The Tycoon's Toddler Surprise (8 page)

Kristen put her hands through her hair and took a deep breath.  Then was startled.  “
Wait
a minute.  Who handle’s your personal mail?” she whispered, horrified at what she’d started thinking.   She just this moment realized that she’d never seen any personal mail come to the penthouse they’d shared
during their marriage

In fact, all of her own mail had seemed to disappear as well.  He’d told her all of her credit cards had been transferred to his name and his accountant would pay them each month. 

“My mail all goes to my secretary who then disperses it to the appropriate party.  If you’d sent any mail about Victoria, it would have landed on my desk and not sent anywhere else.”

Kristen felt cold and furious, the anger building up so that her eyes were seeing only red now.  “That horrible bitch!  I thought she’d been petty before!  But I never thought she’d be so horrible to actually hide my letters to you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded, unable to follow her train of thought. 

“She’d been spiteful and vindictive before.  That horrible woman took my letters to you and hid them,” she said, standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. 

“My secretary has been with me for years.”

“And even you mentioned to me once that she seemed inordinately upset about the new
s
of our marriage.”  She let that statement sink in for a moment before saying, “I dare you to get one of your security men to go through her office files.   I’m betting my letters are there, hidden away.”

“You’re being ridiculous!”

“Am I?”
she challenged right back at him.

Mikhail thought through what she was saying and a part of his mind recalled how, just a few days ago, he’d considered transferring
Ellen
because her advances were becoming too obvious.  Could she really have hidden letters like this?

He flipped open his cell phone and dialed a number.  “George, I need you to go up to my office and sift through the files in
Ellen’s
area.  I’m looking for letters from Kristen she said she wrote.”  There was a long pause before Mikhail nodded.  “Yes I realize that.  Just find out if they even exist first.”

He snapped the cell phone closed and glared at her.  “So if they don’t exist, what’s your next explanation?”

Kristen
bristled under his scrutiny, knowing he didn’t believe her.  “It’s amazing that you believe an employee over your wife!”

He closed the space between them until he was
looking down into her soft, green
eyes.  “My secretary has never left me.  Unlike my wife.  I trust her more than I trust you.”  He said it so softly, it was menacing. 

She saw his anger and knew something horrible had happened to them.  She knew the letters existed so she wasn’t afraid.  But now her heart was starting to ache for the man who had been denied his daughter instead of just ignoring her.  She’d had years to build up her resentment for this man and it had taken less than thirty minutes for that anger to melt away so that only sadness and resentment for a petty woman remained. 
“And when you find those letters, you’ll find that I never left you.”

“All evidence to the contrary.”

“I left the New York lifestyle because the stress of worrying and being out so many nights caused me to almost miscarry.  I gave up the lifestyle.  I hadn’t meant to give up our marriage.”

He didn’t say anything.  Just shrugged and stepped away.  “We’ll see.”

Kristen couldn’t believe she was standing here trying to prove to him that she hadn’t left him but there was something about his posture that told her she had to regain his trust or
something
horrible was going to happen.  “Do you remember when I met you for lunch one day?  I was wearing a red, wrap around dress with
the
gold chain
you’d given me just the night before
.  We stepped into the elevator and you asked me why I was so worried.”

He shrugged and turned around.  “The memory sounds familiar.  What about it?”

“I’d been waiting for you for almost a half hour.  And in that time, I had to sit out in the waiting room with Ellen watching me.  I tried to ignore her, but she isn’t a woman one can easily ignore.  While I flipped through a magazine, she made several comments, all designed to be superficially complimentary but underneath, they were
nasty
little snide comments that were meant to undermine my confidence.”

He sighed and rubbed his forehead.  “If I remember correctly, I received the call that you had arrived and I walked out of a conference meeting. You were thirty minutes late but I left as soon as you arrived.”

Kristen shook her head
, her eyes looking into his, willing him to hear what she was saying and absorb it through the wall of his resistance that had been built up with pain and anger over her assumed departure and betrayal
.  “While I was waiting for you,” she countered, “Ellen made the comment about how brave I was to wear that dress.”

“It was a great dress,” he said, his eyes firing up as he remembered how they’d spent their lunch.  And it hadn’t been in a restaurant.

“She said I was brave to wear something like that with my figure.”

His eyes snapped
down
to hers and he shifted on his feet.  “Is that why you asked me in the elevator if the dress didn’t fit correctly?”

“Exactly.”

He wasn’t sure what to say because the comment sounded exactly like something Ellen would say.  In fact, he’d heard her say almost the exact same thing to another woman when she didn’t realize he was behind her.  At the time, he’d thought it had been a catty remark, but since he didn’t know the woman to whom the comment was directed, he let it slide. 

“So Ellen was jealous of you.  She’s an attractive female.  I’m sure she receives her share of compliments.”

“Another time I called in to your office to let you know that I had arrived for the mayor’s fundraiser.  It was the night I wore that green silk dress that you liked so much?”

“What of it?” he demanded, remembering that dress and the way it had hugged her figure.  And the short night they’d had at the mayor’s event so he could get her home and
into
bed. 
And out of that dress.

“I’d learned not to trust Ellen by then but thought I needed more proof that I wasn’t just imagining things.  So I stood outside her office and called her, asking her to let you know that we were downstairs waiting.  At the same time, I texted you on your phone.”

“And I came right out of a meeting.”

