HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER

by Theodora Taylor

  Him. Not her boyfriend, the police officer.

  His heart, which had thawed for a few moments when they’d come together in a tangle of fire and ice, hardened again.

  “In one month, I will ask you question again. If you are pregnant, you will tell me.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes aggressively calm, like two dark, placid stones inside her pretty face.

  “I’m not pregnant,” she assured him.

  “If you are you will tell me,” he insisted back.

  “Yes, I will,” she finally agreed. “But I’m not pregnant, so this conversation is, you know… pretty moot.”

  He wasn’t sure what “moot” meant, but the promise was all that mattered. Samantha was strange, and at times infuriating, but he didn’t think she was a liar.

  As if reading his thoughts she said, “But again, all of this is just hypothetical. And none of it matters, because I’m not pregnant.”

  17

  One month later

  Sam stared at the three pregnancy tests resting on top of the staff bathroom’s toilet seat.

  “Damn!” she whispered. “Damn, damn, damn!”

  She was totally, undeniably pregnant.

  If the constant queasiness that had set in a couple of days ago hadn’t made it clear enough, the fact that she was four days into her usually clockwork cycle with still no period made it crystal clear. And just in case that wasn’t evidence enough, she now had these three over-the-counter pregnancy tests: one with two lines, one with a cross, one stating in letters bold and plain, “Pregnant.”

  So no, there was pretty much zero doubt. She was pregnant.

  Sam slumped back against the wall, her stomach roiling with more than morning sickness. How was she going to tell Nikolai about this?

  She had to tell him. She promised she would. But, oh God, this would make things so awkward. Even more awkward than things currently were, with her tenuously serving as a sort of de facto nanny to Pavel, two weeks after Nikolai had officially been awarded custody of his nephew. Normally, it would have taken longer than that, but the hockey star with the newly discovered half-black nephew had made front page news in Indiana, and magically, the case had been heard in record time.

  So now she was only living under his roof because he hadn’t kicked her out. Yet. And also because he didn’t seem all that interested in raising Pavel himself. Other than insisting he be sent to St. Peter’s, an all boy’s school. It was one of the best private schools in Indiana, but Sam suspected his insistence on sending Pavel to this particular school had to do with them being willing to have a security guard posted outside Pavel’s classroom at all times. Per Nikolai’s request.

  But other than that, Nikolai seemed content to let Sam deal with all his nephew’s before and after school needs. Nikolai often worked weekends, too, traveling to out of town games with his team. So she and Pavel had been left to navigate Saturdays and Sundays—and any other days the team traveled—on their own with the occasional assist from her intern, Nyla. The grad student was currently working at Ruth’s House for free, and was therefore happy to pick up extra babysitting hours when Sam needed to put in weekend time at the shelter.

  But other than hiring a former marine named Dirk to oversee Pavel’s safety outside his home, Nikolai seemed less than interested in the fact that there was now a child underneath his roof. He didn’t make any effort to spend his free morning hours with Pavel, and he often worked so late that he got home after Pavel had gone to bed. Some seriously dickish behavior on Nikolai’s part, Sam thought. But having made the monumentally stupid decision to sleep with him without a condom, it wasn’t like she had much of a moral leg to stand on… or like she could even look him in the eye these days.

  No, instead, she’d focused on doing whatever she could to help Pavel adjust to his new, luxurious lifestyle while keeping her head down as she did so. Maybe if Nikolai didn’t notice she was still around, he wouldn’t ask when she’d be leaving.

  But now she was pregnant and that would definitely throw a big ass hitch in her “out of sight, out of mind” plan of action.

  A knock sounded on the door, interrupting her panicked thoughts.

  “Sam, you in there?” came Nyla’s voice through the door.

  Sam hastily disposed of all the sticks, sweeping them into the small wastebasket beside the toilet. “Yeah, I’m here. Do you need something?”

  “We’ve got two intake request from Hope House. I told them we were full, too, but they’re hoping we can squeeze two more in. Also, Marco’s here on rounds again, and I know you asked me to handle it when he stops by but he’s saying he’d like to see you.”

  Sam sighed. So not only was she pregnant. Not only was Ruth’s House overbooked. But now Marco was literally at the door. She took a deep breath and came out to face her African-American intern, Nyla Weathers.

  Nyla had five piercings in her right eyebrow, a lip ring, a nose ring, a laughing Buddha tattooed on the back of her neck, and long relaxed hair—which almost made her look traditional until she turned and you could see the hair was completely shaved off on one side. Yet she looked at Sam like she was the strange one when she came out of the bathroom.

  “Hey, you okay?” Nyla asked with a worried frown. “You look, I don’t know. Kind of shook. If you want I can deal with Marco.” She gave Sam a rueful grin. “I’ve learned a lot about how to handle overbearing men since coming to intern here.”

  That almost got a chuckle out of Sam. This was why she’d only been half-joking when she’d suggested to Josie that Nyla could take over Ruth’s House Indiana. The younger woman was capable and passionate about advocating for women and children. And like Sam, she didn’t back down when presented with challenging situations.

  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 fo
r 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 Niko
lai, 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.