The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) (23 page)

Well, that was about to happen big time. Sabrina had a vision of how Vlad might cope with this unwanted news. He would continue his retreat into work and keep the semblance of their marriage for the public eye. And hey, the prospect of a new baby would be great fodder for the PR machine wouldn’t it? Out of the public eye, she would be lonely and alone. Would he find another bedmate when she became so big and unwieldy that she completely turned him off?

Sabrina cried herself to sleep. When Mrs. Egan appeared with a cup of tea much later, Sabrina felt slightly calmer, but still without a clue as to how she would give Vlad the news that he was going to be a father.

Alex wanted to give Vlad the framed photo of them walking together in Capri, and he helped Sabrina wrap it. For two days, Sabrina had to stop Alex from actually sleeping with the parcel because he wanted to have it ready to give Vlad the next time he saw him. Sabrina knew that sometimes Alex and Vlad crossed paths at breakfast. Of late, Sabrina found it so difficult to get going in the morning that she usually entered the kitchen after Vlad left it, knowing Alex would come to no harm under Mrs. Field’s watchful eye.

Mrs. Field reported a serious case of hero worship, as Alex wanted to emulate everything Vlad did. Alex even asked the housekeeper to give him coffee the previous morning.

This night, Vlad appeared earlier than usual, directly after their dinner. Alex ran back into his room to retrieve the gift.

“Dad, here. A present from me and Rina.”

It was the photo of Alex and Vlad walking up a hill in Capri, the quaint sundrenched houses and bountiful lemon trees behind them, Alex on Vlad’s shoulders and both of them relaxed and grinning when she captured the shot.

They all admired the photo, and Vlad thanked Alex solemnly for the gift. Alex beamed.

Then Mrs. Egan, who never saw a good reason not to, weighed in.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea at first, you know, for Alex to join you two on a honeymoon, even this sweet little guy.” She gave Alex an affectionate chuff on his chin. “But now with the new little one coming, isn’t it wonderful Alex and Mr. Grigory had that time together? Alex will treasure the memory of his alone time with his daddy.”

Sabrina froze.

Vlad paled as if trying to process the stream of consciousness speech that was pure Mrs. Egan. Clearly, at a loss for words, he placed his hands on the marble countertop and visibly gathered himself up to his impressive six foot three.

“Sabrina? Can we speak for a moment in my office?” He turned without waiting for her response and left the room.

Mrs. Egan, oblivious, nodded them away calling to Alex with the promise of ice cream after he was in his pajamas.

Sabrina followed Vlad into his office, her legs like overcooked spaghetti and her heart paining her like someone had punched a fist through her chest.

She watched as Vlad paced behind the desk in his office and came out from it seconds later only to stride over to the window at the far corner of the room for all the world like a caged lion. Finally, he leaned against his desk and ran his hand through his close-cropped hair. He crossed his arms over his chest, his lean body in his city suit spectacular as usual, although he was less than his usually pristine self with his tie askew and his top button undone.

****

He looked at her, absorbing the picture she made: hair pulled smoothly back in a braid, black leggings and buttoned down man-tailored shirt.

The ever-rounder, ever fuller bosom should have been a dead giveaway if only he had been in any way ready for the prospect. He knew her breasts were bigger. He had marveled at them as much as he had noticed her recent ability to nap at the drop of a hat.

Pregnant?
Pregnant?
But he had been so careful, using protection every, single, time. As he always had with every woman he had ever been with. Hadn’t he?

Sabrina seemed poised for flight, eyes bright green coins in her pale face, her back flat against the door, her arms behind her as she leaned against it as if she might otherwise slide to the floor in a puddle.

Seeing her like that, he remembered it all. The one time he hadn’t protected them. Sabrina, standing in this very room, the night of the VGI Foundation Gala, in the sexy green satin gown and his complete loss of control against the door she was currently holding up. Oh, yes. Now he remembered.

That was the night he had seen the reality of his response to her, and then afterward, acknowledging his unprecedented loss of control with her, only with her, had devised a way to stay sane by limiting his contact with her. She was like no other woman he had ever been with. And realizing that, he stayed away from her for the weeks leading up to the wedding.

