Russian Mobster's Secret (8 page)

“So emphatic,” Kirill murmured. “One might think you were attached to me yourself.”

“Oh whatever.” Susan drew back her arm and smacked him hard across the face.

The blow was as unexpected to him as it was to her. She had never done anything like that before in her life.

He barely flinched, though.

Unconsciously lifting her fingers to his face, she whispered to him, “I’m so sorry.”

Then she turned and fled.

Chapter Ten

Susan stared at the face in the mirror and tried to figure out why it felt as though she were losing her mind. She had never before in her life been prone to physical violence. Kirill just made her so
mad
!

There was a pounding on her door. She might have known he wouldn’t let that incident slide without at least making some comment or observation. For once, Susan wasn’t feeling as though she should back down. Perhaps this was what the phrase “spoiling for a fight” meant.

“What?” She yanked the door open and glared at the man standing on her porch. Belatedly she realized that the pounding had been on the front door and not the kitchen’s back door. Unfortunately, she was facing off with the wrong man. “Oh! Vlad? I’m so sorry.”

“Susan, are you all right?” Vlad looked as if he wanted to come in, but he never actually crossed the threshold.

“I’m fine, thank you, Vlad.” Susan knew this was what she should want in a man. “You’re so courteous. I really appreciate that about you.”

“I just feel as though there’s something you’re not telling me that I should really know.” He frowned. “I was working late tonight, and it occurred to me that it was time I could have been spending with you. I’m sorry about that. I want to be available to you so that if you
do
have things you need to tell me, you can feel free to do that.”

Oh boy, Susan had one whopper of a secret, but she really couldn’t share that with Vlad. Although before too long it would become obvious. It wasn’t as if she could hide the fact that she was pregnant forever.

“Susan?”

“Yeah, Susan.” Another rougher male voice cut in. “It seems as though you’re keeping a secret lately.” Kirill came sauntering through the house, having no doubt let himself in through her kitchen door.

“Who invited
you
?” Susan snapped. “Seriously? Do you ever knock?”

“Would you answer?”

“Maybe.” She glared at him. “What? Are you afraid to take a chance that I might just leave you standing out there like a loser?”

Vlad looked between Susan and Kirill. She saw the moment the realization of their association slowly began to dawn on him.

Then Vlad looked to Susan. “I think I understand what you’ve not been saying.”

“It’s not like that,” Susan said quickly. She made a vague gesture toward Kirill. “Kirill and I aren’t a couple or anything.”

Vlad’s eyebrows shot up. It didn’t help that Kirill started laughing.

Susan realized what she had just implied. She made a frustrated noise and slugged Kirill in the gut. He barely flinched.

Vlad pursed his lips. “I think it might be best if you and I take a little break until you’re sure what you want in a relationship, Susan.”

“Vlad…” She started the sentence but couldn’t really find the rest of it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s really no problem.” Vlad nodded pleasantly to both of them. “Have a nice night.”

Susan watched him walk away and felt an odd sort of relief. Vlad was exactly what she should have wanted in a man. But for some reason she could not identify, he just didn’t appeal to her in that way.

Kirill snorted. “That guy always was spineless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She rounded on him.

Kirill’s expression suggested he thought the answer should be obvious. “Come on! If he really wanted you, he should have been willing to fight for you.”

“That’s barbaric.”

“I’m speaking in general terms here. You don’t have to take it literally.” He waved his hand to indicate Vlad. “If that little weakling challenged me to a physical fight, I would decapitate him in seconds. But that doesn’t meant his first response should’ve been to walk away and just let you decide what you want. What does that say for how he feels about the situation? Shouldn’t he have been angry? I mean, I’m angry, for fuck’s sake, and I’m not even your significant other!”

“You’re angry about what?” She left him in her front room and headed back to the kitchen. She needed to do something in order to distract her from this asinine conversation.

Unfortunately, Kirill followed right behind her. “I don’t know why I’m angry. I just know that it pisses me off to see you with Vlad. All right?”

