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“Is that because you love us, or because we are the means to the power that you and Oleksandr crave?” She lifted a brow when I flinched. “Which is it, Zakhar? You love me for me or for what I can give you since I’m Yulia’s daughter?”
“For you!” I cried, falling to my knees beside the bed. Grasping for her hand, I tried to hold on to it, but she jerked it away, threading her fingers through those on the hand that held the IV. “I don’t give a damn about Oleksandr’s ambitions. It never mattered to me. You are all I want.”
Her blue eyes narrowed on me in a mixture of confusion and hate. “Your words sound so sincere, but luckily, I’ve learned my lesson well. I can’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth.”
“Let me explain everything,” I pleaded. “Listen to my side, and then you can decide if you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t need to know your side to make the decision to trust you or not. No matter what you say, nothing can explain away the fact that you set out to use me.” Her hands covered her lower belly. “You even got me pregnant to ensure Oleksandr got what he wanted.”
“No!” I denied. Fuck, it was hard to hear her accuse me of using our baby like that. “You’re pregnant because I can’t keep my goddamn hands off you. Because I fucking love you so much, I have to constantly be touching you or I feel as if I’m going to lose my mind.”
“But you’re not going to deny you set it up to make me fall in love with you?” she whispered.
Frustrated, I raked my fingers through my hair. “I won’t deny that it started out that way.” Tears spilled over her lashes, and I hurriedly continued, needing her to know the truth. “But it only lasted until I met you, Sofia. The night of the charity auction event, you dropped me on my ass. I knew then and there that I loved you, that no matter what Oleksandr wanted, I wouldn’t allow him to use you to gain it.”
“I hear your words, and I want to believe them. If I didn’t know better, I would even say there is true sincerity in them.” She dashed away her tears angrily. “And then I remember what Yulia said. It makes so much more sense when I think about it.” A sad laugh escaped her. “Part of you might actually even love me, Zak. A little, at least. I know deep down in that tiny, cold, ruthless, greedy heart of yours that you care about me and our baby. But your loyalty will be first and foremost to Oleksandr.”
“I swear to you, that’s not true. I love you and our child more than anyone. You have my complete and total loyalty. Only you,dragotsennyy.”
“Yesterday, your love for me was so beautiful,” she whispered, her chin trembling. But there was something in her eyes, just beneath the heartache and the hurt I’d caused. It was something she hadn’t inherited from Oleksandr or Yulia, or even Volodymyr. The Volkovs must have nurtured it into her. The kind of steel a backbone truly needed to survive in a world so fucked up. “I didn’t think I could ever be happier than I was then. I guess I was right, because after learning about your plans with Oleksandr, all that beauty turned ugly. And I won’t allow that kind of toxicity to touch our child.”
“Then I’ll cut him out of our lives,” I vowed. “You’ll never have to see him or anyone from that family again.”
She rolled her wet eyes at me. “I’m not giving you an ultimatum, Zak,” she spat. “I wouldn’t make you choose me over the people who raised you, the only family you’ve ever known. I’m not that selfish.”
“Be selfish,” I begged. “Please. Let me show you who means more to me. It will be you, Sofia. Always.”
“I don’t want you to choose,” she said, sounding like she was out of strength, even though that banked fire her adoptive family had instilled in her was just beneath the surface. Waiting to be stoked, needing the right fuel before she erupted into the inferno that I knew would leave my world in cinders. “All I’m asking is that during your custodial days with the baby, you don’t allow Oleksandr around them. I’m fine with Olena, she seems like she would make the perfect great-grandmother. I guess Yulia can even visit with the baby as well. But not Oleksandr.”
The oxygen suddenly felt trapped in my lungs. It took me a few moments to expel it, and when I finally did, my voice came out weak. Maybe she would try to burn me to ash without even having to touch that raging wildfire inside her. “What does that mean, my ‘custodial days’?”