But it didn’t matter. On the yacht, even amongst the crew and Alex, he was hard pressed to maintain the rules he devised to protect himself. She bewitched him with her body and now he was about to pay for the one time he had so completely lost it that he’d forgotten to use protection.

****

“I just found out myself a couple of days ago, I did the dip stick test. I was feeling out of sorts.” Sabrina was rambling and she turned her head away from his hard profile wishing he would say something, anything.

She squashed the impulse to say sorry. She was as shocked as he obviously was, but she was not sorry. She would love this baby just as she had loved Alex.

Vlad took her hand and pulled Sabrina into the chair near his desk. She sank heavily into it and he stared at her profile. After what seemed like an age he said, “You should get your rest, Sabrina.” And then, “I’m sorry.”

With those words, Sabrina’s eyes filled, and she tried to dash the tears off her cheeks but they kept coming. She got up and stumbled from his office and back to her bedroom.

Sorry.
Sorry?

Sabrina was cut to her core by the words.

Vlad was sorry he had gotten her pregnant. While she had definitely been totally floored at the news, she expected some sort of more supportive response. Now that she was pregnant, what good did sorry do?

Oh, c’mon, Sabrina. What were you really expecting from a man as closed off as Vlad?
He was dynamite in the bedroom, but if he had any finer feelings for her he had never expressed them. Aside from the stretches of time where he deemed it expedient to spend time together for public relations reasons, he was absent from her life.

Is that what she could expect from him now that she was carrying his child?

The tears kept coming and her head was pounding. Sabrina lay back on her bed and tried to rest knowing that sleep would not come easily.

She finally fell into a doze near dawn and awakened at seven thirty still fully clothed from the previous evening. Alex had to be at preschool by nine o’clock.

Her cell pinged a text. This time, instead of forcing her into a humiliating question and answer session with Mrs. Field, at least Vlad had texted her and let her know.—
I have an important conference in San Diego. We’ll talk when I get back on Thursday.
—he texted.

She hurled the cellphone and it hit the wall with a crack. Talk Thursday? Her head pounded like someone had taken a hatchet to it, and her vision was literally red. Thursday was days away. She breathed deep because she needed to start to keep her cool for the baby’s sake.

So she took a quick shower and had a bite of toast. She tried to keep her movements slow so as to keep the food down. She slipped into leggings and a loose tee. When she felt better, she would have to acquire some actual maternity clothing. And see a doctor. But not today.

She made a face at herself in the mirror and applied some makeup to try to hide the havoc the last twenty-four hours had played on her face. She brushed her hair to something close to its usual luster and took Alex to school. On the way back, she asked Sergei to stop at a bookstore and she bought one of each of the pregnancy-related books on display.

She knew an awful lot about being a mother thanks to Alex, but very little about being pregnant. Vlad might be absent, but she had to face up to the prospect of caring for the new life growing inside her.

Sabrina opened one of the books in what she called the sunroom. Every room in the penthouse had a spectacular city view, but this room had a southern exposure as well as the most unimpeded view of Manhattan harbor and it was her favorite.

She had just settled back to read when the door opened and Pieter stepped into the room, closely followed by Mrs. Field.

Sabrina got to her feet.

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was a thin thread of sound.

Mrs. Field apologized for not announcing her guest and anxiously backed out of the room. Clearly, Pieter had not allowed her the opportunity to do so.

“Because I’m not a guest, I’m family. Aren’t I, Sabrina?”

“What are you doing here, Pieter?” Her voice had grown stronger with the repetition of the question, as had her anger.

“I don’t like your tone, Sabrina.” Pieter swaggered to the middle of the room and sneered at her. “My brother lives here and in fact I have a key because I finalized the deal on this place with the broker. Your mother.” He laughed.

“I happen to know he’s out of town,” he continued. “I also saw his office plastered with photos of young Alexei. I hope you haven’t broken our agreement and told Vlad the truth. Because if you have, I will claim the boy and your cozy life as a socialite will be over.”

“I started to tell him, but he didn’t want to know. You have nothing to worry about, Pieter.”

