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She sighed. “They were always strict, but I thought they loved me enough to forgive me for making choices they would not agree with.”
“Perhaps it was a matter of believing tough love would bring you around to their way of thinking.”
“Maybe.” Emma didn’t sound convinced though.
“Have you tried contacting them since having Mikhail?”
“I did when Mickey was a month old. I wanted them to meet their grandson.”
“What happened?”
“My mom asked me if I’d kept the baby and I said yes. I started to tell her how beautiful he was, how amazing, but she hung up on me.”
Konstantin had some very uncharitable thoughts about her parents. Whatever their reasoning, they had hurt her terribly with their rejection of Mikhail.
Not that he’d done any better on Emma’s behalf, if unwittingly, but going forward that was going to change. Full stop. “I am truly sorry to hear that. Once we are married, they will no doubt accept you again. You will have to decide if that is something you want.”
She gasped. “I never said I would marry you.” Emma’s tone was all sass.
And Konstantin loved it. Why when Nataliya read him the riot act did he get nothing but annoyed, but when Emma took him to task, he found it more than a little attractive?
She was right, of course. Emma had in fact stated she would not marry him, but Konstantin wasn’t giving up. Apprising her of the fact didn’t feel like the next smart move, so he remained silent.
“I will be home in a couple of hours. Will you and Mickey be there?” Emma asked in an obvious effort to change the subject.
“We can be, or you can have an hour to yourself while I take him to the Children’s Museum.”
“You’ll wear him out.” Her tone was filled with warmth.
So, Konstantin didn’t take the complaint seriously. “Mishka has an infinite source of energy.”
Emma’s laugh went straight to his libido. How had he gone so long without hearing that particular sound?
“I know it seems that way,” she warned him. “But you’d better make sure he gets a snack, or you’ll see how quickly that energy goes to the dark side.”
“Noted.”
“I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Yes.”
Neither hung up. It reminded him of the times they used to just sit on the phone and listen to each other breathe when he was out of town on a business trip. Their words would run out, but their desire to stay connected would not.
“This is... I...” Emma sounded lost. “I have to go.” And she hung up.
But she’d felt it too. He knew she had.
Emma pressed End Call and dropped the phone like it was a snake.
That had been... That had been way too much like the way things used to be. For just a moment, she was living in the place where she still loved him, where she’d thought he’d actually cared about her, where her very being hung on the next word he said and knew his hung on hers.
She’d suffused with desire so intense, she’d lost sense of reality. For a moment, she had disconnected with her air-conditioned office with its perfectly uniform plants and cubicles for the other three bookkeepers.
It was the moan that she could feel making its way up her throat that brought Emma back to the present.
She’d told Kon she had to go and hung up before she did something crazy like ask him to come get her too.
Predictably, Mickey was too tired to do much playing outside after dinner.