“Exactly how it sounds. When the baby is born, we will share custody. I expect to have primary custody, but I don’t want our child to grow up not knowing his or her father. We can discuss this more once I give birth, but I’m thinking we should do one weekend a month as well as every other holiday and a few weeks during the summer.”
Her voice was so businesslike, as if we were talking about negotiating the terms of a merger. And in a sense, I supposed that was exactly what we were doing. Only the merger was of our shared rights to the baby we had created together.
“Don’t do this, Sofia.” My voice shook as I looked up at her, not bothering to hide the tears in my eyes. I was losing her. Fuck, I might have already lost her. But I couldn’t give up without a fight. Without proving to her that she was the only person in the world who mattered to me. “Don’t push me away and talk so cavalierly about sharing visitation of the child we created together with love.”
“Are you saying you don’t want joint custody?” she demanded, her blue eyes narrowing on me. The flames in her eyes had turned a blue-white, the hottest flame known to man. If she exploded right then, I didn’t doubt she would take everyone inside the hospital with us. “Since I’m not playing by your rules now, not even our child is worthy of your time?”
“Of course I’m not saying that!” I whisper-shouted. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m not letting you go, so there is no need for a custodial agreement.”
“You have no choice in the matter. The wedding is off. We are no longer together.” She lifted a shoulder so casually, but those damn eyes. How could they be so fucking sexy and terrifying at the same time? “And you need to return to your home country to deal with work. There’s no way in hell I’m going with you, so you’ll have to settle with the custody arrangements I put into place.”
“Any work-related issues that need my attention back at home can be handled the same way I’ve been dealing with them for months now.”
“Which means you lied to me again when you said we needed to return there after our honeymoon so you could take care of all that pressing work that had been piling up in your absence,” she sneered.
“I didn’t lie,” I told her calmly.
The past few months had taught me everything there was to know about Sofia Volkov. She was trying to push and punish me, see how far she could force me to bend before I broke. She could do her worst, make me pay until my last breath, but there was no way she could get rid of me. Not when the only true happiness I’d ever experienced was beside her.
I tucked the covers up around her a little tighter, making sure she was warm enough. “There are some things that do need my in-person attention, but those matters are inconsequential when the alternative is leaving you here to deal with them. I go nowhere without you.”
Her lashes flickered, but that was the only clue I had that she’d heard me. Looking down at the ring on her left hand, she pulled it free from her finger and offered it to me. “This belongs to you. A family heirloom, or so Olena mentioned last night at dinner. You should save it for the woman you might actually love enough one day to want to marry for herself.”
“I’ve already found you,” I gritted out. “If I was actually marrying you because of Oleksandr’s plan, I sure as fuck wouldn’t have given you that ring, Sofia. I would have bought something impersonal. Instead, I gave you my great-grandmother’s diamond and emerald ring. The one that matches the necklace that is also yours.”
“Maybe if we have a daughter, you can give them to her one day,” she said, again acting as if I hadn’t spoken. She’d withdrawn into herself, out of self-preservation or to punish me, I wasn’t sure. But it scared the fuck out of me. This wasn’t my Sofia. She was a shell of the woman I’d fallen irrevocably in love with. “At least they will stay in the Morozov family. But hopefully our baby won’t inherit your heartless soul. I’ll make sure they don’t value power over…well, over anything, I guess.”
“All I value is you and your love,lyubimaya,” I vowed, pleading with my eyes for her to believe me.
She gazed at me for a long moment, but nothing prepared me for the next emotionless words out of her mouth. “If I’d lost the baby last night, you would only be disappointed that the mixed bloodline Oleksandr wanted to create would be gone and you wouldn’t ever get another chance. Stop acting like you care about either of us, Zak. Even the little I do believe you care for me doesn’t stretch that far. Pick yourself up off the floor and go tell the man I unfortunately share DNA with that the master race he was so hell-bent on seeing to fruition still has a fighting chance. But make sure you inform the rat bastard that he will never so much as set eyes on my child.”
