Chapter 61

I believe everything Pasha told me (and showed me, several times over).

But I still don’t trust Brittany Cleary as far as I can fucking punt her.

It’s been a few days since he told me what she tried to do. He’s convinced that’s the end of it—but I know better.

She’s not the kind of person to simply take her L and then skip off into the sunset.

Not without a fight.

In the past, I would’ve let her scratch and claw to get what she wanted. But I’ve never had something I wanted this badly. And make no mistake: I want Pasha Chekhov. I want the life he’s promised me, the love he’s shown me, the baby he’s given me.

So if Brittany thinks she can take him… she’s got another thing coming.

All of that is why I’m in the sexiest maternity outfit I can wear in public. The sweater cowl is off-shoulder and shows off my décolletage, with the rest of the dress hugging my curves and baby belly.

The shoes are the only real disappointment. Any other time, I’d be going to war in sky-high stilettos to show off my bare calves and remind Pasha of the many, many times I’ve wrapped them around him. Make Brittany seethe with jealousy.

But my daughter’s added weight says, “Absolutely not.”

So I sigh, recalculate, and hop around the bedroom while tugging on a sexy pair of flats that still show off my legs, but in a more comfortable way.

Now, all I have to do is my hair, makeup, and jewelry.

Then it’s battle time.

Bring it, bitch.

Part one of my Keep Brittany The Fuck Off My Man Plan immediately goes awry when I get lost in the Chekhov International offices. Why there are three sets of elevators is beyond me.

To my relief, I spy a familiar face. “Mak!”

Mak turns around at the sound of my voice. Initially, he looks a little surprised, but then his eyes widen for a whole other reason. His brow pops up and so does his smirk. “Do I want to know what you’re up to? Or is this one of those couples-only things that will haunt me if I find out?”

I feel my face heat up. “I, uh… uhm…”

“Say no more,” he reassures me with a shudder. “You look like you need some help, though. What can I do for you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Brittany Cleary’s office is, would you?”

Mak catches on. “Ah. Right. Her. Come with me.”

My stomach flips as he offers me his elbow and leads me out of the elevator hall. My daughter, too, does an irritated little flip as if she’s practicing her roundhouse for this bitch who dares try to steal her daddy.

I have to smile just a tiny bit. I have a feeling this kid is going to be one hell of a fighter, just like her mama.

“We’ve undergone some restructuring recently,” Mak casually explains while we walk. “Amid the process, we’ve decided to go in a different direction for our analytics and marketing consultants.”

“Uh… right. Totally. I completely and one hundred percent understand what you’re saying.”

He gives me a nudge. “He fired her ass, Daphne. Brittany, her pops, the whole Cleary Consulting company. Dismissed with prejudice.”

I grind to a halt in the middle of the hallway. “He what?”

Mak is grinning like the cat that caught the canary. “Oh, yeah. Dropped the hammer. Same day she sashayed into his office thinking she could sink her claws into him. Pash made a whole scene of it, really.”

My heart does a somersault. “Oh. I, uh… I didn’t know. Didn’t realize, I guess. I feel kinda stupid now. I came all this way, looking like this, to… I don’t know.”

Mak grins and presses a button next to a lone elevator door I hadn’t even seen. “I’m happy to call her back into the building if you want. I’m sure Pash would love to watch you beat the daylights out of that woman. Wearing a bikini and slathered in baby oil, probably.”

“No thanks. This is cashmere.” And then, in a sudden wave of self-doubt, I sigh. “Besides, I don’t have any real right to be so… so… territorial. We’re not actually a couple, you know?”

When I glance up at him, I have to take a step back. He’s looking at me like I’ve just lost my mind.

“What?”

Mak shakes his head with his own heavy sigh. “Nothing. I’m just wondering if you need your invitation engraved and sealed with wax. Or if a simple email invite will do.”

“Invite to… what?”

“To the pending happily-ever-after you are so obviously a part of.” He holds the elevator door open for me and gestures me inside. “Since living with my brother, carrying his child, and getting what I assume is a daily dose of Vitamin Dick isn’t enough of an invitation to call him yours, would you like it in linen, parchment, or vellum?”

I narrow my eyes at him. Mak grins and leans inside to press another button, but he doesn’t join me.

“This opens up directly into his waiting area. You’ll have to get through his secretary, but something tells me you won’t have a problem with that.”

And with that, the door closes on Mak’s smug smirk.

He’s right—only a few moments later, the door reopens and I’m walking into a luxurious waiting area furnished with velvet lounge chairs and a sleek marble reception desk. A stunningly beautiful blonde woman types away at her laptop, seemingly oblivious to my arrival.

But then her gaze flicks upward and catches me. “Good morning! Can I help you?”

I offer her my warmest smile and make my way over to the desk. “I’m here to see Pash—er, Mr. Chekhov.”

She scans me with a judgmental eye. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, I just⁠—”

“No one sees Mr. Chekhov without an appointment, unfortunately.”

If it were left up to her, this would be the end of the discussion. I’d accept my losses and turn tail back to the elevator.

But I’m looking at her—and at her very low neckline—and seeing someone who is so obviously Pasha’s type. High cheekbones, perfect hair, flawless skin, slender in all the right places and curvaceous where it counts.

And clearly staking territory she doesn’t have.

Well, maybe she does. This is her workplace. She is guarding her boss.

“Could you please let him know I’m here? Daphne. Covington,” I add. “We’re, ah… I mean, he’s my… um…”

Way to chicken out, loser. I rest a hand on my baby belly so she’ll maybe see what I’m trying to communicate, since I’m unable to grow a pair and spell it out myself.

Her perfect brow arches. Those lips that look made for wrapping around certain body parts twist in a cold half-smile. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Mr. Chekhov is very busy today.”