“If I didn’t know better, I would say that you’re jealous.” She pulled ingredients from her cupboard and began throwing things into a bowl.

“I don’t get jealous.” He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms belligerently over his chest. “That would be a huge handicap in my line of work.”

“What do you really do, anyway?” It occurred to Susan that she had never asked. “I’ve heard rumors, of course. And now I’m realizing that I’ve never actually tried to substantiate them. I’ve just sort of repeated them to you.”

“At me, actually.” His smile suggested he hadn’t minded in the least. “I work for the Orlov family. That much is true.”

“Oksana says you
think
you do.”

“Oksana is a judgmental bitch who can’t stand the idea that I might possibly be cooler than she is.” He grimaced. “And yes, I did just make that juvenile statement.”

“So what do you do?” She began stirring the brownie batter.

He moved to swipe a bit of batter with his index finger, and she swatted him with her spatula. He jumped and put his offended finger in his mouth.

“I’m an assassin.” He spoke the words around the finger still crammed in his mouth.

“Wait.” She yanked his finger out of his mouth. “Did you just say that you’re an
assassin
?”

KIRILL COULD NOT quite decide if Susan was handling this news well, or if she was about to lose her mind. She began waving the spatula in the air and muttering to herself.

Finally, she flung the utensil in the bowl of batter and reached into a cabinet to retrieve a pan. He had never seen a woman bake like this before. It was shockingly domestic, and for some reason he found it incredibly sexy.

“So,” Susan began speaking as she poured the batter into the pan. “You’re telling me that you actually kill people for a living. Like murder them?”

“I wouldn’t call it murder.” He shrugged. “Generally they have to be pretty bad characters in order to be put on my hit list. It isn’t like they’re Boy Scouts or anything. They’ve run afoul of the Orlovs in some way. Either they refuse to pay a debt, or they’ve committed some sort of crime against the family. They’re usually extremely unsavory individuals.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to justify what you do right now?” She raised an eyebrow.

Kirill opened his mouth to answer, and then realized that he was doing exactly that. “Damn.”

“You
kill
people for a living.” She wasn’t talking to him now. She was talking to herself. “He murders people. That’s what he does for a job. That so figures! I’m having a fucking baby with some guy who works as a hit man.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He held up his hands. “Who said anything about a baby?”

“I did!” She flung up her hands right before she picked up the brownie pan and put it inside the oven with unnecessary force. “Because it’s true!”

“A baby?” He fell back a step. Groping to his left, he managed to find a kitchen chair, pull it out, and sit down before he fell. “As in you’re
having
a baby?”

“Yes!” She leaned back against the counter and stared at the ceiling. “I only found out a few days ago. Believe me, it took a bit of getting used to.”

“Implying that you’re used to it now?” He didn’t even know how to fit this into his mental framework. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Raise it?” She looked at him as though he were a moron.

How stupid of him. “Of course. I wasn’t trying to imply anything else. I guess I was just trying to get a read on your intentions.”

“My intentions?” She started laughing. “At this point, my biggest worry is that your sister will kill me when she finds out.” She pointed toward her front door. “It isn’t like Vlad isn’t going to run home and dial her up anyway. I would be surprised if she didn’t already know that you and I have been sleeping together. Or
were
sleeping together. Or whatever.”

“Oksana can damn well get over herself. I’m sick of my sister thinking she has the right to tell everyone how to live their lives. You don’t owe her anything.”

“Maybe, but it still feels awful to betray her like this.”

“It wasn’t a betrayal.” He got up and started to reach for Susan. Something stopped him though, and he dropped his hands. “Is this why you’ve been acting so strangely? I thought you were over me—over us. I never could have imagined that you might have another reason to be upset with me.”

“If you mean did it bother me to see the father of my unborn child with his paws all over another woman?” She sent him a bitter smile. “Yes. It was a horrible reminder that I managed to get myself pregnant by a total player.”

“Susan,” Kirill murmured.

