by Maura Rose
“Yes, Father.”
She got up onto her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. She loved him, she did, and she knew that he loved her and her sisters in his own way. It was simply that he needed to learn how to love them.
Natalia had only gone about a block when she heard her name being called. “Natasha!”
She turned to see Irena hurrying towards her, her cheeks pink. “Natasha.”
Natalia looked at her. “Yes?”
Irena started to speak, shook her head, and then hugged her fiercely.
Natalia hugged her back. “What’s that for?”
“For being brave and for standing up for yourself, and for me.” Irena pulled back, keeping her hands on Natalia’s shoulders. “I’m proud of you. Honestly.”
“You know that wasn’t going to solve anything,” Natalia replied.
“I know.” Irena tucked a lock of hair behind Natalia’s ear. She felt her chest warm as she remembered that was something that Pavel would do as well. “But it was still wonderful of you. And I’ll talk to him.”
She paused, and Natalia watched her carefully. Irena looked as though she wanted to say something, but was unsure, chewing on her lip for a moment. Finally she said, “Pavel was very upset. He tried to hide it, but I could tell he didn’t like Father’s decision. I think that he cares for you.”
Natalia swallowed. “When I was in danger, during the fight against those men… he called me Natasha.”
In Russian, there was one’s name, such as Natalia, but there were many diminutives of that name that could be used depending on how close one was to that person. The whole name-calling business was something that Natalia had heard many people trying to learn Russian complain about.
Natasha was the diminutive of Natalia—or the most common one, anyway. She let her close friends call her Natasha and her family would call her that when they were being affectionate. Pavel had let it slip, though, in a moment of danger. It was silly, perhaps, but it had felt like he’d called her ‘darling’ or ‘sweetheart’. Like he’d called her something special and close.
Irena looked pleased. “I had hoped that he would fall for you. I thought that you two would be good for each other, with your opposite natures.”
“You told me so before, even when I hated him.” Natalia laughed. “And you were right. Again.”
“Do you care for him?”
Natalia wanted to run and hide to avoid answering the question. “Yes I… I think that I do. I do, yes. I want… I was happy, to think about marrying him. I was happy to think that I would be spending my time with him, getting to know him even more than I know now, even better than I know him now.” Natalia cleared her throat and grinned just for a moment—a rueful grin—before continuing.
“I think I’m—it’s so stupid, I know, but I think I’m in love with him. And I want to think that he’s in love with me, but I don’t—we never said anything, out loud. I didn’t want to think about it, there were more important things to think about, I mean… we were trying to stop someone from possibly harming the family. But now that I….”
Natalia looked away, unable to look her sister in the eye anymore. It was stupid, people admitted having feelings for someone all the time, but she still felt embarrassed. She’d never been in love before. She’d had a few boyfriends in college, yes, but they’d never been anything serious. She hadn’t wanted anything serious and she certainly hadn’t wanted to catch feelings when heavens knew how she’d even begin to introduce a ‘normal’ person to her family business.
It felt like she was admitting something terrifying and fragile, something made of glass that could easily tip out of her hands and shatter.
But then she thought of Pavel’s smile, how he’d gotten dominant when she’d wanted it but had been soft and sweet with her up until then. How he hadn’t backed down when she’d been challenging. How he’d listened to her. How he wanted to spend time with her, how open he was about liking her and wanting to be with her. How good it had felt to kiss him, to have him inside her, and the look of fear on his face when he’d seen her in danger.
“Yes,” she said at last, hardly recognizing her own voice, it was so soft. “Yes, I think I’m in love with him.”
She glanced up to see Irena smiling at her. “Then why don’t you go find him?”
“The Sokolovs won’t want to see me or any of us. Father snubbed them after they risked themselves to help us. I would be angry if I were them and rightfully so.”
“Ah, but you are walking testament to the fact that love isn’t logical. Go and get him. Tell him how you feel. The worst that could happen is that he says no.”
“Exactly.”
“But you’ll have your answer.” Irena’s soft smile turned a bit wicked. “And I would bet you anything that he doesn’t say no. He looked like he wanted to launch himself at Father when you two were separated.”
Natalia felt herself blushing. “All right, if only to shut you up. You’d better not be insufferable about this later on. Since you set us up.”
“I will be as insufferable as I please,” Irena replied smugly. Then her face grew serious. “In all honesty, this has gone better than I had expected. I had hoped… my best projection was that you two would balance one another out and would be friends. I felt that… from what Ivan had told me of Pavel and what I knew of you, you two needed someone like the other one. You needed someone kind but who wouldn’t let you steamroll them, and Pavel needed someone who would be outspoken and tough but gentle and soft when it mattered.
“But I honestly didn’t expect for you two to fall for one another. I didn’t expect that for your sisters, either. And out of all of us, you got the best bargain. You’re the one who fell in love. I wouldn’t say that’s a testament to arranged marriages or my insight. I would just say that it was luck. That you got a break. That the universe gave you something. And now I’m just asking you not to waste that chance and to take advantage of it, because not everyone gets that.”
