But in this case, she turned down the offer, telling Nyla she’d call Hope House back after she talked to Marco.
Marco’s face lit up when she came outside.
“Hey, long time no see,” he said, cupping her shoulders. “Why haven’t you been returning any of my phone calls?”
Sam desperately wanted to lie, to tell him she’d been busy, anything to not have to deal with Marco after just finding out that she was definitely pregnant with Nikolai Rustanov’s child. But unfortunately, she’d seen too many women stalked to let Marco go on thinking he had any kind of chance with her.
She leveled Marco with a frank look before saying, “Marco, I haven’t been returning your phone calls because I’m not interested in talking to you in a non-professional capacity. I don’t want to date you.”
Marco’s eyebrows went up, like she’d both surprised and insulted him. “Wow, that’s harsh!”
“I know,” she said. And that was all she said. These were the rules of relationships in the world she lived in. Don’t give men reasons, or anything that could be used against you later as a reason, to overstep boundaries. Be okay with them thinking you’re a bitch, if that meant they’d leave you alone.
Despite her harsh words, Marco still didn’t let go of her shoulders. “But I thought we had something, Sam. We’ve got a lot in common. We’re both doing good in the community. You’re cute,” he reached up and stroked one of her twists behind her ear, “…I’m cute.”
Sam had to work not to laugh. Marco, she noted, was still very charming. Just not a match for her. Plus, it showed how little Marco knew about her if he thought they had a lot in common. He was from a stable, loving, and close-knit Latino family. His desktop picture was actually one of him, his parents, and his four siblings, all smiling at the camera like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Sam was the total opposite. A do-gooder who’d worked crazy hours before Pavel had come along because the alternative to that was being alone since she didn’t have any family to take smiling pictures with. But Marco didn’t know just how different their pasts were because she’d done with him what she’d always done with the men she dated—kept every conversation focused mostly on him.
She didn’t blame Marco for not knowing much about her below the surface, but still she had to tell him, “We’re not a match, Marco. And I don’t want you to go on thinking we ever could be.”
Marco frowned and his hands tightened around her shoulders. “Is this because of Rustanov?” he asked, his face darkening. “You two got something going on now? Is that why you’re dumping me?”
She couldn’t help the guilty look that crossed her face but she said, “No, we’re not together.”
He studied her, his suspicion obvious. “But you don’t want to date me now.”
“No.”
His mouth flattened into an angry line. “Mind telling me what changed?”
She opened her mouth to tell him exactly why she didn’t want to go out with him, prepared to give him a no holds barred list of reasons if that was what it took. But she stopped when goose bumps suddenly sprang up on her skin. Her heart filled with knowing apprehension even before she turned to look. There was only one person she knew with a stare so intense, she could actually feel it.
And yes… yes, there was Nikolai Rustanov standing at the bottom of the steps with his hands jammed in his pea coat pockets, a thunderous look on his face.
18
NIKOLAI watched Samantha and her cop on the porch having what looked like a very intimate conversation as he approached the shelter. The cop’s hands were on her shoulders and his forehead rested against hers. Only for a few moments, but even when he stepped back, his hands never left her, and by the time Nikolai got all the way to the porch’s bottom step, the cop was still touching her. Touching Samantha. Touching what was his.
Nikolai had to work hard to hold himself exactly where he was. She was still with the cop, he realized, his chest filling up with something he recognized all too well as despair. Still with him, despite…
He abandoned that thought, feeling like a fool.
Of course she was still with him. Why had he expected anything different? Just because he hadn’t so much as thought about another woman over the past month, and had buried himself in work to keep from obsessing over Samantha and the thought that she could be carrying his baby—no, that didn’t mean she had spend the past month doing the same.
After all, he thought darkly, as scared as his mother had been of his father, that hadn’t stopped her from seeking out other male company when he pulled one of his disappearing acts. He of all people should know that sleeping with a woman, even possibly impregnating her, didn’t guarantee her fidelity.
Samantha suddenly turned, as if just now realizing Nikolai was at the bottom of the steps. And when the cop saw him standing there, his hands dropped to his sides. But even as he stepped away from Samantha, Nikolai’s mind continued to burn with the memory of what he’d seen. The cop had been touching her, stroking her hair, making her smile.
Basically doing all the things Nikolai wasn’t allowed to do in his current position as a much-regretted one night stand.
They both regarded him for a few silent seconds. Her with wide-eyed confusion. Him with petulant anger.
“What are you doing here?” the cop asked, his arm twining round Samantha’s shoulders like she belonged to him. Like he was now protecting her. From Nikolai.
Rage flared up hot as a blue flame inside Nikolai’s usually icy soul. But somehow he kept his voice level when he answered, “I am here to talk with Samantha. About a personal matter.”
Marco turned to Samantha. “You let him call you Samantha?” he asked.
“No, I don’t…” She rubbed her temple like the situation was giving her a headache. Then she said, “Marco, I need to talk to him. And then I need to get back to work.”
Marco looked at Nikolai, and Nikolai didn’t bother to keep the smug satisfaction off his face. Samantha had chosen him over Marco, and that seemed to make Marco even angrier than Nikolai’s unexpected interruption.
