Her Perfect Gift (18 page)

Soon after, she felt him swell inside her and then spill his seed into her in a rush of moving bodies, cold adobe wall, and lovers finally reunited.

Later she lay on top of the Navajo spread with him and told him everything from the start, about growing up in New Jersey with her father, about the events that led up to her killing Hector Mendez’s son, and her many years on the lam afterwards.

He didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. Just finally telling someone, anyone, the entire saga brought her more peace than she had felt in years.

“I’m sorry I kept all of this from you,” she said, lying against his chest. She could hear his heart thumping beneath her ear. “But I wasn’t trying to lie to you. I was honestly trying to protect you. I already lost my father and Sparkle’s all caught up in my mess. I didn’t want someone else I loved to get in harm’s way.”

She looked up to see how he was taking all of this, but his face remained impassive. She quickly ducked her head again, so she didn’t have to see his reaction as she said, “Also, this just in: I’m pregnant. So if you’re still planning to kill me, I’m asking that you give me six months so no one else has to die because of what I did.”

Still he didn’t answer, but the speeding up of his heartbeat told her he had heard every word.

“Suro?” she asked.

“I’m a hit man, but that doesn’t mean I’m without honor. I don’t kill women,” he said,”and I never planned to kill you.”

“You didn’t?” she asked. “Then why did you take the case?”

“For the reason I’ve done every crazy thing I’ve done over the past six months,” he answered. “Because of you. Now go to sleep.”

“But—”

“Go to sleep.”

So she went to sleep. It wasn’t hard. She’d had a strange and crazy day, the low point being when she was fairly sure she was going to die by Suro’s hand. But she was still alive. She’d confessed everything, and she was in the arms of the man she loved. That was enough for today, she thought, and let sleep pull her under.

She woke up a few hours later in a pitch-black room to the sound of her burner phone ringing. More than a little confused by the unfamiliar surroundings, she fumbled around in the dark for a light only to discover when she turned it on, Suro was gone. Moreover, the room was empty. His suitcase was gone, along with any other signs he’d ever been there.

If not for the fact that her lady parts felt pretty worked over, and she was buck-naked and in a hotel room at the Cliffrose Inn, she would have thought maybe she had hallucinated the whole thing.

Still confused, she made her way to the ringing phone and picked it up when she saw Sparkle’s number. “Sparkle—I mean, Jennifer, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Sparkle said. “But there’s a big guy here. He told me to call you.”

She sighed. “Is it a big black guy named Dexter?” she asked.

“No, I know who Dexter is.” Sparkle answered, not bothering to lower her voice. “It’s a big white guy. His name is Alexei Rustanov. And he says Suro sent him.”

CHAPTER 21

LACEY
hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets in their relationship.
Apparently Suro was not only a hit man by trade, but he also hung out with Russian billionaires. At least she thought Alexei Rustanov was his friend.

The only explanation he had given before hustling Sparkle and her to his private jet, which Sparkle had recognized as the one that had taken her from Rise Academy to Chicago, was, “Nakamura asked me to pick you up, take you back to our home in Texas, and keep you there until further notice. So that is what I am doing.”

His home in Texas turned out to be a rather large compound in the middle of a small Texas town called Drummond with twenty-four/seven security. Even if Lacey had thought about running away again, and considering the weird circumstances, she did think about it, she doubted she would have gotten past the front gate. And even though he was kind enough to put her and Sparkle up in the “guest house,” which was actually a large, two-floor villa, she felt like a very well kept prisoner.

They had a dedicated housekeeper who came to take their order for dinner every night. Also, there was an upright piano in the living room, so Sparkle was A-OK with the situation, even if her mother was not.

Lacey had expected to be there for a few days, but then a whole week passed by without so much as a text message from Suro or an appearance from Alexei Rustanov. The enigmatic billionaire had apparently flown all the way to Santa Fe to get them himself but then hadn’t bothered to check in with her after dumping them in his swanky guesthouse.

Not to mention she was bored out of her skull. Say what you want about being a somewhat seedy manager/creative accountant for a strip club, it had at least always been interesting. Staying in the villa was way better than waiting tables in some hole-in-the-wall in Santa Fe, but she soon tired of the steady diet of television and listening to Sparkle play the piano in the background.

