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“He wants me to go to Boston. He said it would be for the best, that he can help take care of me there.”
Caterina and Sasha exchange a look. “What men think is best for us in times like this rarely is,” Caterina tells me gently. “Our men, they try—but they don’t always hit the mark. Sometimes it’s up to us to make sure that we’re making the right decisions for ourselves, and for our children.”
My chest constricts at that.I couldn’t make the right decisions in Mexico, for either of us. I’ve made nothing but wrong decisions, it feels like, all this time. So what makes me think I can now?
I know what Caterina is tacitly offering—a place here, in her home, to wait out my pregnancy and decide my next move, with women that I might not know yet but who I can probably trust. Women with children of their own, families, who understand this life. Who can guide me in a way that I would have trusted my mother and mother-in-law to do, before.
It’s tempting, intensely so. I can feel the love and comfort in this room, and I want to burrow into it like an embrace, to let it wrap its arms around me and be welcome in this house that feels so much gentler than anything I’ve known in this world of ours. But I don’t know Caterina or Sasha, not really. I know Niall, and I’ve trusted him so far.
I need to keep trusting him to do what’s best for us. I promised him I would, and this promise, at least, I can keep.
“I appreciate it,” I say softly. “But I need to be with my husband.”
Caterina looks as if she wants to say something else, but her lips press together, and she nods. “Of course,” she says simply, just as the sound of the front door shutting and heavy footsteps in the foyer echoes into the living room. “Speaking of,” she adds, brightly, standing with Dimitri on her hip, “it sounds like they’re home.”
Her face is lit with eagerness to see her husband, but all I feel is a tightening pit in my stomach at the thought of facing mine, this first morning of my new life here in the States.
A life that’s going to change in so many ways, very soon.
2
ISABELLA
Viktor walks into the room first. I was too exhausted and overwhelmed last night to take in very much about him, but now I get a better look as he heads straight for his wife and son. He’s a tall and imposing man, broad and blocky in a handsome way, with faint stubble on his chin and dark hair streaked with grey at the temples, faint lines around the corners of his eyes and mouth. Older than Caterina by a bit, obviously—but then again, Niall is a solid ten years older than I am, if not more. I’ve never asked him his exact age.
There’s so much that we don’t know about each other,I think, and then he steps into the room, not looking at me at first. He’s talking quietly to the man next to him, the former priest, and it gives me a chance to look at my husband without him seeing me.
He takes my breath away, still. Tall and leanly muscular, dressed in dark jeans and a button-down with the sleeves rolled up instead of the jacket-less suits that the other two men are wearing, he looks different than them. Rougher, with his messy black hair, dark stubble, and piercing blue eyes. I’ve seen that roughness in action, the violence he’s been willing to commit to keep me safe, and it thrills me even now.
It hurts, how much I want him. How much I want to keep him, even though I know it’s impossible. I want to go to him, or for him to come to me the way Viktor goes to Caterina, touching her face lovingly as he kisses her, his lips capturing hers for a long moment before bending to kiss his son’s forehead. The pain only intensifies the longer I stand there, as my husband fails to look at me, as I’m reminded that he’ll never come home to me and our child like this.
He’s promised so much, but it can’t ever be enough. It will never be enough.
And it’s my fault.
The guilt and hurt threaten to overwhelm me, and it’s made all the worse when Niall finally seems to take notice of me. I catch a glimpse of a look passing between Max and Sasha, one that makes me curious, especially with how quickly she looks away and turns her attention back to Viktoria, taking her over to her father rather than speaking to Max. But all that is washed away in an instant by the sound of my name on Niall’s lips, spoken in that rough Irish burr that makes my blood go hot in my veins.
“Isabella.” He says my name flatly, keeping his distance. I catch a hint of sympathy in Caterina and Sasha’s faces, and that makes my cheeks pinken with shame, because they obviously know something of what’s going on, or suspect it.
They know my husband doesn’t really want me.
Max glances at Niall, as if quietly asking permission for something, and then crosses the room towards me. “Isabella, I’m Max. I know we met last night, but all of that was a bit of a whirlwind for you, I’m sure. Can we talk for a moment? Away from the others?”
A ball of nerves settles in my stomach, particularly at the way Niall isn’t really looking at me during this exchange, but I nod. If Max bore me some ill will, or if there was something dangerous about him, I have no doubt Niall wouldn’t let him near me. I trust Niall to protect me, at the very least.
“Sure,” I say softly, and Max gently puts his hand on my arm, steering me away from the others to the far end of the room where we can speak quietly with some privacy. We sink down into chairs—him on the end of a sofa and me in a wing chair, and I get a good look at him.
He’s undeniably handsome, dark-haired and clean-shaven, with hazel eyes and a full-lipped mouth. He’s lean like Niall, but from the fit of his clothing it’s easy to tell that he’s fit, with sharp-edged features that lend a hint of dangerousness to his affable, kind demeanor. I can tell why Sasha might have a crush on him, from the way she looked at him. It’s hard to believe he was once a priest—no priest should be allowed to be this attractive.
“What do you want?” I ask, feeling more than a little on edge. “You work for Viktor, right?”
“Not exactly.” Max rubs his palms on the thighs of his suit trousers, looking at me intently. “I’m under his protection. I stay here a good deal of the time, helping his family. But I’m not in his employ. And I want to hear about you, Isabella.”
“Me?” I look at him, feeling a little confused. “What do you mean?”
“I know you’ve been through a lot,” he says carefully. “I haven’t been told everything, but I know what Niall has told the others, which is enough. I thought you might want to talk to someone who has a neutral place in all of this, to hear what you might need.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You said you’re under Viktor’s protection,” I point out. “I might have been sheltered by my father as to the ways of this world, but I’m not that naïve, Mr. Agosti—Father? I know that means you’re loyal to him.”
