At her prolonged silence, he exhaled. “Did you only run out of arguments, but still believe in my deceit?”
Grimacing at how unreasonable she must have sounded, she sighed. “No, I believe you. But even if your calls only made a difference in timing, that’s still a big thing. I would have been beside myself with worry if we left without hearing back from them. And because of your calls I learned something I wouldn’t have on my own. People find it hard to say their opinions to someone’s face, even if it’s glowing praise. Or especially when it is. It’s good to know I’m in such universal favor.”
A relieved smile dawned on his heartbreakingly handsome face. “Which isn’t a favor at all, but your due.” He sat up, eagerness entering his pose. “And now that you realize your power, I’ll counsel you on how to exercise it more effectively, to your benefit and that of the whole industry.”
Her first instinct was to decline his offer. Then her mind did a one-eighty.
Why refuse? What made more sense than for her to accept the advantages of his invaluable insight and enormous experience, when it would be for everyone’s benefit?
Suddenly, what she’d thought would never come to pass happened. She exchanged a smile with him, devoid of tension and shadows. Then the door to the bedroom opened.
Tousled and half-asleep on her feet, Despina stood in the door, carrying a very awake Eva and Zoya.
Leonid pushed to his feet before she could, his delight at seeing the girls blatant and unreserved. Their equal glee at finding him again manifested in excited shrieks as both of them flung themselves into his open arms.
Resigned that she was the old news they’d forgo until Leonid’s novelty wore off, Kassandra sighed. “Sorry, Kyria Despina. I really thought they’d sleep through the night since they haven’t woken up the past few days. Wonder if they’re back to their habit, or if it’s only today’s different pattern and strange cribs that roused them.”
“Why do you think they wake up?” Leonid asked.
“They seemed to hate letting go of all the fun they were having before they sleep, wanting a few more hugs or another song or anything they were enjoying before they turned off.”
Squeezing the girls tighter into his chest until their squeals became piercing, he laughed...laughed. “And there’s plenty more of all of those things for moy zvezdochky.”
His starlets. This was his favorite endearment for them already. His morning and evening stars.
He used to have endearments for her, too. Mostly while in the throes of pleasure. Moya dorogaya krasavista...moya zolotoya krasota... My beautiful darling...my golden beauty.
She would never hear them from him again.
Now all his attention was diverted to the girls, and he looked as if he’d been given an unexpected second chance at something irreplaceable. Then he grimaced, turning his gaze to Despina.
“Kyria Despina, please go back to sleep. We’ll keep them with us if they fall asleep again, so as not to disturb you.”
Shaking off her dimming mood, Kassandra had to intervene. “Uh, I actually never let them wake up to find themselves outside their cribs. They’re notorious for picking up bad habits once I break a pattern and it’s a struggle going back to any sort of order.”
Nodding his deference to her decree at once, he strode toward Despina. “Let me take you to another bedroom. I’m sorry to move you, but from now on your sleep will be uninterrupted when the twins wake up at night.”
Despina rushed beside him, assuring him she didn’t mind at all, her cheeks flushed by the pleasure of having a royal god like Leonid fussing over her.
Within moments, Leonid marched back with the girls, one straddling his shoulders, the other his waist. They babbled as he cooed to them. “Papa” was repeated profusely as both swamped him in hugs and kisses, with him looking utterly blissful as he reciprocated.
They looked agonizingly beautiful together.
But that agony dissipated as they joined her, and she was infected by their gaiety and pleasure at being together.
An hour later, long after they should have gone back to sleep, as they all sat playing in the sandbox that had been ingeniously hidden until Leonid had unveiled it, the toddlers started gnawing their fists and drooling.
Concern coated Leonid’s magnificent face as they both rushed to clean the twins’ hands, even if what passed for sand was totally safe. He looked at her. “They’re in the molar eruption phase now, right?”
She was impressed. “Give the new daddy a star. You’ve done your homework, I see.”
“Of course. But since they didn’t display any of the usual signs of teething before, I almost forgot about it.”
“Well, health-wise, the girls have been a dream. Even teething has been progressing without signs of discomfort.”