Natalia reached out and hugged Irena again, resting her head on her sister’s shoulder. “I love you.”
“I love you too. Now, why are you still standing here talking to me? Apparently you know where he lives.”
Natalia felt herself blushing again but she did as she was told and pulled away. She did, in fact, know where Pavel lived.
And she was going to go get him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Pavel hated waiting around in his apartment. He hated waiting around in general. But Ivan didn’t have any busy work for Pavel and so there was nothing to do but just hope that he heard something from Natasha, or Irena, on Mikhailov’s behalf.
“Go home,” Ivan had told him. “Distract yourself.”
But what was there to do to distract himself? Not the television and not a book. If he hung out with any of his friends, they were all a part of the family and they’d all want to know about what had gone down. He could go to the gym and spar with someone, he supposed, but he’d never been the kind of person where that helped get his aggression out. He usually honestly preferred to read. But his mind just wouldn’t settle.
He found himself pacing up and down instead like a dog waiting for its owner to come home. The irony of that analogy wasn’t lost on him. ‘Pavel the puppy.’ Well, he’d managed to finally find someone who appreciated that and who appreciated him.
And he hadn’t even fought for her.
It would’ve been stupid for him to get up in Mikhailov’s face, but at least Natalia would’ve known how he felt. He’d had plenty of opportunity after the fight but he’d wasted it kissing her instead. Not that kissing her was a bad thing, but a kiss could mean a lot of things. She might not know, she might think he was okay with all of this, she might…
His doorbell rang.
Pavel’s hand automatically went to the gun on the kitchen table. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He didn’t think it was a Mikhailov-ordered hit or anything. But it was better to be safe than sorry in his line of work.
He crept quietly in his socks over to the front door and peered through the peephole. It wasn’t always wise to do that. People on the other end could often notice that there was someone looking at them and an assassin could shoot right through the peephole. Bam, headshot, you’re through.
But he saw who it was and his heart came screeching to a halt.
Natalia was standing outside his door, glancing around a little, her arms crossed in front of her—a sign that she was nervous. What was she doing here? And why would she be nervous?
Pavel opened the door. He knew it might be stupid but he doubted that Mikhailov or an assassin was going to use Natalia as bait.
Natalia started a little when he opened the door. “I thought you might not be home,” she blurted out.
Pavel looked her up and down. Her cheeks were flushed like she’d been running and her dark eyes were wide, unusually so. “Is everything all right?”
The idea hit him that she might have run away from her father. That she might have nothing but the clothes on her back—or that her father had tried to punish her. Pavel hoped that wasn’t the case, if only because he wouldn’t be able to hold in his temper if that was the case. Screw the consequences, he’d give that son of a bitch a piece of his mind.
But Natalia nodded and replied, “Everything’s fine. I was just—I ran most of the way here.”
“You ran?”
“Yes. I was a little impatient.”
Pavel opened the door wider for her to enter. “You should come inside.”
Natalia entered, taking off her jacket. “I’m sorry. I’ve actually been here for about twenty minutes in the lobby.”
“Twenty minutes?” Pavel checked the windows. “Are you sure you should be here? Are you going to get in trouble?”
“No, and even if I was, I don’t care.” Natalia turned to face him, squaring her shoulders. “I told my father that he could either let me live my life how I wanted or he could disown me.”
Pavel could feel his jaw dropping. He stared at her in disbelief. To be disowned was huge in their world. A person’s entire life was made up of the family. Their flesh-and-blood family, their friends, their acquaintances, it was all a part of being in a bratva. To be disowned meant that not only did your flesh and blood kick you out, but the entire extended ‘family’ was shunning you. It meant abandoning the entire world that you had known all of your life.
And Natalia had been willing to do that?
He didn’t want to presume. It might not have been for him. It might just have been for herself, she might not have thought about him at all. But hope fluttered in his chest for the first time since Mikhailov had dragged Natalia off.
“What did he say?” he asked, instead of the real question he wanted to say which was, did you do it because of me?
“He was impressed that I stood up to him,” Natalia replied. She sounded baffled by this. “He said that I could live my life how I wanted and that he wouldn’t disown me. Irena says he’ll probably take time to change his mind about other things and that I can’t expect it all to be okay in just one day. But I think I threw him off. I don’t think he really knew how bad he was being.”
“I’m glad that you set him straight. So…” Pavel tried to gesture but ended up just kind of sweeping his arm out in a useless motion. “What brings you here, then?”
Natalia looked at him like he was crazy. “I came to see you. Because I can. Nobody can stop me.”
She took a step in his direction, and even from this distance Pavel swore he could feel the warmth of her radiating out toward him. He wanted to erase all the space between them, hold her and never let her go.
“That’s why I was… pacing up and down your lobby like an idiot for twenty minutes,” she confessed, her voice pitched low. “I wasn’t sure how to say this part. I’ve never—this is new to me. I was so determined not to like you when I first met you and then you went from driving me nuts to being someone that I liked, someone that turned me on, someone I was drawn to. And I found that I trusted you.”
