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“Look on the bright side; he thinks Paige is dead.”
“For now,” I snarl. “It’s only a matter of time before he learns that she is very much alive.”
“Well, then we need to finish him before he finds out.”
Konstantin is calm, but I see the determination propping him up. We’ve been playing this game with Petyr for so long. I know without asking that Konstantin is thinking the exact same thing as I am.
We’re almost at the end of this.
Soon, Petyr Ivanov will be dead.
7
PAIGE
I hear a shuffling from just beyond my door.
It can’t be Rada, because she doesn’t usually appear until at least eight in the morning. She doesn’t like to bother me if I’m sleeping. But there has been a phantom leaving me breakfast at the door for the last few mornings. A phantom who manages to slip away before I can even get out of bed.
But not this time.
I yank the door open, barely managing to keep a screamed“Gotcha!”inside my head. As I do, I come face to face with a broad, familiar chest.
Misha is just straightening upright after placing the breakfast tray on the floor. His silver eyes are misty with preoccupation, but their focus sharpens as they land on me. He looks annoyed to have been caught.
“What are you doing up so early? It’s barely six o’clock.”
“You’ve been avoiding me like the plague,” I accuse.
“I’ve just been busy. I still am. I have to go to the office.”
“In sweatpants?”Gray sweatpants, nonetheless. The male equivalent of lingerie.“At…” I check the clock on the wall. “5:43 in the morning?”
“Yes,” he drawls, deadpan. “In sweatpants, at 5:43 in the morning.”
I had a whole speech planned. A list of things I was going to say to him the next time we were in the same room. Each point was painstakingly thought-out, meticulously detailed, devastatingly phrased.
And yet now that the moment has arrived, I’m drawing a blank. Somehow, looking at his intoxicating eyes, the sexy roll-out-of-bed hair, and his stoic features sharpened to right angles, I can’t seem to remember any of them.
“You are so damn frustrating,” I snap. “Do you realize that?”
He sighs. “It’s early, Paige. You really should be in bed sleeping.”
“Why?” I protest. “Because then you can leave this tray at my door like the half-assed, half-hearted apology it is and disappear?”
His jaw tightens and I know immediately we’re not going to be having anything resembling a civil conversation today. It’s doing that ticking thing, where that one muscle under the surface twitches like it’s alive. Mine is probably doing the exact same. “I bring you breakfast each morning because you and the babies need to be healthy and strong. It is not an apology. I have nothing to apologize for.”
“Are you—You’re kidding. You have to be. Surely, for the love of God, you are kidding.”
He turns away. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Oh no, you don’t.” Leaving the door to my room open and stepping over the tray of food, I follow him down the spacious hall until I can grab his brawny forearm and force him back around. “We arenotdone here.”
He pulls out of my grasp and resumes his trek down the hall. Gritting my teeth, I follow him all the way down to his office, which is still serving as his bedroom now that I’m back in the master. The pull-out couch is a mess of sheets and pillows, stained with sweat. The sweat of someone who spent their night tossing in frustration or outracing nightmares. Maybe a little of both.
Serves him right.
Although it also makes something in my chest flutter uneasily.