“But they’re almost gnawing their little hands off and drooling up a storm!”
She chuckled at his growing agitation, content to be the wise, experienced parent who kept a cool head. “Don’t ask me why, but it’s their current method of letting me know they’re hungry. No, let me correct that. Starving.”
His eyes lit up in relief. “Of course they are. I thought they ate so much less than usual during their dinner.”
“They were too excited with all the preparations to eat.”
“And it turned out to be the best thing they did. So they’d wake up and play with their papa, and let him feed them their first Zoryan meal. I’m ordering you a feast!”
His enthusiasm widened her grin as he reached for the panel in his chair. He’d explained he’d given that jet to Zorya, not the other way around, to be the monarch’s jet, long before he knew it would be him.
Though she’d thought she wasn’t hungry, by the time he opened the door to waiters holding trays high, her stomach rumbled. Loudly. The food aromas were distressingly delicious, and even the fussy girls were smacking their lips.
Grinning at their demonstration of hunger, he rose, held his hand down to her. She took it, but along with her own upward momentum, she ended up falling against him. For a moment, it felt as if a thousand-volt lash had flayed her where their bodies touched, from chest to hip.
It was he who pulled back first, almost anxiously, his eyes once more unfathomable. The moment passed as the girls scampered around, pulling at them to get on with feeding them.
Getting back into the flow of talking with Eva and Zoya with their system of English, Zoryan Russian and baby talk, he led them behind the screen she’d noticed before. Turned out there was a full dining area there, with gold-and-black silk-upholstered chairs. In the center stood an elaborate table decorated with Zorya’s magnificently rendered and detailed emblem of the two goddesses.
As they sat down, Leonid explained to the girls that they were like those two goddesses, night and day twins. Zorya would consider them the symbol of its rebirth, just like the goddesses were responsible for its original birth. He enlisted Kassandra’s help in simplifying the concept, and it all turned into a game as the girls caught on to the resemblance and imitated the goddesses’ poses.
The food, which Leonid explained in detail, was beyond delicious. Even the usually picky girls devoured anything Leonid offered them. Kassandra insisted it had more to do with him doing the offering than the tastiness of the food itself.
Midmeal, the girls asked to sit in the place of the goddesses in the emblem. Getting her okay, Leonid improvised a new game, placing plates on the symbols surrounding the goddesses, offering them all forkfuls, and making Eva and Zoya laugh all the harder each time he theatrically dipped a fork in a plate and zoomed it toward a wide-open mouth, sometimes even Kassandra’s.
She kept wondering how this had become the last thing she’d expected it to be—a delightful family trip. His new approachability and the girls’ enthusiasm and spontaneity had dissolved the artifice and distance the past had imposed on them, revealing Leonid as he was now. He’d told the truth. He was no longer the man she’d loved, but far better, warmer, endlessly patient and accommodating, the perfect companion and the best father-in-training she could have imagined.
After they finished eating and the waiters had removed all signs of their meal, Leonid got the girls off the table and clapped. “How about some Zoryan music, moy zvezdochky?”
As if they understood, and maybe they truly did, the girls yelled in agreement. Once Leonid had the infectiously joyous music filling their cocoon of luxury, he started teaching the girls the steps of a Zoryan folk dance. Noticing how hard it was for him to execute even those simple steps, she studied them quickly and took over teaching them as best she could. Soon they were all dancing with Leonid watching them, keeping the tempo with powerful claps, singing along, his rich bass deepening the spell.
Whenever one song ended and another started, Leonid would urge them on. “Tantsevat’, moy prekrasnyye damy. Dance!”
This time, he’d included her when he’d said “my beautiful ladies.” At least she thought he’d included her.
But why should she doubt it? The whole day he’d gone above and beyond doting on both the girls and her. He’d given her the gift of showing her how important she was to her colleagues in her field. He’d been exemplary in recognizing her superior knowledge of the girls, had showed them in no uncertain terms that, though he was their papa who would do anything for them, it was mama who was the boss. He’d been plain magnificent to her.