Except for one thing. I made Enzo promise to free all the girls at The Velvet Rope and to bulldoze the entire structure. He agreed and he did it the second month I was in Russia. Damir Novalov didn’t like it, but he didn’t stop it, either.
I got a call from Mira two weeks after it happened. She was in Mexico and we couldn’t talk long, but she sounded happier than I’d ever heard before. “Girl, you gotta come visit. Promise me, when you’re back from the other side of the world, you’ll come?”
“I can’t wait to see you,” I told her, and I meant it.
We slow outside of the apartment structure. It’s a block-sized building made from cream-colored stone with square windows and carved geometric shapes around the large wooden door. It used to be a Soviet-era apartment building, but the Novalov family owns the entire thing now. They gutted it and turned it into a massive mansion and fortress in the heart of the city. Galina scans her key card and we stomp inside past the dour-looking guards that don’t speak a word of English and are always frowning.
“Are you allowed to be happy in Russia?” Galina asks one of them, an older guy named Sergei. He doesn’t reply, only takes her jacket with a glare.
I laugh and stomp after the girls as we hurry upstairs. The Moscow Novalov home is a massive place with multiple rooms and more art than I could ever imagine. The staff is generally nice, if distant and tough in that Russian sort of way, but they’re growing on me.
“There’s my girl.” Maxim stands in the main living room near the windows. He has a glass of vodka in one hand and a smile on his face as I hurry over and give him a massive kiss.
“I thought you were working.”
“I came back early. I know I’ve been busy lately, but I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“Get a room,” Emiliya says, rolling her eyes.
“Gladly.” Maxim tugs me away and I laugh. Galina pretends to puke.
We head down the back halls and into the private wing. His suite is the last on the left, a big set of rooms that’s more like an apartment in itself. I wrap my arms around him as he slams the door shut and kisses me slow and deep.
“Before you get too excited, I have a surprise,” he says, tugging back slightly.
I dig my fingers into his hair. “Don’t make me wait,” I say, my pulse hammering in my neck. I haven’t seen him all day, and now I get the chance to feel his touch in the middle of the afternoon—and he’s making me wait? Unacceptable.
“Just listen.” He grins and pulls out his phone. “Mother sent me this.”
It’s a picture of a pretty little Spanish-style church set back on a rolling hill. I gasp and stare with delight. “She got it?”
“She got it.”
“We’ve been working on that old priest for weeks and he finally gave in?”
“Mother’s very persuasive. It helps that we paid him a lot of money.”
I laugh and kiss him hard. I wanted that venue for our wedding so badly, but the priest was giving us a hard time about not living in his parish. Apparently, that’s only important to mortal people—not to the Novalov family.
Maxim wants to get married here and now, but I want to do it back home in the States so my brothers can attend. We’ve been living in limbo as an engaged couple, and it’s been absolute heaven.
“Since we’re sharing surprises, I have one for you.” I slip away from him and hurry into the bathroom. My hands tremble slightly and I’m so afraid of how he’s going to react. My stomach’s doing flips as I dig the little toilet paper-wrapped bundle out from beneath the sink and carry it over. I planned on telling him tonight—only his sisters know, and only because telling them was necessary.
He inspects the bundle, frowning.
“I’m not sure I want to see what’s inside, princess.”
I roll my eyes and unwrap it.
He stares down at the positive pregnancy test. I can’t read his expression, and my nerves make me want to scream. Is he happy? Afraid?
“I took it this morning. I wasn’t sure, so Emiliya and Galina took me out to get more tests. I don’t know how to find them myself, and everything’s in Russian, so I needed their help. They’re in the other room, I can take them, and—”
He grabs me, kisses me, and hugs me so hard I think I might explode.
“This is fucking amazing! How did this happen?”
“You see, when a man loves a woman—”
He squeezes me harder. “You’re amazing. Our baby!” He releases me and stares at my belly. “My god, we have to go back home right now. You can’t have a baby in fucking Moscow. No way is my child going to be born in some Soviet hospital.”