Crossing the Line (40 page)

She ended the call.

He sat staring at his phone.

* * * * *

Three months later

“Do you like it?” Aleksei asked.

He held her hand tightly. She’d noticed he didn’t like to let her go far from his side. He was still recovering from the gunshot wounds but doctors didn’t expect any complications.

Katya walked around the apartment again though she didn’t need to. She already loved it. She’d not driven Aleksei to the beach when they’d fled but to a hospital. Aleksei made a call and when he lay in surgery, a man had come and explained to her that Aleksei had been helping them for some time and now it was their turn to help him.

And her. This was where they’d chosen to live. She kept away from the window as she looked out over the rooftops of London.

“Yes. It’s lovely.”

“Are you happy?” he whispered.

“Are you?” she whispered back.

“I can’t be happy until I know you are.”

His words brought a lump to her throat. “I love you,” she whispered. “In a room, in an apartment, in London, in England, in the world…I love you.” She could let herself love now, let her defenses down and let Aleksei in.

“I love you too.” He smiled at her and there was nothing hidden in his face.

A happy life was hers for the taking. Aleksei’s money had largely been forfeit but they didn’t need it. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but a parcel of old coins had arrived not long after they had and when Aleksei told her how much they were worth, she’s been staggered. They might not have needed money, though she wasn’t fool enough to turn it down. But they had a future, that was all that mattered. With Aleksei at her side she could learn to enjoy things again, to learn to live for herself, for what she carried inside her.

Aleksei tugged her back to the smallest bedroom. “I thought this could be the nursery. I could paint it.”

She looked into his black eyes. “Have you ever painted anything?”

His lips quirked in a smile. “Not since school. How hard can it be? We can do it together. Well, I can supervise. I’m not supposed to exert myself.”

She laughed. “No more sex then?”

He growled. “Where are the paint brushes?”

The end

About the author

Barbara Elsborg lives in West Yorkshire in the north of England. She always wanted to be a spy, but having confessed to everyone without them even resorting to torture, she decided it was not for her. Vulcanology scorched her feet. A morbid fear of sharks put paid to marine biology. So instead, she spent several years successfully selling cyanide.

After dragging up two rotten, ungrateful children and frustrating her sexy, devoted, wonderful husband (who can now stop twisting her arm) she finally has time to conduct an affair with an electrifying plugged-in male, her laptop.

Barbara has written almost forty books, most of which are erotic romances but she has also written two suspense novels. Chosen was the first, and Crossing the Line, the second.