan.
“Brothers suck,” I muttered unhappily.
Zak agreed with a grunt, running his fingers through the hair I’d tousled with my own only moments before.
“I would think you children would have learned to knock before opening any door when it comes to your siblings and their significant others,”Tetkasaid loudly from just outside the door.
“It’s an idling car in front of the restaurant where her rehearsal dinner is taking place,” Theo argued. “I didn’t think she would be on top of him like…that.”
Tavia’s snort was joined by several others’ I recognized and had come to love over the long summer I’d spent in Creswell Springs. “Says the man who—”
“I do not need that image back in my head, thank you very much,” Raven Reid cut off her daughter abruptly, only causing both Lexa and Tavia to laugh harder. I heard a sharp rap of knuckles on the window. “Sofia, I suggest you join us out here. Your parents just pulled up, and with the way Theo is behaving, your father is about to find out about your clandestine moment with your groom.”
Sighing, I kissed Zak one more time before opening the door and then jumping out and into the arms of the woman who had taught me so much in such a short amount of time. Raven hugged me back tightly. In a matter of a few months, I’d gone from hating and resenting her to respecting and then loving her. All because she’d had the guts to be hard on me, to teach me what it was like in the real world. My entire life, I’d been given everything I’d ever wanted, but for once, I’d had to work for everything.
My time in Creswell Springs was full of hard lessons, but they had been ones I would never forget for as long as I lived.
“Thank you for coming,” I told her as I stepped back, wiping at the tears that had started leaking out of my eyes the moment her arms had wrapped around me.
Her smile was tender as she dashed away one of my stray tears with her thumb. “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything, sweetheart.”
Behind me, Zak stepped onto the sidewalk, and I hurriedly introduced him to her and everyone else. Raven and her husband, Lexa and her small family, along with Flick, Jet, Garret, and Nova, all stood there. Of course, my cousin Ryan was right beside Nova, and the sight of the best friends only broadened my smile as I hugged Nova. Everyone greeted Zak warmly, welcoming him into the weird family dynamic they had adopted Tavia into years before. I’d been made a part of their family as well by the end of the summer, but at times, it had felt as if I was fighting not to be included in it.
