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I didn’t want to think about what that would feel like. It was an unsettling feeling.
“Aleksey?”
Shaking out of my thoughts, I looked down at my wife. She was anxious. I could see it in her eyes. “Yes, dear?”
She gave me a small smile. “You had the oddest look on your face.”
“Just thinking,” I said, my words not far from the truth. Elia didn’t need to know what I had been thinking or how much I wanted to put her back into the car and forget I ever decided to do this. “Are you ready?”
Elia nodded and I glanced at Boris, who had that familiar grin on his face. There was no one else that I would trust my wife to other than him. I wasn’t about to send her back to her father without one of my men watching her. If nothing else, Boris would keep me informed that she was indeed safe.
“You know what you have,” I told him.
His smile faded and he gave me a solemn nod, the unsaid words passing between us. He was well aware of Elia’s pregnancy and the duty that now fell on his shoulders.
Turning back to Elia, I framed her face with my hands, brushing my thumbs over her cheeks lightly. “Do not go anywhere without Boris,” I told her. “I need you to promise me that you won’t.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s going to be hard to pee with him watching.”
“Elia, I’m serious.”
“Fine, yes. I got it,” she sighed. “Now kiss me and send me on my way, Aleksey. Before I climb back in that car and refuse to leave.”
I was going to miss the hell out of her. Lowering my head, I brushed my lips over hers once, then twice. “If you need anything, Boris knows what to do.”
Elia reached up and cupped my cheek, her eyes searching mine. “Be careful, Aleksey. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
Elia pressed her forehead to mine for a moment and I breathed in her scent before she pulled away, every fiber in my being telling me not to let her go. Things had been so good between us lately. My fucking life was better lately because of her.
Instead, I walked back to the car where Sergei waited. He was the brigadier who would take Boris’s place while he traveled to New York with Elia. “Take me home,” I told him, shutting the door behind me.
He gave me a nod and the car pulled away, giving me a parting glance of Elia climbing on board the private jet.
I could only hope I hadn’t made a decision that was going to destroy me in the end.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Aleksey
When I arrived back at the penthouse, I found my uncle and mother there.
My uncle was seated at the island in the kitchen, a glass of whiskey before him, and Mother sat next to him. She had a concerned look on her face. One that I didn’t want to deal with.
“Alyosha,” she finally said, breaking the silence. “I hope you don’t mind us dropping by.”
“Of course not,” I said smoothly, walking over to the bar myself and schooling my expression.
“Misha told me the good news, and I just wanted to see her myself. Where is Elia?”
“She’s not here, Mother,” I replied. “I sent her home to New York so that she might be with her father for a few weeks. Or did Mikhail Yevgenievich forget to mention that?”
My mother looked crestfallen. “No,” she said. “No, he didn’t tell me that at all.”
“There’s a lot of that happening nowadays,” I said as I poured a drink, my hand tightening around the glass. “Wouldn’t you agree, Uncle?”
“I thought your lovely wife would be here,” he said casually. “I’m baffled that you would send her to her father when she’s pregnant. I mean, traveling in her condition is stressful for the baby, Alyosha.”