He put Nikolai in the mind of one of the pampered Rustanov children in that moment. He had been to a couple of family events since Alexei had legitimized the family’s business and insisted on bringing Nikolai into the fold. The current crop of Russian-born Rustanov children had grown up in the lap of legitimate luxury, untarnished by the old mafia family’s shame. They tended to be perfectly pleasant—until they didn’t get their way. Then came the Chernobyl-style meltdowns.
For a few moments, Nikolai suspected Marco might throw a temper tantrum over Samantha’s brusque dismissal. But in the end, he just said, “That’s okay. I’ll see you later, Sammy.”
He said it to Samantha, but aimed it at Nikolai.
Nikolai responded with a stony stare, his eyes locked on their iciest setting as he waited for the other man to leave,. At least he didn’t kiss her before he left, Nikolai thought. He didn’t trust himself to stay still if that happened.
Not today. Not after thirty days of either being ignored or avoided by Samantha during waking hours and haunted by her whenever he closed his eyes. No matter how much he tried to put her out of his mind during the day, he couldn’t keep himself from dreaming about her. And the dream he’d had the night before had been the worst one yet. Them making love in his bed, her belly large and round with his baby, his ring flashing on her finger.
He’d never wanted a wife, or kids, or anything remotely approaching what he’d seen in that dream, but dammit if he hadn’t woken up hard as a steel pipe. And he’d felt like an idiot, stroking himself off, unable to stop thinking about those dream images of her naked and pregnant as he did so.
That was why he was here now, using every ounce of his icy resolve to keep from exploding with rage. After a morning of barely being able to concentrate on his work, he’d gone out and bought a pregnancy test and headed over to Ruth’s House—only to find her canoodling with her boyfriend.
He’d be damned if he let this go on another day. As he waited for the cop to get back in his car and drive away, he made a solemn vow. If she wasn’t truly pregnant, he wanted her gone. Gone from his house and gone from his mind.
As soon as the cop’s car was out of sight, he came up the porch steps and held up the bag.
She eyed it and he had the feeling she knew what it was just as his mother had when he’d held up a similar bag to her many years ago. But unlike his mother, she didn’t immediately take it.
“It is pregnancy test,” he informed her. “Thirty days are up.”
Understanding shadowed her eyes, but still she didn’t take the bag. Instead she folded her arms across her chest and said, “I know it’s been a month. But I’m in the middle of a work day and I can’t invite you to have this discussion in my office, since no males over sixteen are allowed inside Ruth’s House. So how about if I shoot you an email?”
His eyes narrowed. “Shoot me email,” he repeated, wondering not for the first time if the woman he’d been near obsessed with over the past month was indeed crazy.
“Yes, an email,” she said, backing away toward the door. “That’s way better than doing this here on the steps, don’t you think? So yeah, I’ll do that right after I handle this very important call I need to return—”
He caught her sweatered arm, his hand manacling around her wrist. “Tell me. Now.”
“No, seriously, it can wait,” she said. “And it’s probably better sent over email. That way you’ll have all the details and be able to digest the information in your own time, at your own pace…”
She tugged on her arm, but Nikolai easily kept her there, his voice colder than icicles as he intoned, “Right now.”
“Ms. McKinley? Everything all right here?”
Nikolai looked down the steps to see a little man who had to be in his sixties or seventies. He had his hand on top of a baton, as if he planned to do something about the scene in front of him. But he didn’t look like he could fend off Pavel, much less keep Nikolai from getting the information he wanted from Samantha.
19
SAM used the interruption to gain her freedom.
“Please let me go, right now,” she whispered to Nikolai, low enough that Danny, their security guard, wouldn’t be able to hear her. “This isn’t a good look for me or Ruth’s House.”
To her surprise, Nikolai instantly let her go. He even took a step back, like he didn’t know what had come over him when he grabbed her.
Relief flooded her heart. Good, good, this was good. A long, detailed email was the perfect way to handle this. It would take the weird energy out of the situation, she reasoned, and put some distance between her and Nikolai so they could both think about how to handle this turn of events without angry words or hurt feelings.
Resolved, she turned toward the door.
“Please, tell me. I must know,” came Nikolai’s voice, harsh and choked, like he was both embarrassed and desperate to be pleading with her to tell him the truth. “You promised.”
She inwardly cursed, guilt overtaking her completely reasonable decision to send him an email. Why? She had no idea. It wasn’t like they were together in any kind of capacity and she was planning to keep her promise to let him know if she was pregnant… just not in person.
Yet guilt kept her from punching in the security code and pulling the door open. Even more guilt than she’d had while she was putting the kibosh on Marco.
And maybe that guilt wouldn’t have been enough to get her to do this here at her place of work—and let’s face it, her place of respite. But when she turned back to assure him an email was truly the best course of action, he said it again.
“Please, tell me,” he said. “I can’t work. I can’t think.”
Nikolai Rustanov didn’t strike her as a man who said please very often. And she couldn’t help but notice the lines around his eyes. Tight, worried lines that made him look not like the impassable mountain she’d painted him to be, but like a man. A man who might have had as many problems sleeping over the past month as she had.
