The Director - Renee Rose Page 0,30

of my profession—exactly what I do and how I manage my business? You researched this thoroughly before you made the decision to keep our son from me?”

Svetlana pulls out her pressure cuff and attaches it to Lucy’s arm.

Lucy’s gaze drops from my face to the pressure cuff, her cheeks stained with pink. “I already apologized for that,” she mutters.

“No,” I say firmly. “You didn’t.” She may have offered some version of an apology, but it wasn’t for that, and it wasn’t accepted.

She watches Svetlana check her blood pressure and write it in a chart. She steals a glance at the numbers.

“That chart is in English!” Lucy points. “Svetlana, you speak English, don’t you?”

Svetlana is wise enough not to even lift her head or acknowledge the words.

“Come on, I’m supposed to believe she’s a licensed midwife in this country and doesn’t speak English? I’m not a fool, Ravil.”

I fold my arms over my chest, my lips curving slightly. Maxim was right. It didn’t even take her a week to figure it out. “That doesn’t mean anyone will speak English back, kitten.”

I watch that notion settle over her and don’t necessarily like the way it lands. With Svetlana, I wanted to create unease. When I do it to Lucy, it makes something twist in my gut.

Whether it’s a protective instinct for our child or because I can’t stand seeing Lucy knocked too far off balance, I can’t be sure. I’ve always been protective of her, even at Black Light.

Svetlana hands Lucy a test strip and a cup and, in Russian, tells her to pee on it.

Apparently Lucy is familiar with the test because she takes it into the bathroom and returns a moment later and hands the strip back. Svetlana compares the colors on the test strip to her chart. “That’s good,” she says in Russian as she writes it down. She pulls out her stethoscope and listens to Lucy’s chest then her belly.

Svetlana palpates Lucy’s belly then takes out a cone-shaped instrument, placing it on the side of her belly and listening to it.

“Are you listening to the baby’s heartbeat?” I ask.

“Yes.” Svetlana takes her ear away. “You want to hear?”

Blyat.

Like earlier, when Lucy first felt the baby kick, the idea of hearing its heartbeat makes him seem so real. Our baby, swimming inside Lucy right now. I kneel on the floor beside Lucy and put my ear to the small end of the cone. It takes me a moment to focus. To really listen. And then I hear it—the steady, fast rhythm. Our baby’s heartbeat.

So tiny. So faint. So precious. This tiny, helpless miracle will be coming into our lives.

My eyes burn. I blink rapidly as I look up to find Lucy’s gaze intent on me. Her fingertips lift to cover her mouth. “Benjamin,” she blurts.

“Benjamin,” I repeat.

She lets out her breath all in a rush with her words. “I don’t know, it just popped into my head. I think his name is Benjamin.” Her eyes grow bright.

I find her hand and hold it, not moving from my place at her feet. “Benjamin is a perfect name.”

Svetlana gently takes the cone from me and packs it in her bag. I hardly notice as she pulls out a few sheets of paper and sets them on the bed. “Have her fill in her diet to track her protein on that chart. I don’t need to come for another month, but if you want, I’ll come again next week.”

I don’t look away from Lucy’s beautiful face. I love seeing it soft and overcome with emotion, as changed as I am by a baby’s heartbeat. “Yes, next week,” I say to Svetlana, squeezing Lucy’s hand again.

Svetlana leaves, and still I don’t move, except to push Lucy’s knees wide. I stroke my thumbs up the inside of her thighs, dragging the fabric of her skirt up.

Conflict swirls in her eyes. She shifts her pelvis on the bed, probably turned on. Probably against her will.

Then she slaps me. “That’s for telling everyone to speak Russian around me.”

I let it fall, then catch her wrist and bring her fingers to my mouth, sucking one into my mouth.

With her other hand, she cuffs the top of my head lightly. A symbolic act, not a real one. “And that’s for...”

She stops as I take her middle finger and suck it into my mouth. She squirms some more.

“For what?” I ask when I release her finger and move my head to trail light kisses up her inner thigh.

Her breath