Natalia ran a hand through her hair, blowing out a rush of air. Now Pavel knew why she’d been nervous, why her face was flushed. She hadn’t been scared of being followed or attacked. She’d been nervous to say how she felt out loud. He was the one who was soft, who was good with emotions. Natalia wasn’t, she was all prickliness and rough edges.
He stepped forward, getting rid of much of the space between them, taking her elbows in his hands and somewhat cradling her. “It’s all right. You can take your time.”
“It’s just—kind of terrifying.” Natalia flashed him a wavering smile. “How much someone can come to mean to you in such a short time.”
“I know the feeling.” He slid his hands up her arms, his thumbs rubbing in small, soothing circles. He didn’t want to interrupt her by blurting out his own feelings, but hopefully hinting at them would help Natalia feel a little more comfortable. His chest felt like it was burning with anticipation. He could guess what she was going to say and it made him want to kiss her senseless, but he had to hear her say it out loud. He needed that confirmation.
Natalia bit her lip, looking down at the ground. When she looked back up again, however, she had a determined gleam in her eye.
“I love you,” she told him, plainly and without her voice wavering. “I know it’s sudden, but I also know how I feel and if we still had to marry, I would feel no regrets about it. Because I love you.”
The words were barely out of her mouth and Pavel was pulling her in, kissing her. He needed to say it back, and he would, just as soon as he finished kissing her for a little while longer.
Natalia melted against him, her hands coming up to cling to fistfuls of his shirt. She kissed him back like she’d been holding her breath and this was her way of exhaling. Pavel felt something in his chest loosen, a band of iron that he hadn’t even realized was there, and for a moment he held onto her like she was the thing that was keeping him anchored to the world.
He pulled back when the burning in his lungs became too much, but only far enough back so that he could breathe and look into Natalia’s face. She looked a little punch-drunk and Pavel was sure that he looked the same, her lips red and swollen from kissing and her eyes glazed.
“Natalia,” he started, but she shook her head.
“Natasha,” she corrected. “That’s what you called me.”
He had. He hadn’t even realized it at the time, too overwhelmed with fear when he saw the man attacking her from behind her back. “Natasha.” It was, he knew, a sign of trust and closeness among any group of Russians—but in a world like theirs, where danger could be around every corner, to allow such a sign of affection meant even more.
She lit up when he called her that, her smile reaching all the way up to her eyes. Pavel found himself smiling back, feeling giddy and helpless in the face of making her happy. “You can call me Pasha,” he told her. It was the diminutive of his own name, and he couldn’t remember the last time someone had called him that—not even Ivan, since a boss calling their employee or underling by their diminutive could easily suggest the boss saw them as a child or didn’t take them seriously.
In fact, he didn’t think anyone had called him that since he was a child. Or some of the old guard like Vlad—may he rest in peace—when they wanted him to be put in his place.
But he wanted Natalia to call him that. He wanted that connection between them.
“Pasha,” Natalia repeated. She said it softly, like she was being handed something special, something reverent.
Pavel realized that he had completely forgotten something. “I love you,” he told her. It had been several minutes now since she’d told him and he didn’t want her to think that he didn’t feel the same way. “I’m in love with you, Natasha.”
Natalia kissed him soundly. “Good, because you’re stuck with me.”
Pavel picked her up around the waist and spun her around, feeling almost lightheaded. It was unconve
ntional, to say the least, how they had gotten here, but he wouldn’t trade it since it meant that he’d gotten what he’d thought he’d never have: an amazing woman that he loved with all his heart, who loved him in return.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Pavel’s playful nature came to the fore as he spun her around and Natalia clung to him, laughing, lightly hitting him. “Put me down!” she laughed. “Pasha, put me down.”
“I’m not sure,” he teased, but he set her down anyway. “Does your father expect us to get married right away again?” he asked.
That was a good question. “I told him I would do what I wanted, and if we wanted to get married then we will. If we don’t want to get married then we don’t.”
“I think I’d like to try something I hear that normal people do,” he said, taking her hand and spinning her around as if they were dancing.
Natalia leaned into him, resting her head on his chest. “What?”
“Something called dating? It’s this new thing…?”
She poked him in the chest. “Has anyone told you that you’re insufferable with your sass?”
“Just this one woman. She called me a whole bunch of things. But then she asked if we could meet up again and I kind of fell in love with her, so I think the sass thing is working out for me.”
“I never should have encouraged you.”
Pavel kissed her, and Natalia felt warmth sliding down her spine, heating her up, pressure beginning to build between her legs. “Although… I hope that this dating thing includes continuing those… other activities…” she said between slow, sucking kisses. “Activities that involve that big bed of yours…”
“I suppose I could be persuaded to continue those,” Pavel said, his voice a low, rolling chuckle in her mouth. “You are an eager one, aren’t you Miss Mikhailova?”
“Takes one to know one,” Natalia replied, letting him trail kisses down her neck. “I could see you looking at me from the moment we met.”
“Mmm, you were doing the same.”
