“Yes, she did.” He smiles again, and I hide my discomfort by drinking more wine. I don’t know why picturing him with this “beautiful young woman” bothers me, but it does, and it’s all I can do to listen calmly as he says, “I didn’t turn her down, naturally. No straight man would. She was shy and relatively inexperienced but not a virgin, and when we left in the morning, I promised to swing by the village on the way back. Which I did, two months later, only to learn that she was pregnant with my child.”
I blink. “You didn’t use protection?”
“I did—the first time. The second time, I was asleep when she started rubbing against me, and by the time I woke up fully, I was inside her and too far gone to remember the condom.”
My mouth drops open. “She got pregnant on purpose?”
He shrugs. “She claimed she didn’t, but I suspect otherwise. She lived in a conservative Muslim village, and she’d had a lover before me. She never told me who he was, but if she’d gone through with the marriage to the elder—or if she’d turned him down and married someone else from her village—she could’ve been publicly exposed and cast out by her husband. A non-Muslim foreigner like me was her best bet at avoiding that fate, and she seized the opportunity when she saw it. It’s admirable, really. She took a risk, and it paid off.”
“Because you married her.”
He nods. “I did—after the paternity test confirmed her claim.”
“That’s… very noble of you.” I feel inexplicably relieved that he didn’t fall head over heels for this girl. “Not many men would’ve been willing to marry a woman they didn’t love for the sake of the child.”
Peter shrugs again. “I didn’t want my son exposed to ridicule or growing up without a father, and marrying his mother was the best way to ensure that. Besides, I grew to care for Tamila after my son was born.”
“I see.” Jealousy bites at me again. To distract myself, I drain my second glass of wine and grab the bottle to pour myself more. “So she trapped you, but it worked out.” My palms are sweaty, and the bottle almost slips out of my hand, the wine splashing into my glass with such force that some liquid spills over the rim.
“Thirsty?” Peter’s gray eyes gleam with amusement as he reaches over to take the bottle from me. “Maybe I should get you some water or tea instead?”
I vehemently shake my head, then realize the motion made the room spin a little. He might be right; I haven’t had much to eat, and I should probably slow down on the wine. Except my anxiety is melting away with each sip, and it feels too good to stop.
“I’m fine,” I say, picking up my glass again. I might regret this at work tomorrow, but I need the warm buzz the alcohol brings. “So you grew to care for Tamila. And she continued living in that village?”
“Yes.” His face tightens; we must be getting close to the painful memories. Confirming my suspicion, he says roughly, “I figured she and Pasha—that’s what we named my son—would be safer there. She wanted to live with me in my apartment in Moscow, but I was always traveling for work, and I didn’t want to leave her in an unfamiliar city on her own. I promised I’d take her to Moscow for a visit when Pasha was older, but until then, I thought it would be better if she stayed close to her family, and my son grew up breathing fresh mountain air instead of city smog.”
The mouthful of wine I swallowed burns though my tightening throat. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, putting down my glass. And I am sorry for him. I despise Peter for what he’s doing to me, but my heart still aches for his pain, for the loss that led him down this dark path. I can only imagine the guilt and agony he must be feeling, knowing that he inadvertently made the wrong choices, that his desire to protect his family led to their demise.
It’s something I can relate to, having killed my own husband not once, but twice.
Peter nods, acknowledging my words, then gets up to clear off the table. I keep drinking my wine as he loads the dishes into the dishwasher, and the warm buzz in my veins intensifies, the candles in front of me attracting my attention with the hypnotic flickering of the flames.
“Let’s go to bed,” he says, and I look up to see him drying his hands with the kitchen towel. I must’ve zoned off for a bit, watching the candles. That, or he’s insanely fast with his cleanup. Most likely, though, I zoned off—which means I’m more buzzed than I thought.
“Bed?” I force myself to focus as he comes up to me and clasps my wrist, pulling me to my feet. Despite the wine-induced softness around the edges of my vision, I remember the reason I was upset, and as he tugs me toward the stairs, the tightness in my stomach returns, my pulse picking up pace. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”