Once again, not exactly the most romantic thing she had ever heard, but considering the situation, maybe it was time for her to give up on her old notions of romantic love.
She went over her list of the classic signs of abuse and was surprised to find that though Nikolai’s offer was unorthodox, it wasn’t exactly abusive.
Still, she tested the water to make sure.
“Marco,” she said, floating the name like a toy boat into their conversation.
His face hardened. “What about him.”
“If I marry you, would you use whatever connections you have at Indy PD to put him back on his regular rotation?”
“Why?” he asked, his voice hard with suspicion.
“Because Marco doesn’t deserve to lose his beat, that’s why,” she answered.
Nikolai’s jaw set. “I do not want you with someone else while pregnant with my baby.”
She shook her head. “This is none of your business, but just to cut this line of argument short, Marco isn’t my boyfriend. In fact it’s fair to say he never was. We went on a few dates, but we never slept together. And quite frankly, I don’t ever want to sleep with him.” She told him like she’d told Marco, “We weren’t a good match.”
Nikolai’s eyes ran over her face as if trying to gauge whether she was telling to truth or not, and Sam released an annoyed sigh. “I don’t think this arrangement is going to work if you can’t take me at my word on things—”
“I believe you,” he suddenly said, voice grim as a storm cloud.
Sam eyed him suspiciously. “And you’ll make sure he gets put back on his rotation?”
Something ticked in Nikolai’s jaw, like she was making a very large ask, but nonetheless he said, “Da.” Then he asked, “We have deal?”
Sam eyed him nervously. She needed a reason to say no, but try as she might, the more she mulled it over, the more sense Nikolai’s proposal made. She’d get to be a mother to both Pavel and the baby inside of her, and she already knew Nikolai’s M.O. It wasn’t like he’d be interfering much with how she raised the children. Her children. A tentative hope sprang up in her heart. This really could be the most reasonable solution to their current situation.
Only one question remained. One that made her hold her breath as she asked it. “This marriage of convenience? What exactly would it look like?”
A confused look from Nikolai.
And she tried again. “Like what would you expect of me other than providing Pavel and this baby with a loving upbringing?”
His eyes flared, a certain heat appearing in their green depths without warning. “I want you as real wife in my bed,” he answered, bald and to the point. “If this is your question, that is my answer.”
Sam’s throat went dry at the thought of sharing Nikolai’s bed, not just for a night, but into the foreseeable future. She stirred down below, her breasts going impossibly heavy as her traitorous body became aroused at the thought of occupying the bed of a man who was basically blackmailing her into marriage.
“And what if I don’t want to be with you that way?” she managed to push out past the dry desert her throat had become.
He leveled her with a piercing stare and asked, “You do not want me that way? As husband in our bed?”
“No.” She forced the lie through her lips as quickly as possible. Because even if it wasn’t the truth, it should have been, and it would be—as soon as she got her treasonous body on board.
His eyes shuttered. “If you don’t want me, fine. We will sleep in same room, like husband and wife. But I will not touch you, unless you want me to…”
Sam clenched down below at the thought of his hands on her in an intimate way again. And she couldn’t help but think of the way he’d driven himself into her their one fateful time, making her explode with pleasure.
“…I can be gentleman,” he finished, bringing her back to the here and now. Where she’d just finished throwing up and shouldn’t even be thinking about sex with a man who was asking her to pledge her life to him, to sleep in the same room with him, not because he had feelings for her, but because he wanted a certain kind of set up for their unborn child and his current ward.
“Do you feel better?” he asked her.
She blinked, “What?”
He nodded towards the hand towel still resting on the back of her neck. “Are you sick still?”
“No,” she answered. Actually her nausea had completely disappeared. “I feel fine now.”
He nodded as if her stomach had simply obeyed one of his commands. “You will take day off. Rest,” he instructed.
But she shook her head. “No, we’re expecting a big shipment and we’re at capacity right now, so I want to make sure it all gets put away so we have everything we need when we need it. And our security guard gave me his two-weeks notice a few days ago, so I have to start actively looking for a replacement.”
She waited for him to tell her she couldn’t go to work. She found herself wanting an excuse to go back to actively disliking him. Something clear she could grasp onto like a controlling behavior or some sign that he’d become emotionally or physically abusive in the long run.
But instead he once again averted his eyes, before asking, “You really don’t want me?” The question was quiet… embarrassed.
And the vulnerable note in his voice sent her head into a complete spin. Her common sense and her gut warring over every psychological detail of her true heart’s answer. In the end, she opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
And apparently that was answer enough.
He stood in one abrupt movement and said, “I go on road tomorrow. You will give me your answer by time I get back Sunday night.”
Then he walked out, leaving her behind, stunned and still unable to answer his question. Even in her own mind.
25
“You did WHAT?!?!”
Sam winced. She wondered if this was going to be a trend on phone calls with Josie from now on. Her casually dropping a bomb. Josie screaming at her to repeat herself.
“I decided to marry the hockey player.”
“The one who doesn’t believe in love?”
“Yeah, that one…” Sam said.
“I’m assuming you have a good reason for this sudden decision.”
“Several actually,” Sam answered. “Pavel, and… well, um… I’m pregnant with his baby.”