She was just considering hatching an escape plan, when she heard voices arguing outside of the villa’s front door.

“There is no reason to disturb them, Eva,” came Alexei’s stern voice.

“Don’t you even try to talk to me right now,” came another voice, heavy with a Texas accent. “I can’t believe you have these people up in our house and weren’t even trying to treat them like guests.”

“They are not guests, they are a favor.”

“If they’re staying on my property, they are guests. And what kind of Texan calls guests ‘a favor’? That’s just downright inhospitable.”

“I did feed them,” he pointed out, between what Lacey assumed were clenched teeth. “And as you know, I am not a Texan. I am Russian.”

“I’ll say you are, a Texan would never treat guests this way.”

“They are not guests!”

Before the argument could circle back around, Lacey yanked open the door to see the lady who was giving Alexei such a hard time.

She was surprised to find a pretty and very pregnant black woman on the doorstep, with her hands on her hips as she addressed the much larger Alexei Rustanov. But as soon as she saw Lacey, she pasted on a wide smile. “How are ya’ll doing?” She held out her hand for a shake. “Eva Rustanov. I’m the mayor of Drummond and Alexei’s wife. It is so nice to make your acquaintance.”

Lacey tentatively shook her hand, finding it hard to believe that this little spitfire was married to the scary Russian who had picked them up in Santa Fe. “It’s nice to meet you, too. Are you really the mayor? I’ve never met a mayor before, especially not a female one.”

“I sure am,” Eva answered. “And let me tell you, the last mayor, my daddy, is still hoppin’ mad about it. Of course, if it had been up to him, I wouldn’t have married this big, rude Russian husband of mine in the first place.” Eva glanced sideways at the handsome but hulking figure at her side.

“Eva…” he said, his voice full of warning.

But Eva swatted his words away. “I am almost six months pregnant with your oversized progeny. Do not ‘Eva’ me, Lexie.”

She then turned her gorgeous smile back on Lacey. “Now tell me all about you. Can I just say, I am so glad you’re here? It’s been about a month of Sundays since I had another woman to talk with. And I love this classical music you’re playing on the stereo. What is it?”

“Rachmaninoff,” Alexei supplied. “He is a great Russian composer.”

“And it’s actually my daughter playing,” Lacey told her, opening the door wider so they could come in. “She’s been going backwards up a list of Russian composers she found on the internet ever since we got here. You should have come by a couple of days ago for all the Tchaikovsky. I guess it’s kind of her way of thanking Mr. Rustanov for hosting us.”

Eva’s eyes widened in wonderment as she watched Sparkle’s hands fly over the keys of the piano sitting in the living room. “I can’t believe she’s getting that to come out of our old piano. I could never get our son Aaron to so much as take lessons!”

“It ‘s a blessing and a curse,” Lacey said. “Sparkle—I mean Jennifer—gets these ideas in her head and then she becomes kind of obsessed. But Mr. Rustanov, if you want to come back, she’ll be playing until she gets to the A’s”

“I think I might,” Alexei answered, looking at Sparkle with real admiration in his eyes. “I have not heard trained pianists play Rachmaninoff half so well.”

Not for the first time, Lacey wondered how far Sparkle could go in life if she weren’t saddled with a mother who couldn’t fully support her prodigious talent. For a few moments she let herself admire her daughter along with Alexei and Eva as they all watched her play.

When the piece finished, they applauded. But then Sparkle surprised them all by saying, “Perhaps your son does not like this piano because it’s out of tune.”

Lacey winced. She wasn’t sure if they knew Sparkle was on the autism spectrum and meant no insult when she said things like that.

But either Suro had let them know or Eva was just smooth, because all she said was, “Well, aren’t you a sweetheart for letting us know our piano needs fixing. We’ll get somebody right on that.”

Proving Lacey’s years of instilling rote manners in her daughter hadn’t been wasted, Sparkle did say, “Thank you,” before flipping to the next computer print out of music and starting another piece.

