Instead of barging in as is my first instinct, I knock lightly on the door and push it open. The room is dark, and Evangeline is reclined on a hospital bed, her eyes closed as she snores lightly. Losev turns from his chair by the window. In his arms is a tiny bundle. He looks pleasantly surprised when he sees me—probably the only person in the world ever remotely happy to see me.
“I didn’t think to see you here,” he says.
Refusing to admit my selfish motivations, I quietly close the door behind me and cross the room, peering down at the small, red, scrunched face. “Who’s this, then?”
“Andrej, meet Katina.” He tilts her up a tiny bit. Her eyes blink open and she stares at me almost curiously.
“Hm,” I grunt.
“We’ll call her Kat.”
“Cat? Like pussy cat?” I smirk.
Before Losev can retort, a stern voice comes from the bed. “Andrej, watch your fucking mouth around my daughter.”
I turn and see Evangeline glaring at me. “Well, you look like shit.”
She eyes me up and down. “You don’t look much better and you didn’t just push a watermelon out of your vagina.”
When I can’t help but smile, I realize that the savage woman is growing on me. I’m really turning into a sap, and it has to be all Valya’s doing.
“You two haven’t seen Valya, have you?” I ask, trying to be casual about it.
“Not today, but I know she’s consulting on the Turgenev Building on Friday,” Losev says, but he quickly snaps his mouth shut when Evangeline turns her glare on him.
At least it’s something. I pretend to be interested in the baby for a few more minutes, refusing unequivocally to hold her, and then make my escape. Instead of going to the Club to drown my sorrows, I go straight home and climb into bed, feeling like a broken man, but I’m finally ready to pick up the pieces.
Chapter Twelve
Valya
The building manager of the Turgenev Building, Mr. Moss, is an old, kind man not unlike my father, so he and I hit it off almost immediately. Even still, I don’t let myself get too comfortable. As we sit in his office, I maintain my professional composure and rattle off all the ways Valor Cleaning Services can help improve the space.
It doesn’t matter what’s going on in my personal life, I won’t let it affect my business. It doesn’t matter that Andrej has delivered a fresh blow, courtesy of Evangeline that morning. My phone rang while I was on my way to this meeting, in fact.
“Evangeline?” I answered. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, resting?”
She laughed good-naturedly. “Baby Kat is nursing. This will be quick. I have to give you some bad news.”
My heart sank, knowing automatically what it was. So not only did I cut Andrej out of my life, but now the Oakwood Club was cutting me out.
Evangeline confirmed that I didn’t get in. “I’m so sorry. If Losev or I had been there, it would have been an easy sell.”
“What about Andrej?” I asked.
She was quiet for a moment before saying, “He walked out while they were reviewing your application.”
God, what was that, strike one thousand and something?
So, despite the fact that I hadn’t been in the best mood when I walked into the Turgenev Building that morning, I put my personal feelings aside and blew this interview out of the water.
Now, Mr. Moss flips through my bid and smiles. “Everything seems to be in order. We’ll review this and get back in touch with the final arrangements.”
My heart soars as we stand and shake hands. Finally, some good news.
We exit his office, still talking about some of the finer details of the contract, when a shout reaches me. I look up through the glass doors dividing the office area from the reception, and freeze at the sight of Andrej running through the lobby.
My traitorous heart stutters at the sight of him, but as he comes closer, I see that he looks disheveled, which is strange. He never looks anything less than put together. A security guard who I noticed sitting behind the front desk when I came in is chasing him. What the hell is going on? Has he lost his mind?
Taking a few steps ahead of Mr. Moss, I throw open the glass door just as Andrej reaches it and practically slides to his knees.
“Valya, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” He takes my hand as I stare down at him, dumbfounded. “I’ve been such a fucking idiot.”
I shake my hand free and say the meanest thing I can think of. “Still are, by the looks of it.”
“God, Valya.” He shakes his head dejectedly, drunkenly. “I love you. You’re too good for me. I know you are. But I love you so much that I can’t…I don’t know how to function without you. I thought I did. I thought I was fine, for years. I had no idea—”
The security guard yanks him up by the shoulders. “Let’s go, buddy.”
Andrej struggles, and as he moves, I catch a whiff of liquor on his breath. He’s wasted, and he just crashed one of the most important meetings I’ve ever had.
I turn back to Mr. Moss as the security guard literally drags Andrej away. “Mr. Moss,” I start.
The man’s mouth is set in a stern line. “Are things like this a regular occurrence, Ms. Strakova?”
I shake my head. “No, no, God, no,” I stutter. If only he knew exactly how rare it is for Andrej to seek me out, let alone confess to having any feelings whatsoever. This has to be a trick. I’m angry and humiliated. Not only did he keep me from getting into the Club, not only did he force me to withdraw from the job at the estate, but now he’s messing with future business, too.
Mr. Moss looks at me, smoothing down the front of his suit jacket as if he were the one just mauled by a drunkard. “We’ll forget this happened, then. We’ll be in touch.”
As I leave him behind his glass doors and make my way out to the lobby, I hope against hope that he meant it. I can’t help but feel like he said that just to get me out of his office.
Outside, I turn to my car, which is parked just around the corner, and see Andrej leaning against the driver’s side door. For a brief moment, I consider turning and running the other way, but I’ve never run from him before and I’m not about to start now.
He scowls at me when I approach. “I looked for you everywhere,” he says. “Where have you been?”
I scoff, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing. It’s one thing to be an asshole because you’ve been hurt, but something else entirely to have absolutely no regard for someone and drag them down with you. I click the button on my car to unlock the door, but he doesn’t take the hint.
“That’s how it is then?” he asks. “I confess my love for you and you just…what? Ignore me? Do you even hear me?”
“Do you hear yourself?” I snap, my voice rising. “You this, and you that. It was all about you. What about me?” I point to my own chest. “Do you ever stop to think about me? Not me in relation to you and how I make you feel. Just. Me.”
He doesn’t respond. His midnight blue eyes are rimmed with red as he stares back at me from behind his unfeeling mask.
Maybe I am madly in love with him. Maybe when he touches me, I feel alive and whole. But my dad is right. It’s time for him to shoulder his own pain for once. I shake my head, and even though it breaks my heart, I say what I should have said a long, long time ago. “Leave me alone, Andrej.”