“Megan, I—”
“Seriously, do you recover that quickly? I had hoped that maybe my mother was right, and you felt a little something for me. That’s why I drove down here at the ass-crack of dawn.” This time when she tried to heave herself off the sofa, she succeeded with an aha! She stomped to the door. “Screw the coffee.”
“Wait, can we discuss this? You’re overreacting.”
“Say it again.”
“What? You’re overreacting?”
“That was it.” She huffed past him and planted her palms against the door. Before she could manage to turn her wrist, he grunted and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I hate doing this. Hate it.” He picked her up and carried her, kicking, to that damned trampoline of a sofa where he dropped her unceremoniously onto her belly.
Before she could scramble up, he straddled her legs and pressed a palm between her shoulder blades, pinning her. “I don’t like manhandling ladies. Regardless of your behavior right now, I count you in that group.”
If Meg could have startled, she would have, but she was pressed too tight against the plaid. “Did you just make a joke?”
“I guess. Up to you to decide how funny it is. Finish what you were saying before the coffee.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She sighed, feeling her reserve crumbling. “What difference does it make?”
“More than you know. You’ll feel better once you get it off your chest.”
“You think that or you know?”
“I hope.”
Fair enough. “Let me up, Sergei.”
“Are you going to run screaming like a headless chicken?”
“I—wait.” She furrowed her brow. “You just mixed a couple of idioms there, sweetie, but no, I’m not going to run.” Yet.
Slowly, he let her up.
She backed into the corner of the sofa and pulled her legs against her chest.
He picked up his coffee cup and sipped. “Tell me.”
“Okay, since I really have nothing to lose at this point. I think sometimes we have a bit of a language barrier, and it’s not just the English-Russian thing. I’ll get right to the point.”
He had the good grace to set his coffee down.
“Would you like to go out with me?”
That didn’t seem to be what he was expecting. “What?”
“Go out with me. Like, date. Be my boyfriend.”
“I understand the words you’re saying, but perhaps not in the correct context.”
God, he was going to make it hard for her. Maybe she deserved it. “Do you like me, Sergei?”
“Of course I do. More than like you. I think you know that.” He batted her uncombed hair out of her eyes and leaned down to meet them with his gaze. His smile was tentative.
Heat rose from her heart to her hairline, and she stared down at her shoes. “Toby idolizes you. He doesn’t even understand what it is you do for a living, but he wants to do it, too.”
“He’s a great kid. I meant what I said, Megan. I wouldn’t mind if people made assumptions about me being his father. Whatever he needs, you tell me, and I’ll make sure he gets it.”
“I know you will, but that’s not your job. But we’re getting off track here. What I came down here to tell you was that I don’t want an annulment. Not yet, or ever, if this works out. I want to try. Really try. But, you’re leaving.” She laughed, but it was bitter.
“Megan…” He blew out a breath and pulled her close, resting his chin atop her head. “Like I said, you were overreacting. Those papers are from June.”
“June?”
“I take it you didn’t read the date.”
“No.”
“June. Before we got married.”
“Wait.” She swatted him away and put some space between them. “You’d have to be an idiot to turn down a job offer like that. Why?”
He raised his shoulders and reached for both coffee mugs. He extended the second one to her, and she took it, glad to have something in her hands.
“It was a lateral move, really. I was only considering it because it’d be a new experience. New facility. Pay’s about the same, with a slight cost of living adjustment.”
She whistled low. “Lot of digits in that offer.”
He wriggled his brows behind his coffee cup. “I have a unique skill set and Russian citizenship. The company pays me well to keep me and my American education in the United States.”
“You make about four times what I do, and here I was worrying about you starving to death.”
“Told you. I eat well.”
He didn’t hear his unintentional double entendre, and she gave herself a mental pat on the back for not saying, “Yes, you do.” Instead, she hedged with, “We need to do something about your bogus citizenship. You’ve got an American wife. Putative American kid.”