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“For fuck’s sake.” I slam my hand on the wheel. “For a woman who said she wanted meaningless sex, you sure are pissy about it now.”
“What I want is for you to take me home. Quietly,” she adds.
“You don’t know what you want, Rayne. You never have.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you kept my daughter a secret from me, but you took walks past my house every day. It means you tell me you want meaningless sex, but you get mad when I don’t drop to one knee because you let me come in you.”
“I would never marry you. You’re repulsive,” she hisses. “You are a disgusting pig who—”
“It means,” I continue, raising my voice to be heard over her insults, “you claim you want nothing to do with me, but again and again, I’m the person you call when you’re in a bind. I’m the person you can count on.”
Her teeth clench. “I told you I called Harmony and Natalia first, but—”
“You’ve been trying to get a hold of them nonstop since then, huh?” I grab her phone from the center console. The screen is black. It hasn’t been switched on since yesterday. “Maybe you were too busy moaning to remember to charge your phone.”
She snatches the phone out of my hand and drops it in her lap. “You’re an asshole.”
“There’s that third stage of grief I mentioned last night. Anger.”
Rayne flings her arm across the console at me, but I snatch her hand out of the air. My fingers tighten around her wrist.
“Let me go,” she hisses.
“I thought you wanted to hold hands.”
She huffs out a frustrated breath and yanks on her hand. “Kirill, stop—”
“Your daughter is in the backseat and you just tried to strike the driver of the vehicle propelling her at seventy miles an hour down the highway.”
She stills, realization sinking in.
“One of us should stop, but it isn’t me.” I twist my hand around to squeeze her fingers. “Now that I have your attention, I’d like to actually talk about our plans.”
“You’re taking us home,” she says. “What else is there to talk—”
“That’s a great place to start. I’m getting the two of you a house.”
Rayne’s hand goes limp in mine, shock draining the fight out of her. “We have a house.”
“You have an unsecure rental unit sandwiched between two condemnable buildings occupied by gang members.”
“God, you’re so condescending. We’ve never had any trouble before.”
“The fact that nothing has happened—yet—isn’t a good enough reason not to take precautions. Especially since Yuliana is my daughter.”
“She’s always been your daughter,” she retorts. “What’s different now that you know?”
“The difference is I plan to spend time with her. Eventually, people are going to find out I have a daughter. When the time comes, I want her to be safe.”
Rayne’s hand grips mine more tightly. “Are you saying she isn’t safe?”
“I’m saying she might not always be safe.” Just the thought of something happening to Yuliana raises my blood pressure. I have to fight not to crush Rayne’s hand in my grasp. “Not in your current living arrangement, anyway. Which is why I’ll get you both a place with functional door locks and a security system.”
“Yeah… okay,” she concedes. “That would probably be a good idea. But nothing too fancy. And it has to be close to her school.”
I wave her off. “She’ll go to a new school.”