“Ms. McKinley, everything all right up there?” Danny asked again.
She’d been so caught up in the moment with Nikolai that she’d forgotten the old security guard was still down there at the bottom of the steps. She’d forgotten everything but her and Nikolai and the life they’d unwittingly created together.
Damn my soft heart, she thought to herself. Then out loud she said, “It’s okay, Danny. I was just about to walk Mr. Rustanov to his car. He’s a friend of the shelter.”
Code for big donor—not an out of sorts husband. Which wasn’t exactly true, but Samantha couldn’t think of a less awkward way to let the security guard know Nikolai wasn’t a threat.
Danny visibly relaxed, letting his hand fall from his baton. “Alright then. I’ll just take my lunch break, if you don’t need me for awhile.”
Sam forced a smile to her lips. “That’s a great idea, Danny.”
After some awkward goodbyes, she made the silent trek with Nikolai back to his Escalade. The entire block in front of Ruth’s House was zoned as ten minute loading and unloading parking only. Apparently the Russian thought this would be more than a ten-minute conversation, because unlike Marco, who was always parking in the intake spots for convenience, he’d parked much further down the street in the regular parking zone. All the way on the next block, which meant they’d be able to talk in semi-private with no worries about being seen by anyone at Ruth’s House.
Still, Sam felt beyond self-conscious when they reached his car and Nikolai’s eyes zeroed in like lasers. Waiting.
She took a deep breath and just said it. “I’m pregnant.”
Nikolai went still as a statue, his expression so neutral, it was impossible for Sam to even guess at what he was thinking. So she kept on talking.
“I still have to go to the doctor to get it confirmed, but I took three tests. All positive. So… I’m pretty sure.”
Still no reaction from him. And Sam rushed on, feeling like she had to get it all out, if only so she could escape back to the safety of Ruth’s House.
“But what I would have said in my email is you don’t have to worry about any of this. I’m not going to ask you for anything. I have a good job and lots of resources. I’ll take care of everything—”
He suddenly came back to life, his gaze narrow and suspicious.
“You are sure it is mine?” he asked.
Sam blinked. “Am I sure it’s yours?” she repeated.
Now he outright sneered at her. “You and cop? Did you use condom with him?”
For a moment, the engine inside Sam’s mind stalled out, choking on indignation. It took a few open and shuts of her mouth before she was able to say, “Okay, let’s get a few things straight here.”
She put a finger in the air to make her point. “A month ago, I was upset. I’d had a very bad experience followed by a very bad nightmare. I never would have let you anywhere near me if those two things hadn’t occurred. Understand, you are the only guy I’ve ever not used protection with, and I feel pretty damn stupid about that. Especially now with you acting like I’m up in here getting pregnant all the time by guys I don’t know. Like you think this is how I get my kicks and giggles. But trust me when I say, I’m just as unhappy about being pregnant with your baby as you are. If it had been up to me, this is the last way I would have chosen to get pregnant.”
He flinched, like her words had more than insulted him. Like they had caused him pain. But then his jaw clenched, and he said, “It was necessary question.” He gave her one of his ugly frowns. “You will keep it? Because you—how did you say—are too old to make other choice?”
Sam shook her head, feeling the usual disappointment when it came to guys and relationships beginning to set in. No, she hadn’t expected a romance novel or anything when she told him the news. But she hadn’t expected him to ask if it was his either or whether she was still against aborting it,
which would make his life a whole lot easier, she knew.
The whole situation made her feel dirty. But she stood her ground with him.
“I’m not happy about the circumstances, but I’m happy about being a mother,” she told him through gritted teeth. “And I’m keeping this baby, no matter what.”
She waited, giving him a chance to try to convince her otherwise, but he just stood there, with no expression whatsoever. Like a block of ice. Nope, this wasn’t a romance novel situation at all. She wasn’t that kind of girl and Nikolai wasn’t that kind of man. She’d known that about him from the start, so there was no reason for the piercing hurt now radiating through her body over his total lack of reaction.
Suddenly Sam felt exhausted. Completely and utterly exhausted.
“I’m going back to work,” she said, having to put real effort into keeping her voice strong. “Like I said, I’m more than cool with doing this on my own.”
Then she walked away, disappointment in him and the situation and herself dogging her heels. And she wasn’t surprised when this time, he did nothing to stop her from leaving.
20
THAT day, Nikolai came home from work early. Not because he didn’t have plenty to do. The Polar were due to go out on the road at the end of the week, and though they were nowhere near contention for the Stanley Cup this year, it was imperative that Nikolai observe them on the road and off this season, so he could figure out how to make them great next season.
However, as the Polar’s new owner, he couldn’t just worry about the team, he had to worry about the entire franchise. So he had meetings with not just his coaches and general managers, but also with PR professionals and ad companies.
Maybe he was a Rustanov after all, because he didn’t mind the business aspects of the job as much as he’d thought he would. Nevertheless, not being able to play the game nearly every single day was beginning to take its own kind of toll. No longer could he take his troubles and thoughts down to the rink or take out his aggression on teammates and opposing hockey players. No longer could he “ice out”—playing and playing until all his cares froze away.
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