Biting a tongue that had gone numb with fury, she gritted out, “Leave. Right this second.”
Unperturbed, he gave a nonchalant shrug of his daunting shoulder. “I will leave after I’ve said what I came to say and when we’ve come to a preliminary understanding. Whether you approve or not, I am the father of your twin daughters, and I am here to—”
Red smeared her vision. “You won’t be here much longer or I’m calling the police.”
His searing blue gaze remained still, his pupils unmoving, indicating he had no emotional response to her threat and agitation. “I would advise against this. It would disrupt your neighborhood and bring you unneeded speculation and embarrassment. Not to mention you’d have to lie to the police to make them take action against me...”
“I won’t be lying when I say you’re here uninvited, harassing me and making fraudulent claims to my daughters.”
“They’re my daughters, too.”
“Not according to the law, they’re not. Nor to them or to the whole world. Any passing stranger they’ve ever briefly met is more to them than you are.”
His formidable head inclined in agreement. “I know that being their biological father on its own means nothing. That’s why I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere until I say my piece or until you indicate your willingness to negotiate further.”
“What the hell do you mean, negotiate?”
“Over the twins, of course.”
She gaped, unable to voice any of the million violent protests ricocheting in her skull and boiling her blood.
“Before you blast me off the face of the earth, I remind you that as their biological father, I do have a right to—”
“You have absolutely no right to Eva and Zoya. None. You relinquished any right to even think of them as yours way before they were born. You made it clear you didn’t even want them to be born. You may have forgotten this, but I remember all too well.”
“I freely admit I behaved extremely...inappropriately when you came to me after my accident. You can understand I was at my worst at the time.”
“And you remained there for over two years?”
“I’m the first to admit it took me longer than acceptable to deal with everything.”
Rage deepening at his dismissal of his abandonment of her, she seethed, “I care nothing about why you did what you did, and I’ll be damned if I let you pretend it was forgivable and invade my life again. You’re sure as hell never coming near my daughters.”
“I’m not here seeking forgiveness. I don’t waste my time, and I certainly won’t waste yours pursuing the unattainable. But I’m here to acknowledge my responsibilities. Whatever I’ve done, I’m myself again.”
“If you think that makes it any better, let me disabuse you of that notion. Being yourself is proof you know nothing of responsibility or accountability or even common courtesy and basic humanity.”
Instead of stonewalling her again, he just nodded impassively. “You’re right. My old self was nothing to be proud of. But the past couple of years changed me, and the man I am today is capable of at least being fully responsible and accountable, and resolved to take on his duties.”
“Good for ‘him.’ And as long as ‘he’ takes his resolutions away from my family, I wish ‘him’ the best of luck.”
“The thing is, your family is also mine. The twins are the primary duty I’m determined to take on.”
She fought harder against the screams gathering at the back of her throat. “That would have been a commendable sentiment if they needed anything from you. Which they don’t. And they never will. You’ve done your part and can now feel proud of yourself when you leave and never come back.”
His azure gaze remained unwavering. “I do understand your alarm and rejection. But even if the past was rife with pain, I’m certain everything happened for a reason. Why else would I have twin girls, and now be called on to take the mantle of responsibility in the land of the twin goddesses?”
This made zero sense to her, leaving her speechless again.
Realizing she had no ready comeback, he straightened even more, seeming to grow bigger, more rigid and imposing. “I won’t push for this audience tonight. I’ll give you some time. Not long but enough to let it all sink in.”
And a croak finally escaped her. “Let what sink in?”
“The fact that I am back to stay. That nothing will stop me from claiming my throne, and my heirs.”
Two
Kassandra’s entranced gaze followed Leonid as he descended the stairs of her porch, then crossed her driveway in measured strides to his parked car, a gleaming black Jaguar that looked like an extension of him.
Without looking back, he got in and drove away slowly, almost soundlessly. After the car disappeared, she remained staring at the void it had left, her mind a debris field in the wake of the havoc he’d wreaked.