“Did Ellen ever call to let you know that I was there?”

“She probably didn’t have time.”

“I watched her after I hung up the phone.  She put on lipstick and powder, then turned to her computer.  I waited about five minutes before I texted you, watching her the whole time.  She told me she’d call you immediately.  But she never picked up the phone.”

He watched her for a long moment, wondering whether to believe her or not.  “Sounds like your word against hers.”

Kristen smiled without humor.  “I was going to prove it to you.  I had the time of the call and the time of the text all set up to show you.”

“Why didn’t you?  I would have fired her on the spot.”

She shrugged and turned away.  “I got distracted.”

He chuckled, realizing her comment meant that he’d distracted her with sex. 

“Those distractions are the reason you found out about the pregnancy by finding me in the hospital.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you refused to talk to me.  Every time I tried to have a serious conversation, you kissed me and made me forget what I was trying to say.”

“You didn’t try very hard, I guess.”

She shook her head.  “Mikhail, you’re a very powerful man.  One of the reasons you’ve made it so far in the business world is because you don’t let anything stand
in
t
he
way of what you want.  And when you wanted me, I was no exception.”

“So you’re saying you left me because you couldn’t have a serious conversation with me?”

She was already shaking her head before he finished the sentence.  “I never left you is what I’m saying
.
  I wanted you to follow me.  I wanted us to get away from New York and all the travel and the stress of being a lawyer in New York City.  And being your wife and a lawyer on top of that wasn’t more important that protecting my unborn child.  So I found a healthier place.”

He was silent for a long time, letting her words sink in.  “Do you still practice law?”

“Yes.  I have a small practice in the city.  But I set my own hours and work around Victoria’s school and classes.”

“She’s already in school?  Isn’t she young to be in school?”

“She’s in day care for half the day and preschool the other half.  She’s younger than most of her class, but she’s also ahead of all of them as well.”

“I read about that in your letter,” he said grimly. “Is she okay?”

Kristen smiled, more at ease now that they weren’t talking about their marriage or the painful accusations.  “She’s wonderful.  More
than okay.  She’s so smart
it’s
hard to keep up with her sometimes.”

“Why is she in day care?  Why doesn’t she have a private nanny?  You should have told me that you needed something.  I wouldn’t have let her go without like..” he started to say, “like I had” but stopped himself just in time.  He had never told anyone about his shameful past, about how he’d grown up filthy and homeless, eating food out of a garbage can or dumpster just to survive, teaching himself how to read and calculate.  He’d had to stay out of the sight of the authorities, knowing they would put him in an orphanage, which, in Russia
at that time
, was worse than being out on the street. 

“Victoria would be miserable with a private nanny.  She loves being around other kids.  Anyone actually.  She’s so extroverted it’s impossible to keep her away from school and it’s a real trial when she’s sick.  She actually cries more at having to stay away from school.”

He chuckled, realizing that was the exact opposite of most kids.  “She’s beautiful.  And very well mannered.  Does she always run up to strangers like she did with me earlier?”

Kristen shook her head.  “She might have if I hadn’t had a serious talk with her on
several occasions.  But I don’t
think she considers you a stranger.  We look for stories about you in the news each weekend so she can learn about what you’re doing.  She asks about you constantly, asking what you’re like, what
your
preferences are, how tall you are and about your past. 
One week, she asked what your favorite food was,
she
refused to eat anything other than that the whole week.  Until I told her you loved broccoli and she decided it was okay to like things other than her father,” she explained, laughing at the memory.  “
I tried to answer her questions but now that you’re here, maybe you could take over that part?”  She looked at him, noting his grim expression and her whole body turned cold. “No!  You’re not leaving her just when you came back into her life, are you?”  She went up to him, gripping his arm and clutching at the sleeve.  “You can’t do that to her.  She’s read so much about you and she’s already in love with you.  Mikhail, you can’t leave her so soon!”

“
Stop
it!  I’m not going anywhere.”

His cell phone rang and he glanced at it curiously.  “George?  That was fast.  I wasn’t expecting to hear from you for another few days.”  He listened for a long time, nodding his head and running his fingers through his hair.  “Okay.  Yes, contact the authorities and let me know what I need to do.  Thank you for checking up on this so quickly.  I don’t like to think about the issues that might have come up if you hadn’t stopped her.”

He hung up the phone and turned back to Kristen.  “That was George.”

“I gathered that much.”

“After my call, he decided to head up to my office area immediately.  Apparently, he’d had some suspicions on her previously but couldn’t pin anything specific down.”

“And?” she prompted.

“He found Ellen burning your letters.”

Kristen gasped, horrified that someone could be so evil.  “No!  She can’t!  There was so much information in all of them.  Things you need to know.”

“It’s okay.  She’d only gotten through a few of them by the time George and his team arrived.”

Kristen relaxed and sank into the chair.  “Thank goodness!” she sighed, leaning her head onto the back of the chair. 

Mikhail watched her, unsure what to do now that he had proof that Kristen hadn’t betrayed him.  An enormous weight was lifted off his shoulders and he looked around, the world seeming to be brighter all of a sudden. 

“Why did you leave me, Kristen?” he asked softly, aware that he could breathe a bit more easily now.  And looking at her gave him a great deal of pleasure.  He still didn’t understand everything, but he was starting to suspect there was a great deal of mis-communication that needed to be resolved.