“Believe me, if Vlad knew I was Alexei’s father, he would care. Big bro would never make a mistake like that. He always takes responsibility. And all because Lily left it too late to tell me. If she hadn’t, I’d’ve told her to get a termination. She played the wrong card looking to snag a rich baby daddy.” He shook his head.

“That’s my mother you’re speaking about, Pieter.” Sabrina’s voice rose. “My dead mother. And that’s not how it was. She had no idea she was pregnant at first; it was a complete surprise. Some women don’t realize right away.” She put a hand over her roiling belly, on her own non-existent baby bump.

Pieter’s gaze followed the movement and continued until they fell on the book opened on the side table between them.

“I can’t believe this. You’re pregnant? Like mother, like daughter, huh? Don’t tell me you thought you would cement your relationship with him by getting knocked up?”

He laughed; a nasty cackle of a sound and Sabrina suddenly had enough.

“I don’t need to cement my relationship with Vlad, he’s as happy as I am about this baby,” she lied, itching to smack the smirk off Pieter’s face.

“No, she doesn’t need to do anything to cement our relationship.”

Vlad’s voice startled them both as his long arm pushed the solarium door wide, his face like thunder and his voice a low snarl.

“I don’t know how long you’ve been harassing my wife, Pieter, but it stops now. Because of your actions, Sabrina was left to support Alex when she could barely support herself. She struggled to the point of exhaustion to care for him because you bailed out. She mothered Alex all of that time alone and now I will father him. As I will the new one on the way.”

Pieter stared with disbelieving eyes as Vlad put a protective arm around Sabrina’s shaking shoulders.

“Get out, Pieter. I’ll be changing the locks on the door today, and if you ever show up here again it better be because you got an invitation. I’ll be sending you the paperwork. We’ll be adopting Alex.”

“Vlad, just so you know, I didn’t mean it. I just panicked when Lily told me. I didn’t mean to run out on her.”

Pieter, ever the younger brother, was seeking approval or maybe forgiveness. Or was he sincere? Doubtful, Sabrina thought.

“So that’s why you decided to come here and threaten Sabrina in our home? Get out, Pieter. Now.” He slammed the door on his brother.

Sabrina fell back onto the sofa, dizzily trying to process the last few minutes.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in San Diego?”

“Nicholson is there,” he said, naming his chief deputy. “Little does he know but he’s going be doing a lot of traveling over the next several months.” He smiled down at her.

Sabrina was biting her lip, afraid to ask the most important question of the many on her mind.

“You came back,” she whispered.

“I got as far as the airport.” He shook his head, stared at the rug. “You have to understand, I was stunned, absolutely staggered, that you’re expecting,” his accent thickened, “my…our…baby. I couldn’t process it at first. I shut down and I escaped, I guess, in work. Like I’ve always done.”

“But?” She tried to encourage him.

“But of course it hit me that if I ran out on you, I would be just as bad as my father, whoever he is, and I don’t want that for you, or for our child,” he said, “our children.”

Sabrina’s tentative smile widened.

“I knew you would come back. It’s a lot to take in. Two children, when—”

“When a few months ago, I was a bachelor who never knew what he was missing.” The corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Such as?”

“This,” he said and Sabrina giggled as he pulled her onto his lap, and claimed her lips until they were both breathing heavily. When she reached up to resume their kiss, he lightly ran his finger along her lower lip.

“Wait. I need to tell you some things,” he said.

“A few days ago, you shut me down when I tried to tell you about Alex, about me,” she protested.

“I didn’t want to know. I thought if I ever met the yahoo that fathered Alex, I would throttle him. I couldn’t believe what I heard Pieter say. Have you always known it was him?”

“No, not till the night of our wedding. I guess he got nervous then that I knew, that my mom had told me and that I’d told you. But she hadn’t. I think she was sad, and she just couldn’t talk about it without being upset. I stopped needing to know. And then after she died…”

She shrugged, lost again in the initial shock of those early days alone.

“You were left dealing with the reality of a baby. A fatherless, motherless baby.”

Sabrina nodded. “Pieter said something and I think it’s true. You always do the responsible thing, Vlad. I couldn’t stand it; I couldn’t stay with you, out of your outsized sense of what is the right thing to do. It’s enough for me that you know the truth about everything—that you don’t think I plotted against you.”