Had he really been here? Or had she conjured him after seeing him earlier in that news spot? Had it all been a dream, a nightmare?
But if it had been, why couldn’t she wake up, as she always did whenever his phantasm came to suffocate her at night? As much as she would have preferred an actual breakdown to him being here, she knew. He had been here. And he would be back. His last words rang in her ears in an unending loop.
Nothing will stop me from claiming my throne, and my heirs.
Legs trembling with futile rage and incipient dread, she closed the door. But it was no use. She didn’t feel she’d successfully shut him out, or that she was safe anymore inside her home.
As she shakily made her way inside, one thing he’d said buzzed into her brain like an electric drill.
Why else would I have twin girls, and now be called on to take the mantle of responsibility in the land of the twin goddesses?
What had that meant?
She had to find out. Her first priority was to understand the motive behind his sudden interest in Eva and Zoya. Knowledge would be her best weapon against his unexpected incursion.
Still unsteady, she got some water and headed to her home office. She sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. After staring at the search engine numbly for several moments, she typed in Zorya.
For hours, she read all there was to read about the mythology behind that name and the land that wielded it.
It turned out Zorya was a plural name, incorporating the two guardian goddesses, Zarya and Zvezda, who represented the morning and evening stars. According to Slavic mythology, they were charged through eternity with guarding the doomsday hound, Simargi, lest he consumed the constellation Ursa Minor. They were also responsible for opening and closing the gates for the sun. Zorya, the former—and soon to be again—kingdom was said to be the only place where both stars could be perpetually seen on all clear nights. Its coat of arms depicted the blonde and dark-haired goddesses holding up stars. Though the goddesses were twins, they were quite literally night and day.
Just like her girls.
Eva had taken after her, Zoya after Leonid.
So this was what he’d meant. He considered this a sign he was meant to have both the throne and the girls.
And she’d seen it in his eyes.
He would make it all come true.
After an oppressive night spent pondering every possible distressing outcome of Leonid’s reappearance, Kassandra struggled to perform her morning rituals with the girls before leaving them with Kyria Despina and heading to work. Not that she expected to get any work done, but she needed to be away from them. She’d be damned if she’d let Leonid poison their moods, too.
In half an hour, she was in her personal office on the second floor of her company, looking out the window at downtown LA but only seeing the chaos inside her mind.
What disturbed her most was that she hadn’t come up with a plan of action in case Leonid did pursue his objectives. Which she had no doubt he would.
“I’m sorry, Kass, I tried to...”
Even before her PA’s cut-short exclamation, Kassandra’s senses had gone haywire.
Swinging around, hoping she was wrong but certain she wasn’t, the air was still knocked out of her at the sight of him. Leonid.
He filled her doorway, dwarfing her delicate PA. Mindy was looking up at him with a mixture of mortification and all-out awe.
Kassandra understood. How she did. A god walking the earth wouldn’t have looked as imposing and overpowering.
Their gazes collided, almost making her stumble against the plate glass of her wall-to-wall window. It was him who relinquished their visual lock first to look down at Mindy, who resembled a tiny herbivore that found itself in the crosshairs of a great feline.
“I apologize for overriding you, Ms. Levine. Ms. Stavros will fully understand that there was nothing you could have done to stop me. You can rest assured she’ll chastise me appropriately for such high-handed behavior.”
Gathering what she could of her wits, Kassandra tore her gaze off him and focused on her assistant. “It’s okay, Mindy.” Mindy looked back as if in a trance. Kassandra sighed. “You can go now, thanks. I’ll let you know if I decide to call security.”
With a ghost of a smile, Leonid stepped aside to allow Mindy to stumble out. “She won’t. You can drop the red alert.”
The moment the door closed, Leonid turned his focus to her. It was a good thing she’d moved to her desk so she could mask her own unsteadiness and feign a confrontational pose.