“Isabella.”
“Obviously.” She rolls her eyes. I’m being purposefully obtuse and she knows it. “I’m talking about the dark-haired beefcake carrying Isabella.”
“Adrik,” I say.
His name tastes like poison on my tongue.
Before she can ask the obvious follow-up questions, I brush past her and pursue Adrik and my daughter.
“Don’t think we’re done talking about this!” she hisses after me.
Jasmine’s loft above the bakery is a hodgepodge of thrift store furniture and kitschy knick-knacks. Isabella’s wheelchair wouldn’t fit up here even if there was an elevator.
When I round the corner, Adrik is gently lowering Isabella onto the futon. I hurry over just as her eyes flutter open.
“Mama?” Isabella murmurs while I slide a pillow between her legs.
“Shh, baby, it’s fine,” I whisper back. “You’re staying with Jasmine tonight. Just go back to sleep.”
She’s asleep before I can even finish talking.
Oh, to be as carefree as a six-year-old. She’s out like a light.
Me, on the other hand?
I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again.
“I want you to know that I take no responsibility for this,” a deep voice rumbles. “If something happens to her, it will be all your fault.”
Adrik is leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest. The room is awash with swaths of blue shadows, and he's bathed so deeply in them so I don’t know where they end and he begins. Black hair falls over his forehead, but his eyes are silver in the dim light, glowing as he watches me.
I can feel his cold perusal like ice melting down my back. Any trace of playfulness from the car is long gone. The air is rife with tension.
I stiffen up. "She'll be fine."
“She’d be fine at my house. More than fine.”
"You can't be hurt I don't trust you when—"
"You think I’m hurt?” He laughs derisively. “Stupid woman. I'm not hurt; I’m right. I'm always fucking right. It's how I knew Waters was going to be at your apartment. It's how I know my house is the safest place for you both. But we're going through this charade so you can feel comfortable. It’s not my feelings fueling this idiocy—it’s yours."
I don't know what to say.
He's not wrong. He's more than proven he can take care of me. That he can take care of us.
But I can’t trust that someone else will take care of me. I have to be able to look out for myself. I have to be strong for myself so I can be strong for Isabella.
It’s how it has to be. How it’s always been.
I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.
"She'll be fine,” I say again. I step into the hallway and close the door behind me. "Let's go."
He rolls his eyes. "By all fucking means, after you."
When we get back downstairs, Jasmine is sitting at one of the tables in the dining room. She has a small plate of cookies and mini-pastries in front of her.
“I haven’t seen you in way too long,” she says, gesturing to the seat across from her. “Sit down. Eat something.”
It’s a poorly disguised attempt to get more information out of me. But I’m so hungry I don’t even care. I grab a white chocolate raspberry tartlet and shove it in my mouth.
“You can’t help but feed people, can you?”
“It’s why I got into the business.” She smiles at me and then turns her attention to Adrik, who’s trailed downstairs behind me. “Did you know Emery used to work here?”
“Is that so?” He takes a custard-filled cookie and turns it over in his hand.
The way he flips it around and lets it slide across the pads of his fingers is ridiculously sinful. Before this moment, I would have said there was nothing sexy about a cookie.
I would have been very, very wrong.
Even Jasmine seems to notice. She arches a brow and releases a shaky sigh. “How long have you known each other?”
“It feels like forever,” he mutters.
“Aww,” Jasmine says earnestly. The joke sails right over her head.
He’s not wrong and I don’t disagree. This night feels never-ending.
“Not long, actually,” I correct in a hurry. “We just started… working together.”
“Oh. Gotcha.” Jasmine looks from me to Adrik and then leans toward him. “What did you say your last name was?”
“I didn’t.”
Jasmine waits for him to answer the implied question. Instead, he takes a bite of the cookie, licking crumbs off his lips. I hate that my heart quickens at the sight of his tongue.
“Tasarov,” I answer for him. “But we really should be—”
“Do you make wedding cakes?” Adrik asks suddenly.