Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva), Nicole Fox [life changing books txt] 📗

“I have to work this afternoon.” His voice is low, deep, as if he can see inside my head and is making his excuses now.

I nod because I can’t speak. Not with all the desire and passion and disappointment bubbling in my belly. If I even try, I’ll probably end up blurting out that I want him to take me to bed. Best to keep quiet. And it’s my plan to stay one hundred percent silent—until Tiana runs off, shouting something about the bathroom.

Leaving me alone with Kostya.

“You’re very good with my daughter.” The arm around me loosens, and he turns me so that we’re facing each other now. I can see every fleck of gray and dark blue in his eyes. His chest is flush with mine and his hands are clasped at the small of my back. I know wrapping my legs around his waist is off-limits, but oh, what I wouldn’t do …

“She’s a great kid.” And I sound like a raspy, two-packs-a-day smoker who can’t catch her breath. And though I’ve never touched a Marlboro in my life, I actually am having a hard time catching my breath. He’s too close. Too real. Too wrapped around me for my own good.

He smiles down at me, and I swear his eyelids flutter as if he wants to kiss me as much as I want him to.

For a moment, I’m sure it’s about to happen.

But when I open my eyes again, of course Tiana is back, and Kostya pulls away to swim toward the edge of the pool. As he climbs out, I watch. Any sane woman with eyes who enjoys men would watch, so I’m not shamed by my ogling. The sigh, though, the whimper that escapes my lips when I catch a glimpse of his ass in his shorts, might be a little over the top.

He’s out and walking toward the house before I recover enough to wonder what the hell just happened. And why he left. Why didn’t he kiss me. There are about a thousand other things I should be worried about, but I let the train of thought go as Tiana jumps back into the pool.

For the millionth time in the last fifteen minutes, I remind myself of the most important thing: just do your job.

We stay in the water for a while, then climb out when one of the housekeepers, Irlene, brings out a plate of snacks. There are cubes of different cheeses, sliced meat, four kinds of crackers, apple slices, hunks of banana and pineapple, celery and carrot sticks, and cups of juice.

“I want milk.” Tiana glances at the juice and pushes it away. I would happily get her milk, but she’s glaring at me. “I said, I want milk.” She narrows her eyes and tips the glass so that the juice splashes across the table.

I open my mouth to reprimand her, but someone beats me to it.

“Young lady!”

His voice booms behind me and even I sit up straighter. He steps out from behind the French door I watched him walk through earlier. “We do not speak to Charlotte or anyone else that way. If you want milk, you say please. Do you understand?”

He’s louder than I’ve heard him with her. And he’s stern. And oh Lord. It’s hot. So hot. He could be stern with me. And as soon as the heat from that thought rushes up my neck to land in my cheeks, I push it away because no thought that invokes this kind of heat is appropriate for an employee to have about her boss. Particularly while the employer’s daughter is sitting across from said employee.

I focus on the little girl in front of me. She whimpers but nods. Then she runs to him and throws herself at his legs, wrapping her arms around him and hanging on. He frowns and while I don’t think he would hurt her, I think she’s had enough of the surprising sternness for a few minutes.

I walk over and scoop her up. “She’s tired,” I say, not daring to look him straight in the eye.

He nods and turns to disappear inside the door he came out of. It occurs to me that I’ve let my boss see me failing to handle the child I’ve been assigned to take care of.

I set her on her feet and take her hands in mine. “Listen, little lady, I need this job, and you need to behave.”

She goes down for a snooze without too much more fuss, but my mind is racing. I know Kostya thinks I’m smart—he wouldn’t have kept me in his office if he didn’t think so, and Lord knows he has told plenty of idiots what he thinks of them right to their faces. But I don’t like even the suggestion of him thinking that I’m incompetent.

I need to do some homework.

I spend Tiana’s nap time thinking, researching the best articles Google has to offer. All I end up knowing for sure is that kids are all different and no single method works on every kid.

Gee, thanks a lot, Googs.

Once she wakes from her nap, it’s all Chutes and Ladders and Bubble Guppies, but she’s happy and we don’t have another incident. Instead, we sit in the princess fort we’ve built in the nursery and we watch the TV hanging on the wall in what looks like a giant picture frame.

After a dinner of chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, she checks the door every few minutes, as if she expects Kostya to walk through. When I’ve seen it for the hundredth time, I walk to the cabinet on the wall that looks like a castle’s shuttered window and pull out a package of glitter markers and white paper. “I want to draw.”

Soon, she’s kicked back with her drawing pad on her pink sparkle beanbag chair, one ankle kicked over her knee. And she’s drawing … something … circular. Could be