Page 70 of Bought By the Ruthless Pakhan

After dropping him at the school gates, I headed back downtown. I'd neglected work these past days. My desk was probably buried under documents waiting for signatures.

When I got to the office, Dmitri had everything ready. Files stacked on the left side of the desk, sorted by urgency. A cup of hot coffee sat beside them, steam half-dissipated. He'd been waiting a while.

I sat behind the desk, opened the first file. Sergei's cleanup was in final stages. Just needed my signature, then profit distribution and personnel arrangements could proceed.

I gripped the pen, tip hovering over the signature line. Stopped.

The words lined up across the page, neat and clear, every clause spelled out plainly. But those words blurred before my eyes, like ink soaked in water, spreading, dissolving.

My head was full of Anna. That sliver of waist exposed when she wore her pajamas this morning. The way her hair fell when she bent to tie Alex's shoes. The way she bit her lip last night beneath me, trying to hold back her moans.

Every image vivid as film, playing on loop in my mind. Couldn't cut it. Couldn't shut it off.

I had to admit—my feelings for her were never small.

These five years hadn't dulled them. More like wine sealed too long. Pop the cork, and the taste hit all at once, thick enough to choke on. Now I just wanted to be with her constantly, make up for every hardship she'd endured.

The rest of this life was long. I could wait. Wait for her to come close again. Wait for her to accept me. We had a whole lifetime ahead.

I'd even started planning our future—once Sergei's business was wrapped up, I'd take her and Alex to Switzerland. Find a little cabin in the mountains, the kind where you open the window and see snow-capped peaks. Walk along the lake after dinner. Watch sunsets turn the mountaintops gold.

The future looked beautiful. I couldn't help smiling.

Then my private phone rang. Antonia's name flashed on the screen.

I frowned and answered.

"Sir, we have a problem." Antonia sounded flustered. "Your ex-wife Victoria is here. She's insisting on seeing Nadia."

Chapter Eighteen

Anna

I came to Ivan's place anyway.

I'd promised Nadia I wouldn't abandon her—that promise pulled me like an invisible thread across half the city, through those unnaturally quiet Upper East Side streets, right back to his door.

Before I could ring the bell, the door swung open. Someone had been waiting by the window.

Nadia was thrilled to see me. She dragged me to the desk and pointed at the tiny sunflower sprout pushing up from the soil—she and Ivan had planted it together, and when it bloomed, she wanted to give it to me. Her eyes sparkled like glass marbles dropped in clear water.

I crouched down and touched Nadia's soft hair. "Well, thank you."

Nadia grinned and dug her homework out of her backpack, spreading it across the desk.

I settled into the small chair beside her and flipped open her workbook, but my gaze kept drifting to that sunflower—the tiny shoot breaking through the dirt, two tender green leaves stilldotted with damp soil. Sunlight streamed through the window, catching the droplets and making them glitter.

Ivan saw through every one of my careful pretenses. He didn't call me out, didn't push, just stood where I could see him, watching my pathetic little charade. He never said a word, but just standing there made me feel like an open book, every page read cover to cover.

What was I supposed to do? Should I move? Disappear from his life all over again?

But I knew it wouldn't be easy. Moving away from here, switching schools for Alex, finding a new place, a new job, rebuilding everything—just thinking about the paperwork and forms made me exhausted.

Outside, warm sunlight fell on the tender green sprout, casting small, wavering shadows on the desk. I was staring at Nadia's open homework when the doorbell shattered the quiet.

"Anna, I'll get it." Nadia dropped her pencil and skipped toward the foyer.

I stayed put—didn't think much of it. At Ivan's place, visitors were usually business associates. The housekeeper would handle it.