His Pregnant Christmas Bride(29)
“I can, if you let me.” Then, as if he heard his own words, he backpedaled. “But I promise I will pull back as much and as far as will make you comfortable.”
“You’re still making this all about me.”
“It is all about you.”
“No, it isn’t, Ivan. There are two of us here. I suffered an ordeal, and you helped me through it. You were the only one I wanted help from. But time passed and my needs have changed and I no longer need that kind of help.”
All light in his gaze was extinguished, making the ache she felt perpetually in her right side throb harder.
“Is this what you wanted to say to me? That you no longer want to be here?”
Her insides knotted tighter at the bleakness in his eyes, his voice. “I no longer want what you think is best for me. I want you to start considering yourself again.”
“I am very much considering myself.”
“No, you’re not. And it’s enough, Ivan. You’ve gone way beyond what I dreamed anyone could do for me. Now it’s time for you to be with those you really want to be with.”
His hands clenched at his sides, his whole body tensing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Y-you know what I mean.”
Suddenly something scary unfurled in the depths of his gaze. “This is about what Popov said to you, isn’t it?” When her gaze wavered, unable to bear the brunt of his incensed one, he rasped, “Hell, Anastasia, just tell me what he said.” When she hesitated, his eyes grew beseeching. “It was clearly about me and I have the right to know what it is, if only to tell you my side of it, whatever it is. I already promised you I wouldn’t retaliate.”
Knowing there was no way she could still hold out now that he’d put it that way, she reluctantly, haltingly told him.
“It was silly to react that way, but it did remind me that this artificial bubble you’ve created for me has nothing to do with your real life. You’ve interrupted it to come to my rescue, to stay by my side. But you now have to go back to your...”
She faltered as that terrifying thing in his eyes expanded, like a dragon unfolding its wings and preparing to spew fire.
It was more frightening that he sounded totally calm when he said, “That miserable piece of scum. I’ll make him pay for that.”
That had her pouncing on him, grabbing his arms in alarm. “No, Ivan, you promised.”
His face looked again as demonic as it had when he’d been defending her and Alex, vanquishing their attackers. He gently unhooked her spastic fingers from his flesh, pulled away. “If I’d suspected he’d told you anything like that, I wouldn’t have promised to spare him. This changes everything.”
“No, Ivan, just let him be. It’s not like he was trying to stir up trouble. What he said was the vodka talking. But then it’s only expected for a man like you to have—” unable to say the word mistresses again, she just shrugged, her shoulders so taut they almost cramped “—you know.”
That seemed to pour fuel on his terribly calm, and more terrifying for it, wrath. “A man like me? Do you or Popov or anyone else even think you know what kind of man I am? And it’s only expected that I have mistresses? In the plural? At once? Do you think I have them all lurking around, on hold, while I play house with you? Or maybe I put you in bed at night and go make the rounds of my stable of kept women? Or worse, I have a harem all in one place as Popov suggested, to observe my convenience?”
“That isn’t what I thought, Ivan, what upset—”
Her words choked off. Though there was much she didn’t know about him, there were some things she was sure of. Beyond knowing that he had his own brand of unwavering integrity, he had this aloofness, this fastidiousness about him. What he’d just suggested, what translated Mikhail’s comment in jarring detail, couldn’t have any basis in fact.
She kept staring at him helplessly. Before she found the words to tell him her conclusion now, to beg his forgiveness for jumping to the wrong one before, Ivan’s simmering gaze cooled down until self-reproach took over his expression.
“I’m sorry I overreacted.” Though his voice remained as calm as before, it was now devoid of that dangerous viciousness, filling instead with entreaty. As she felt horrible that he was the one apologizing he made it even worse by adding, “I’ll give Popov and his partners an in-depth interview to make up for the way I behaved tonight.”
“That’s great.” She breathed in relief, glad for them, though it only made her more chagrined at how she’d behaved, how this had developed. “But I’m the one who overreacted, Ivan—”