The Russian Billionaire

“I know. I know. I’m so sorry, but there was no other way,” he whispers in my hair.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Do you really think I would have held it against you when all you did was do everything in your power to save your sister?”

I look up at him, amazed. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, Raine. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life to pretend to cut you off and pretend I’m so shallow and horrible I would punish you by withholding treatment from Maddy. I had no choice. I had to let the enemy think I had walked away from you. Lull them into thinking they could use you as their pawn. Maddy was never in any danger. The letter you wrote to Lana only served to make me love you even more. No one is going to pay for her treatment. Only me.”

Tears run down my cheeks. “I didn’t know what else to do. I had to save her. It was my fault.”

He kisses my cheeks. “No, it is not your fault. Nothing is your fault. You did the best you could but you were brilliant and I’m so proud of you. You showed her the way I never could have ever imagined. You out-tricked the witch herself.”

A young man clears his throat next to us.

Both of us turn towards him.

“This is for you, Mr. Tsarnov,” he says, handing him an envelope.

Konstantin takes the envelope and I separate from him. He tears it open and there is a small card inside. The writing is in gold leaf. He looks at it, then he smiles.

“What is it?” I ask.

He shows me the card. I read it.

When the rat is bitten by a snake it keeps running because it thinks it escaped from the jaws of death. It doesn’t know the poison is already in its veins. That it is already dead.

“Is this from Helena?” I ask.

“Maybe. It is from them anyway.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Because love will defeat them all. Every single time. They don’t know it yet. All they know is the power of venom. They don’t know that pure love is anti-venom.”

“Come on, let’s go home.”

“So you never meant to leave me?”

“Of course not. It is why I told you to bring your phone to our meeting. I wanted them to hear me reject you. I wanted them to think you had no value to me. That way you do not become leverage.”

“Konstantin, I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“You keep fucking stealing my lines.”

I gaze at him in wonder. “Did you just…”

He catches my face. “Yes, I just.”

“Say it.”

“I love you, Miss Raine Fillander. I fucking love you. I love you so much I wanted to punch that idiot who was flirting with you.”

“What idiot?”

“Yuri.”

“Ah, the guy who lives in Monaco.”

“That bastard is just a scammer. You don’t want to know him.”

“I do believe you’re jealous.”

“Jealous? Of course, I’m fucking jealous. I’m going out of my mind with jealousy.”

I laugh, then I remember my little secret. “Konstantin, I’ve got something to tell you.”

“What?”

I spend hours playing and replaying all the different ways I could tell him, but in the end what comes out of my mouth are the words that have been uttered by women from time immemorial.

“I’m pregnant.”

Konstantin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2zeudxXjuU

Right Here Waiting

“Yes, I know,” I tell her.

“How?” she asks, her eyes popping.

“Because you told Lois while she had a phone on her.”

“What? Were you listening to everything I said.”

“Someone on our side was. We had to know what the enemy knew.”

“Right. So are you… er… happy about it?”

“Happy? I was so fucking happy I broke down and cried when I read the transcript.”

Her big beautiful mouth stretches into the biggest grin known to mankind.

“I knew I couldn’t phone Lana Barrington so I wrote to her to plead with her to loan me some money to pay for Maddy’s procedure and start to secretly arrange it so it can be carried out right after I testify. I know it was really presumptuous of me to ask after only meeting her once, but I could tell she was kind hearted and your friend, and I was really, really desperate.”

“Yes, I know. She told me. Small change of plan with that one though,” I tell her.

She frowns. “Change of plan?”

“You can’t be the donor, Raine. You’re pregnant. I don’t want you to put your body through the stress that being a donor will bring. It is enough that you are trying to grow a child in your body.”

Her shoulders slump, but she doesn’t disagree.

“I know you really wanted to do it, but I think you’ve done enough for your sister, and everything is arranged. She will be admitted into hospital tomorrow”

“Tomorrow,” she says with a big sigh of relief.

“Yes, tomorrow,” I confirm. “Come on, let’s get out of this corridor and go home.”