The adults eventually ended up in the kitchen with Eva making them tea while they chatted back and forth about Texas and the house, which, as it turned out, Eva had grown up in since her father had been the mayor for many years before her. “The truth is, if they ever decide to vote me out, we’re going to be in a real pickle because technically the town owns this house, and we’ve built up our compound around it.”

Rustanov frowned at his wife. “Drummond loves you. They would not do this to you. And if ever you decide to retire, then we will buy this house from them and build them another one outside the compound.”

Eva reached over and squeezed Alexei’s hand. “My biggest supporter right here. But seriously, I hope ya’ll are comfortable. If you need anything, just holler. And again, let me apologize for my husband. If I hadn’t been away at a conference, I would never have let you languish out here all alone.”

“They are not alone, they have each other,” Alexei said. “And you are right, you should have been here. You shouldn’t be traveling in your condition.”

Eva just rolled her eyes. “Lexie’s all scared because it took us a while to get pregnant due to a really bad decision he made when was in the habit of sleeping with unsuitable women who weren’t me.”

“All the books say you should not fly after six months. What would you have done if you had gone into early labor?”

“I dunno, called the two bodyguards you had hovering over me the entire conference?” Eva answered, so obviously not afraid of her husband that Lacey could only stare at her in awe. “Relax, Lexie. I’m back now and I’m not going anywhere else anytime soon. Especially now that I know we have guests.”

Before Alexei could say anything else, she turned back to Lacey. “Now tell me all about you. I’m guessin’ you must have a pretty extraordinary back story.”

So Lacey told her everything. She wasn’t sure how much she already knew, but it seemed silly to keep holding on to secrets, especially from a woman who lived in a compound.

By the end of the story Eva was holding her hand and listening, hanging on her every word. “And you say this Suro just upped and disappeared? Where did he go? Why hasn’t he contacted you?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. She glanced at Alexei, who had also listened quietly but hadn’t seemed overly surprised by anything she said, which made her suspect he already knew most of the story she’d just told. “Your husband hasn’t told me anything about him, other than he said to come get my daughter and me.”

Eva turned to Alexei expectantly, but he shook his head. “It is better she does not know.”

Eva glared at her husband. “You mean like it was better for me not to know all the stuff that kept us apart for seven years? You better tell this woman what happened to her man.”

Alexei rubbed a hand over his face. “
Kotenok
, it is not so simple.”

“What? Did he make you pinky swear to worry his girlfriend,
the mother of his child
, to death as opposed to letting her know what was going on?” Eva asked.

“No, he did not have to swear me to secrecy,” Alexei answered. “We are both honorable men. We know not to involve our women in the dirtier aspects of our business.”

His tone said in every way that this subject was off limits, but Eva just held up her hand and said, “Wait a minute, he didn’t explicitly tell you not tell her what was going on?”

Alexei sighed as if he was dealing with a frustrating child. “He didn’t have to tell me. Like I said, we are both honorable men—”

Eva cut him off again. “Lexie, you better tell this woman what’s going on.”

Alexei started to shake his head.

“And before you start shaking your head, let me just tell you how this is going to go. If you don’t start talking right now, then Aaron and I are going to move in with Tasha here until further notice.”

Alexei opened his mouth.

“And don’t say I can’t take Aaron. You know that boy of ours is not going to let his mama move somewhere by herself. He’ll be coming with me even if he misses you. And at first you’ll hold on to your pride and stay away, but then you’ll get to missing having your family all around and you know how you love to fuss over me. How are you going to know I’m not over here doing all sorts of heavy-lifting and drinking caffeinated beverages?”

“You would not endanger our daughter like that,” Alexei insisted. “You want her just as badly as I do.”

Her face melted in sympathetic agreement. “Of course, I do, baby. I’m so happy we made this child together and of course, I’m going to try my best to take care of myself when I’m walking up and down those rickety stairs and fumbling for the coffee in the morning. I trust myself to get through this pregnancy unscathed, the question is do you want to leave all that stuff up to chance just so you don’t have to tell Lacey what’s going on?”

Alexei folded his arms, his face a thundercloud of anger as another Rachmaninoff piece played furiously in the background.