“Oh. I can come back later⁠—”

“He’ll be very busy later.” She stands and walks out around the desk. Her dress stops mid-thigh and leaves nothing to the imagination. I bet quarters ricochet off her butt cheeks like bullets.

And, unlike my fat pregnant ass, she can wear killer heels that scream, Fuck me!

I don’t stand a chance against her.

She knows it.

She’s making sure I know it, too.

“Listen, honey.” She pulls off her glasses and tucks them into her dangerously low collar. “I don’t know what business you think you have with Pasha, but it’s clearly not here—otherwise, your name would be on the schedule.”

Maybe she doesn’t know my name. Maybe he doesn’t talk about me here, in his own office, at least enough for her to recognize I’m the one carrying his child as we speak.

Maybe she’s right—I’m not that important to him.

“Thanks.” I force a smile. “Have a nice day.”

I’m halfway to the elevator when I hear a door open.

“Daphne?”

The fact that he doesn’t sound pissed or irritated—actually, he sounds surprised—makes me turn back around. I give him a shy little wave. “Hey, Pasha.”

He frowns at me. “Where are you going?”

“You’re busy. I shouldn’t have just⁠—”

“Says who?” He aims his frown at his assistant. “How long has she been standing here?”

One thing I notice: he doesn’t look her over. At all. She’s obviously flaunting everything she’s got and he either doesn’t see it or doesn’t care.

Another thing I notice: Miss Priss is wavering under his increasingly stern gaze.

“She doesn’t have an appointment,” she stammers. “I checked your books⁠—”

“Daphne doesn’t need an appointment. Ever. You know that.”

I level my gaze at the woman. She knows?

I’m seeing her mask slip a bit. The batting of lashes, the fake laugh, the forced-yet-sultry smile. “Pash, you never said anything about her,” she coos with a pout.

“That’s ‘Mr. Chekhov’ to you, Ms. Fraiser. And you know damn well that Daphne Covington is my girlfriend.”

Ms. Fraiser gasps. I stand up straighter. Baby Chekhov does a victory cartwheel and—I’m pretty sure—flips her the double bird.

“Y-you never said⁠—”

“Daphne, come in.” Pasha extends his hand to me and doesn’t move until I give him mine. When I do, he pulls me close, kisses me soundly, and gives my ass a playful little squeeze. “Ms. Frasier, clear my next two hours. I’ll let you know if I’m out for the day.”

“B-but⁠—”

I’m ushered into his office before she can say anything more. The door shuts with a resounding click, and he locks it with a vengeance.

“So.” Pasha leads me over to a comfortable chair by his desk. “What brings you here?”

I know he stood up for me. I know he made it exceptionally clear where I stand in his eyes, and where she stands as well.

But the way she looked at him… the way she talked about him… it won’t sit easy with me. Deep down, in my bones, I know something is off.

So I turn to face him, still standing. I don’t want to sit down on this. “Did you sleep with her?”

Pasha stills. Looks at me.

Then he rubs a hand over his jaw and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

I want to throw up. “Oh.”

“Before I met you.”

I can swallow it back down. “Oh.”

He leans against his desk and sighs. “We were never in a relationship. I need you to know that. She wanted one, but she didn’t exactly make that clear until it was too late.”

“‘Too late’?”

“I don’t date,” he explains. “Ever. I live the kind of life where getting attached to someone can be dangerous. For them as well as me. Paris—my assistant, here—was a convenient stress relief. I thought she understood that.”

I can’t help it—I half-scoff, half-snort. “Wow.”

“I’m trying to be honest⁠—”

“No, no, it’s not that,” I assure him. I look up at him, into his handsome face and mesmerizing eyes, and feel the smile turn into something else. “It’s just… Do you ever look in a mirror? Record yourself talking? I don’t think you do. Because if you thought anyone could just have casual sex with you and not want every part of you in their life… well, I’d say you’re the dumbest smartass I’ve ever met.”

He cocks a brow at me. “Is that so?”

“It is definitely so.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear as I feel my face flush again. I don’t want to overstep, but thinking about him doing her over his desk has my possessive side rearing its ugly head in a way it absolutely can’t afford to do. “Anyway, it’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”

Pasha pushes himself away from the desk and tugs me into his arms. When I don’t look up at him right away, he tips my chin up with a finger to force it. “Everything about me is your business. Everything about you is mine. We’re together. A unit.”

I want those words to fix what’s happening inside of me. They help, they definitely help… but there’s still some of that acidic feeling simmering low in my core.

He presses his brow to mine. “You didn’t like my answer. Tell me how to fix it.”

I shake my head. “You can’t go back in time and undo the… the doing. I just have to deal with it. But I think I’m learning that I…” My voice lowers into a near-whisper as I admit the part of me that’s recently become more and more terrifying. “I don’t like sharing.”

His answer is immediate. “So don’t.” Pasha leans back just enough to spread his arms. “Stake your claim.”

I’m not that kind of woman.

But right when I’m about to tell him that, I catch a glimpse of myself in one of his decorative mirrors.

He’s thoroughly claimed me. My entire body is covered and filled with reminders that I am his. Only his.

Lovebites, hickeys. Even the necklace he drapes around my neck every morning.

Who said this has to be one-sided?

Not him.

Not me, either.

Old Daphne looks on with shock and horror as I grab Pasha’s tie and pull him in for a searing, possessive kiss. Old Daphne yells at me to act like a lady. Back off. Be the doormat, because that’s familiar and safe.

New Daphne kisses him harder, then shoves him down on his loveseat and climbs onto his lap.

New Daphne rakes her fingers through his hair and holds him in place for another lengthy taste.

New Daphne growls, “Mine.”