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“I’m sorry.” He pulls me into his arms and hugs me.
“What’s wrong?” My voice catches. “Tell me.”
He struggles with the thoughts, but I won’t let him walk away from this until we talk.
“I don’t want to think about that night,” he finally says. “Not here.”
Nikolai descends the staircase quickly, refusing to let me see how deeply he’s hurting. I watch him turn the landing and disappear out of view. I’m not sure of what night he’s referring to. The night his mother jumped or the night I fell.
Does it matter?
I hurry down the stairs, bracing myself against the walls, and race to catch up with Nikolai before I lose track of where he’s going. His footsteps echo loudly in the hallway, and I find him in another part of the mansion.
The smell of fresh paint is strong as I near the doorway where he stands. Workers are painting the dull white walls a cheerful green that we both agreed upon for the nursery. He stands there with an expression that’s neither stern nor threatening. Nikolai looks lost as he stares at the paint drying on the walls.
“Who slept in this room?” I ask quietly.
He looks at me as if he’s forgotten I’m there.
“Matvei,” he answers plaintively.
He watches the old color disappear under the roller of the brush. No matter where we go in the mansion, the past is waiting there.
I wrap my hand around his arm and snuggle close, hoping he’ll focus on the baby and nothing else. “Will we stay here?” I ask. “After the baby is born?”
“Only if you want.” My question brings him back to the present. He smiles. “We can return to the penthouse anytime now that you’re on your feet.”
“Won’t you miss your old room?” I lift my eyebrows, imagining his hard body tightly pressed against me in his old bed, and smile. “And how intimate it is?”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder. “I’m having the master bedroom gutted after it’s cleared out. My father kept a lot of papers in there after Mother passed. Those have to be packed away.” My hand slips off his arm, and he catches my hand. “That is if you ever want to return to this place as a summer home.”
We walk down the hallway to the door at the end. I made no assumptions about what was behind it.
My curiosity led me to various places in the penthouse, but not here. There’s a forbidden sense to the air in the mansion, like it’s determined to keep secrets that none of us are allowed to know.
I expect Nikolai to pull a key out of his pants pocket, but he doesn’t. He turns the knob, and the door creaks slowly open. My curiosity outweighs my foreboding as we step inside, and the musty smell indicates that it’s been some time since anyone’s been in here.
“Is it always this dark in here?” I ask, staring at the thick drapes over the windows.
Nikolai grasps the ends of the drapes and, with a flick of the wrists, pulls them apart, revealing the same dazzling view I just witnessed.
“I rarely come in here.” He grips an ornate doorknob, but it doesn’t turn. “The doors are kept locked,” he explains. Nikolai walks away from the door, and I quickly follow, understanding why the room is empty and dark.
“If you don’t want to be in here, we can always move to Larissa’s old bedroom,” he says. “It’s smaller, but far more comfortable.”
“What about you?” I ask, concern on my face. “Canyousleep in here?”
“Truthfully? No.” Nikolai glances toward the terrace. “I much prefer the penthouse. My mother loved it for the view of the park, and I remind myself that we were happy there once.” Nikolai looks at me. “And I can be happy there again.”
I wrap my arms around him and hold on tight. “Then I’d rather we be in the penthouse.” I feel my face heat from letting my mouth get carried away. “So long as I’m with you.”
Smiling softly, Nikolai places a kiss on my forehead. “You gave me a scare.”
“When?” I ask. “In the hospital?”
He nods. “And when you were speaking to Nina.”
Standing back, I place my hands on my hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
