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But I didn’t. And I won’t.
Because Paige isn’t any other woman.
She’s mine.
“Which head are you talking out of?” she asks, looking pointedly at my face and then shifting her gaze lower.
“Are you suggesting that our mother has a hard-on for Paige, too?” I spit. “Because they seem to be getting along just fine, and I’m fairly sure they’re not fucking.”
Nikita rolls her eyes at my sarcasm. “Our mother gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. Right now, she’s high on the knowledge that she’s going to have another grandchild. You can’t take her opinion seriously.”
“How stupid of me: I forgot that your opinion is the only one that matters.”
She crosses her arms, looking as defiant as she used to when Maksim and I left her out of all our mischief when she was a little girl. “You should have told us, Misha. You just should have. After everything, we deserved to know.”
“Sorry I didn’t tell you immediately,” I drawl. “You’ve missed out on a month of judging Paige. How ever will you make up for lost time?”
Her eyes gleam in an uncanny mirror of mine. “I don’t want to judge her; I want to protect you.”
“Protect me?” I laugh in her face. “I don’t need your protection, Nikita. Have you forgotten who I am?”
But she’s not fazed by my venom. “You may have buried your only brother, but more often than not, it’s like I buried both of mine. Nowadays, it feels like you died with Maksim.” She takes a deep breath and seems to soften. “You know I don’t like saying it, but… I miss you.”
I miss me, too.
“I’m not fun to be around anymore, Niki.”
“You seem to be comfortable enough with your new wife,” she points out. “Why else would you give her the family ring?”
“That ring belongs to the don’s wife.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the rules.” She nudges my arm and forces me to pass her the cigar. She inhales, blows a thin line of smoke into the air, and smiles distantly. “Remember when Maksim stole a box of these from Otets’s goodie drawer on my sixteenth birthday? We smoked them around the koi pond, and I almost threw up.”
“Of course I remember,” I whisper. “I remember everything.”
60
PAIGE
I slip off my dress and grab one of Misha’s white t-shirts from his side of the closet. “Your mom is nice.”
Misha followed me upstairs when his mother and sister left, though he still hasn’t said a word. I can hear him moving around in the bedroom, but I don’t know if he’s planning to stay tonight.
“I think she liked me,” I continue. Each word feels like tapping my foot against an icy pond, unsure if the ground will hold or if I’ll plunge into the deadly water below.
“It’s not hard to win my mother over,” he mutters.
I roll my eyes. When I walk into the bedroom, Misha is standing by the windows in his boxer shorts.
“So how much does your sister hate me?” I ask bluntly, standing next to him. It’s dark outside, so I can see our full bodies reflected in the glass. His is chiseled and unyielding. Mine, less so. It might just be my imagination, but I could swear the lines of my silhouette are starting to soften and spread as this baby comes to life inside of me.
He looks at me and then does a double take when he notices what I’m wearing. “What’s that?”
I finger the hem of the shirt. “A t-shirt.”
“Myt-shirt.”
“I like sleeping in old t-shirts,” I retort. “To keep things fair, you can borrow anything you want from my side of the closet.” Eyeing the huge bulge clad in the black silk of his boxers, I add, “I don’t think my panties will fit you, though.”