This time he didn’t stop when he reached out his arms to hold her. He pulled her close and held her against his chest. She tucked her head beneath his chin, and he dropped a kiss on the top of her head as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“What are we going to do?” she whispered. “This was definitely not in my plans.”

“Perhaps not right now. But I can’t imagine you thought of yourself as a solitary woman who would never have a home and a family. I believe we even discussed that at one time.”

“I think it would be more accurate to say I flung that description at you in a sort of condemnation.” Her voice was muffled against his chest.

“Still. You had a desire to be a mother. And I think you’ll be a good one. You even bake from scratch.”

“Oh! The brownies!” She pulled away to check the oven.

“See. You’re absolutely mother material.”

“And are you father material?”

Kirill had never anticipated anyone asking him that question. “Perhaps at one time in my life I would’ve laughed it off and told you that I had no interest in those sorts of strings. But I’m older now. Maybe I’m just tired of the revolving door on relationships, or maybe you truly changed me, Susan. Either way, I’m more than willing to try fatherhood.”

“That means monogamy. Are you ready to try that as well?”

There was absolutely no point in telling her that he hadn’t really been interested in another woman since he’d been with her. She wouldn’t take those words in the spirit in which he would mean them. So in the interest of
not
making her angry, he simply nodded.

“Yes. I can promise to be faithful to you and only you, my Susan. As long as you can promise me that you will never again let that asshole Vlad touch you.”

“It’s not like I slept with him.” She made a face.

“He touched your arm. I saw him.”

She gave him a prim smile. “Stalkers rarely see things that they like.”

Chapter Eleven

Susan glanced at the clock on her computer for about the millionth time in the last hour or so. She had called Oksana first thing this morning and asked her to lunch. Considering how eager her friend had been for the meeting, there was no way of knowing whether or not Vlad had spilled the beans yet about Susan and Kirill. Susan was hoping he’d kept his own counsel for the moment. There would be a much greater chance of getting Oksana calmed down if Susan told her first.

There was a knock on her office door. Susan whipped around, startled to find her boss Jason standing in the open doorway.

She offered him a friendly smile. “Hello, Jason, can I help you with something?”

“I needed to speak with you about a—” His gaze shifted away briefly as though he were uncomfortable. “—rumor that’s come to my attention.”

“Rumor?” She swallowed the lump that had just appeared in her throat. “Can I ask which rumor you might be referring to?”

Jason gave a hollow chuckle and crossed his arms over his chest in a defensive posture. “That seems to suggest there is more than one.”

“It’s an
office
, Jason. There are lots of rumors floating around at any given moment.” She pursed her lips. She was so tired of paying defense with everyone. Maybe it was time to grow a set and go on the offensive for once. “Are you by any chance referring to the ‘cash cow’ nonsense?”

“I’m sorry?” He looked taken aback. “What is the ‘cash cow’ nonsense?”

Susan waved her hand as though this was old news. “Oh, Roland Porter started some sort of rumor that I couldn’t get a date because I looked like a cow. Then since I work in finance, he started calling me the cash cow and telling people it would take a whole lot of cash to pay someone to date me.” She struggled to remain nonchalant. “At one point, I believe there was an office pool of the men to determine how much money would be required.”

His mouth actually fell open. “This was a real thing?” He waved his hand. “I mean, they actually surveyed the male employees in this department for this so-called office pool?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what to say.” He looked more than troubled. He actually looked livid. It was very satisfying.

Susan suspected that the cash cow nonsense had
not
been the rumor to which Jason was referring, but she had knocked him off track quite nicely. “Was that what you were referring to? Because that’s sort of old news now.”

“How old?” Jason demanded.

She shrugged. “Last month?”

“Susan, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell HR?”

She gave him a deprecating look. “Were you never bullied in school?”

“I get it. You were afraid it would just make things worse.” Jason nodded, making it obvious that he had dealt with his share of incidents in some way or form over the years. “Although that makes this latest rumor even more confusing.”