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“Then you have to give me your mother during the night.”
“Do you need Mommy too, Papa?”
Adrian pauses before he says calmly, assertively, “I do.”
My heart lunges, thundering and squeezing against my ribcage as if wanting to escape its confinements. His words shouldn’t have this effect on me. I should think that he only needs me because he wants his daily sick fix of punishing me, but the look in his eyes says something entirely different.
His eyes that I always thought were uncomfortable are now suffocating, trying to beat words into me that I don’t want to listen to.
“All right, Papa.” Jeremy grins at me. “We’ll share Mommy then.”
“Thank you, Malysh.” Adrian smiles at his son, and I’m once again caught off guard by it.
What right does he have to smile like that?
Adrian helps me put my coat on and buttons it to the very top before he loops a scarf around my throat. Then he does the same for Jeremy and lifts him in his arms.
I don’t want to focus on that, on how he can be a doting father, but the scene touches something inside me as we head outside.
The three of us sit in the gazebo, where Jeremy’s war zone is still pathetically incomplete. The little angel settles between us with his feet swinging joyfully as his attention flits from me back to his father. Who knows how long it’s been since he had both of his parents play with him?
“Mommy doesn’t know how to do it, Papa.”
Adrian’s lips twitch a little.
“Hey, that’s not true. I was taking it slowly, so he’d learn.”
“Too slow, apparently.” Adrian studies the wrong pieces jammed together. “Are you sure you’re not the one who’s learning?”
I flex my fingers. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“You’re an awful liar, Lenochka.”
“I’m not lying.”
“That’s what all liars say.”
I stare at him over Jeremy’s head, and he stares right back, an easy, almost outgoing expression on his face. “How can you tell when someone is lying so easily?”
“So you admit you were lying?”
“No.” I make a face and mouth, “Jeremy,” so he doesn’t label me as a liar in front of him.
Adrian’s lips pull in a small smile. Holy hell. I’m glad he doesn’t smile too often because I’d go into cardiac arrest or something. He seems to be in an awfully good mood right now and I wonder what triggered it. Was it inflicting my punishment in his office or simply being here with me and Jeremy? Knowing his controlling, dominant character, it’s probably the first reason.
He takes a few pieces from Jeremy’s game and assembles them without breaking eye contact with me. “Unless you’re trained to lie, people have tells. The rub of a nose or a nape, fidgeting, or looking in a different direction to conjure a lie. The reason for that is because lying doesn’t com naturally and takes a lot of energy, so most of the oxygen in the blood rushes to the brain, leaving the rest of the limbs either numb or cold. That’s why you’ve been flexing your fingers.”
I clench my fingers into the material of my coat and Adrian stares at me with utter amusement, no doubt finding fun in cornering me.
Jeremy gives me a disapproving glance. “Lying is bad, Mommy.”
“I wasn’t lying, Jer.” I soften my tone even as I glare at Adrian.
“Okay,” he agrees readily like the little angel he is. “Teach Mommy how to do my war zone, Papa.”
“Hmm.” Adrian’s head tilts to the side in my direction. “I think I will.”
I purse my lips at him, but he merely reaches to wrap the scarf around my neck before he gets to work. He literally finishes building the entire war zone in under fifteen minutes.
