It feels a lot like baring my throat to a beautiful, wild wolf.
“My son is asking if you know about Spider-Man,” he says after a tension-filled moment. “I assume the answer is yes.”
With effort, I tear my gaze away from him and focus on the boy. “Yes, I know about Spider-Man,” I say, smiling. “I loved Spider-Man when I was your age. Also Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman and Aquaman.”
The child’s face brightens more with every superhero I name, and when I get to Aquaman, a mischievous grin appears on his face. “Aquaman?” He wrinkles his small nose. “Nyet, nye Aquaman.”
“No Aquaman?” I widen my eyes exaggeratedly. “Why not? What’s wrong with Aquaman?”
That draws a giggle. “Nye Aquaman.”
“Okay, you win. Not Aquaman.” I let out a sad sigh. “Poor Aquaman. So few kids like him.”
The boy giggles again and runs over to a pile of comic books next to the bed. Grabbing one, he brings it back and points at the picture on the front. “Superman samiy sil’niy,” he declares.
“Superman is the best?” I guess. “Your favorite?”
“He said he’s the strongest,” Nikolai says evenly, then switches over to Russian, his voice taking on the same commanding tone.
The boy’s face falls, and he lowers the book, his posture dejected.
“Let’s go back to my office,” Nikolai says to me, and without another word to his son, he heads for the door.
5
Nikolai
As I step out of the room, I can hear her saying goodbye to my son, her voice sweet and bright, and the painful thudding in my chest intensifies, anger mixing with the strongest lust I’ve ever felt.
Six months.
Six months, and I haven’t gotten so much as a smile out of the boy. Alina has, though, and now so has this girl, this total stranger.
Slava laughed with her.
He showed her his favorite book.
He let her touch his shirt.
And the entire time I watched her with my son, all I could think about was how she’d look spread out naked underneath me, her sun-streaked hair freed from the tight bun confining it and her big brown eyes trained on me as I bury myself in her silky flesh, over and over again.
If I needed further proof that I’m unfit to be a father, here it is, in spades.
“Sit, please,” I tell Chloe when we’re back in my office. Despite my best efforts, my voice is tight, the roiling cauldron of emotions inside me too powerful to be contained. I want to grab the girl and fuck her on the spot, and at the same time, I want to shake her and demand she tell me how she worked her magic on Slava so quickly… why my son responded to her within minutes while I’ve been unable to get more than a few words out of him for months.
She sits down in the same chair as before, perching on the edge of the seat as delicately as a butterfly on a flower. Her eyes are locked inquisitively on my face, her expression perfectly composed, and if not for her small hands knotting together on the table, I would’ve thought she’s as cool as she appears. But she’s nervous, this pretty mystery of a girl, nervous and more than a little desperate.
I don’t know why that is, but I’m going to find out.
“What did you think of my son?” I ask, my tone smoothing out as I lean back in my chair. Now that we’re away from Slava, the strange tightness I often get in my ribcage around him is easing, the irrational anger and jealousy fading until it’s only a faint pulse at the back of my mind.
So what if the boy likes this stranger better?
That means she might actually be able to do the job I’m about to hire her for.
I don’t know when exactly I reached this decision, at what point I decided my fascination with Chloe Emmons justifies the danger she might pose to my family. Maybe it was when she was glibly lying about why she stopped using social media, or as she was fearlessly holding my gaze after vowing to devote herself to the job. Or maybe it was when I came out of the house and those soft brown eyes landed on me for the first time, making every hair on my body stand on end with scorching awareness.
Attraction is too weak a word to describe the pull I feel toward her. My hands are literally twitching with the urge to touch her, to trail my fingers over her finely molded jaw and see if her bronzed skin is as baby soft as it appears. In pictures, she was bright and pretty, her radiance shining off the page. In person, she’s all that and more, her smile full of unselfconscious warmth, her unflinching gaze speaking of both vulnerability and strength.