‘Stay still,’ Alina said. ‘I don’t usually paint people.’
‘I’m bored,’ he said, flicking through his tablet.
‘You’re not.’
‘I am and I have a surprise for you...’
‘I don’t want a surprise.’ Alina smiled. ‘I want to be bored.’
‘That I can’t do.’ He leant over and handed his tablet to her.
Alina stared for a very long moment. There was the princess who had been through their home and she was wearing a dress that Alina would recognise anywhere—not the dress itself but the fabric. The swirls and swirls of poppies she had painted on silk, which was now being worn by royalty.
‘Demyan...’ She was embarrassed, cross about his meddling but excited too. ‘I told you not to interfere, I don’t want your help...’
‘Alina, I messed them around when I withdrew our home. Of course I had to apologise. I sent some fabric by the artist that the princess had said she liked. Do you think she had it made into a dress to appease me?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think, if she did not love it, that at best I would have got a polite letter thanking me for her gift?’
‘I guess.’
‘Clearly, she loves your work. Clearly, because I received a very nice response last night, suggesting I look at the news.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me.’
‘You wanted to add to your shoe collection,’ Demyan said, watching as Alina still stared at the screen, looking at the poppies and remembering the love she had felt as she’d painted.
‘When I did this piece I was thinking if it was a girl to call her Poppy.’
‘You know what you can do with that thought.’
‘It’s a lovely name.’
‘Poppy Zukov is a stripper’s name.’
Alina laughed but then she was serious. ‘Can we sort out names or is that bad luck?’ There were fewer superstitions these days but plenty of traditions, and they were also making their own, and she wanted their baby named on their honeymoon.
‘We can,’ Demyan said, ‘though we will probably change our minds when it is here.’
‘Do you still want a girl?’
‘If I had enough energy,’ Demyan sighed, ‘I would get up from this day bed and smash my head against the wall. I said that I wanted a girl once. When we were discussing Roman I said that maybe if it was a girl it might be easier, especially if the results were not the news we wanted. That problem is gone.’
The tests were in. Demyan was Roman’s father, in every way possible. The new baby, if it was a boy, would be Demyan’s second son.
‘I said that,’ he attempted again to clarify his words, ‘just because it might be easier on Roman. I don’t care what we have.’ He stroked her stomach. ‘I just want him or her to be here.’
There was an advantage to being a second wife that Alina thought of then—you knew the sort of father that you were getting for your child.