But first, Dom pulls me away from everyone else so he can wrap me up in his arms and kiss me more.
“You know I wanted to marry you before I knew about the baby,” he says.
“So did I,” I tell him.
“When did you know that you wanted to marry me?”
I pretend to think about it.
“It must have been when you took off all your clothes in that figure drawing class,” I tell him. “That’s what convinced me.”
Dom laughs.
“I don’t care how I got you,” he says. “I only care that I keep you forever.”
He slides his hand down my waist to cradle my belly.
“That goes for both of you,” he says.
“What are we going to name this baby?” I ask him.
“I was thinking . . . Ruslan the Second,” he says.
“Better keep brainstorming.”
“We’ve got plenty of time.”
“Hey!” Sloane shouts from the other side of the chapel, “Where’s the music? Ivan wants to dance!”
In response, Ivan tries to seize her and throw her over his shoulder, but she neatly slips his grip and gives him a smack on the rump. I can’t imagine that anyone else has ever done that and lived to talk about it.
“Do you think they’ll ever have kids?” I ask Dom.
“It’s hard to imagine,” he says, shaking his head. “We may be the only hope for this line of Petrovs.”
That’s true of the Kazarians, too. But my baby will never be a Kazarian. No more than I ever will be again.
29
Dom
Four Months Later
I never knew a pregnant woman could be so beautiful.
I haven’t seen many, I’ll admit—only in passing on the street or in restaurants. Then I only thought they looked uncomfortable.
I never imagined a girl laying on my bed with her feet in my lap, her back propped up by an elaborate construction of pillows, her cheeks glowing with color, her hair thicker and shinier than ever.
This girl is my wife, and my love for her is so powerful and overwhelming that it’s almost painful. If I think about it too long, it terrifies me. And if I forget to think about it, then I wonder why I’m in such a good mood, when nothing’s even happened yet that day.
I think it’s because I wake up with her head on my shoulder, with the smell of her shampoo in the air.
And when I rub her feet, like I’m doing now, she reads me bits of the novel she’s holding, and asks me questions like, “Would you ever go skydiving?” and “What’s the most embarrassing thing you ever did?”
“I’m not going to tell you that,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s awful. If I even think about it, I have to shake my head really hard and maybe even slap myself.”
“Now you have to tell me,” she says, setting down her book.
I sigh.
“I was a kid. My father took me to a restaurant. A small one, but one of those places where you know the owner and lots of the people at the other tables. Ivan was there too, but not my mother. We all sat down and ordered, then I realized I had to pee. So I went into the bathroom. I was the only one in there, and it was sort of echoey. So I started singing. And not quietly. I was really belting it out.”
“What song?” Lara says.
“Tantsy. You remember that one?”
“Yes,” she laughs.
“So, I’m singing it as loud as I can, and it sounds amazing in there. Really epic. I’m singing my heart out. And, of course, I think it’s contained within the bathroom. So I finish peeing, wash my hands, and come out. And the whole restaurant is silent. Not a waiter or anyone speaking a word. It’s weird. So I go sit down at the table again, and my father turns to me with this baffled expression on his face. He says, ‘What in the hell was that?’ And I say, ‘What?’ And he has to explain to me that every single person in that restaurant heard every word of my song.”
Lara is giggling so hard that she’s snorting through her fingers.
“Does Ivan remember that?” she says.
“Of course he does.”
“Does he tease you about it?”
“No, because if he did, I’d stab him. Same goes for you, by the way.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“No,” I admit. “But I’d pout about it, so don’t do it.”
Lara hauls herself up off the pillows so she can kiss me.
“I’ll keep your secret safe,” she promises me.
Her belly is fully round now.
I’ve bought her all kinds of maternity clothes, but she likes to wear those oversized t-shirts I got her so many months ago. She likes to wear my shirts too, and nothing else under them on days like this when it’s too hot. It’s September now, but it still feels like summer, especially up in the attic.
“Oh,” she says. “He’s kicking again.”
She grabs my hand and lays my palm in the right spot, so I can feel the little foot fiercely beating against the walls of his prison cell.
“He wants out,” I tell Lara.
“Not yet,” she says.
We won’t be meeting our son for another two months.
I’m impatient. And yet I’m loving every minute of this. The fact that Lara is carrying my child makes her immeasurably precious to me. It’s the greatest gift that anyone has ever given me.
In return, I want to do everything I can to take care of her. Get her any food she might be craving, take her any place she wants to go, help relieve the pain in her feet and back and shoulders.
Far from getting sick of each other now that we’re living together, I only want to spend more time with her. I dislike when I have to be gone too long working with Ivan or any of the other men.
Lara doesn’t mind too much—I’ve made her a little art studio in one of the rooms close to ours on the upper level. I enlarged the window so she has plenty of light, and I bought her every sort of supplies we could lay hands on in St. Petersburg.
Maybe inspired by some of the old paintings in the monastery, she’s started working in oils. For the last month she’s been laboring away on a large canvas that she says will go in the baby’s room. It’s a huge jungle scene, with a tiger hiding in the shadows next to a river.
I’ve been working on a project too—a crib for our son. I’ve been building it out of pale, smooth ash. I sand the wood again and again, to be certain there isn’t a single splinter anywhere. When I’m finished, Lara will stain it, and we’ll put it next to our bed until the baby’s old enough to move to the nursery.
I’m building the crib in Lara’s studio because I like to work in the same room as her. I moved the turntable in there so we can play music. Lara sings along while she paints, and sometimes I make her dance with me, though I can’t hold her as close because of the belly in the way.
I know she’s happy with me. But I also know she reads the Moscow news every day. As her father’s trial gets closer, she becomes more and more agitated.
So I’m not entirely surprised when she sits me down one night and says, “I have to talk to you about something.”