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Leonid was a page that hadn’t only been turned, but burned.
“Mama.”
The tension clamping her every muscle suddenly drained at the chirping call of her eldest-by-minutes daughter, Eva. The girls had started calling her Mama two months ago. She hadn’t thought it would be that big of a deal. But every time they said it, which was often now that they knew it activated her like nothing else, another surge of sheer love and indulgence flooded her. Her lips spread with delight as she strode through her spacious, cheerfully decorated Bel Air house to their room.
It had been like this for months. Eva and Zoya always woke up an hour after she put them to bed. It was as if they loathed wasting precious playtime sleeping, or thought they shouldn’t leave her alone. But since she’d gone back to work after their first birthday almost six months ago, and they spent mornings with Kyria Despina, her late uncle’s wife and now her nanny, she welcomed the extra time with them.
As she approached the nursery, she could hear the girls’ efforts to climb out of their cribs through the ajar door. They were able to do it after a few trials now, but would soon be experts at it. She debated whether to go in or to let them complete their task and toddle their way to her in their playroom, as she’d been doing lately. It was why she’d been leaving the door ajar. She had childproofed every inch of her home six thousand ways from Sunday after all.
Moments passed and neither toddler showed up at the end of the corridor. Heart booming with the always-hovering anxiety she’d learned was a permanent side effect of motherhood, she streaked inside and found both girls standing in their crib, literally asleep on their feet.
The tenacious tots were obeying their regular programming even though their strenuously fun weekend at Disneyland had left them wiped out.
Scooping them up, she held one in each arm in the way she’d perfected, cooing to them, letting them know as they nestled into her and made those sweet sleep sounds that she’d come, as she always would, that they hadn’t missed that extra time with her they’d wanted.
Once she laid them down again, each turned to her favorite position and resumed a deep, contented sleep.
Sighing at that tremor of acute love and gratitude coursing through her, she walked out, closing the door completely now that she knew they were down for the night.
The moment she exited the room, the doorbell rang.
Frowning, she remembered that the girls’ play pals, Judy and Mikey, had again left behind some toys she’d found only after a thorough tidying up. It had become a ritual for Sara, their mother and her neighbor, to come by and collect her children’s articles after she’d put them to bed. They usually ended up having a cup of tea to unwind together after their hectic days.
Rushing to the door, she opened it with a ready smile. “We should establish rules about allowing only in-house toys...”
Air clogged her lungs. All her nerves fired, short-circuiting her every muscle, especially her heart.
Leonid.
Right there. On her doorstep.
She’d visualized this encounter countless times in waking trances and suffocating dreams. The perverse yearning had risen time and again for him to show up, look down at her from his prodigious height with eyes full of all he’d deprived her of, and tell her everything that had happened since his accident had been a terrible dream. She’d hoped for it until hope had turned to ashes.
And now...out of the blue, he was here...
Oh, God! He is really here.
Almost unrecognizable. Yet distressingly the same.
Observations accumulated in the white noise that filled her mind, burying her. The most obvious change was his hair. The silk that had been long enough to wind around her hands in the throes of passion was now severely cropped. It still suited him. It actually suited him better, accentuating the dominance of his bone structure.
The other major difference was his body. It hadn’t been a distortion of the video or his size relative to others. He was bigger. Broader. More heavily muscled. The leanness of the runner had been replaced by the bulk of a supreme fitness athlete.
His every feature and nuance, familiar yet radically different, felt like a knife to the heart.
But on the whole, he looked as if everything human about him had melted away, revealing a creature of polished steel beneath. Even the way he held himself seemed...inhuman. As if he was now a being of pure intellect and purpose, like a cyborg, an animate form of artificial intelligence.
An hour could have passed as she gaped up at him and he stared blankly down at her. He’d always had that power. Time had always distorted when she’d entered his orbit.
“Invite me in, Kassandra.”
His bottomless voice yanked her out of the stupor she’d stumbled in.
“I will do no such thing.”
“Your porch isn’t the place for what I’ve come to say.”
Her mouth dropped open at his audacity. That he could just appear on her doorstep after what he’d done to her, and without even an attempt at apology or even civility, not only demand but expect to be invited in.
“There’s no place where you can say anything to me. We have absolutely nothing to say to each other.”
“After the past two years, we have plenty.”
“The past two years are exactly why there’s nothing to be said. Even if there was, I’m not interested in hearing it.”
His eyes gave her a clinical sweep, as if assessing her response for veracity and judging it to be false. It made her loathe her weakness for him all over again.
“I don’t know what you were thinking coming here like this, what you expected, but if...”
“If you’re still angry, we can discuss that, too.”
If? If?
“Are you sure you broke only your legs in that accident? Sounds as if you’d pulverized way more. Like the components that made you human.”
“I do realize showing up here must have surprised you...”
“Try appalled and outraged.”
He shifted, like the automaton she’d just accused him of becoming, as if moving into a different gear to counter her response. “That’s why I showed up. I gathered if I called ahead, you would have been just as resistant to granting me an audience. So I decided to eliminate unnecessary steps.”
“And this single step turned out to be as pointless. I’m not granting you an audience since we have zero things to discuss, so you might as well save us both the aggravation and go disappear again. Preferably forever this time.”
“If you’re concerned I might be here to exhume the past, rest assured I have no wish to resurrect anything between us. I’m not here for you at all. I’m here for my daughters.”
Every word sank into her mind like a depth mine. Then the last ones exploded.
I’m here for my daughters.
My daughters.
The rage that detonated inside her, that he would dare say this, or even think it, almost rocked her on her feet.
Biting a tongue that had gone numb with fury, she gritted out, “Leave. Right this second.”
Unperturbed, he gave a nonchalant shrug of his daunting shoulder. “I will leave after I’ve said what I came to say and when we’ve come to a preliminary understanding. Whether you approve or not, I am the father of your twin daughters, and I am here to—”
Red smeared her vision. “You won’t be here much longer or I’m calling the police.”
His searing blue gaze remained still, his pupils unmoving, indicating he had no emotional response to her threat and agitation. “I would advise against this. It would disrupt your neighborhood and bring you unneeded speculation and embarrassment. Not to mention you’d have to lie to the police to make them take action against me...”
“I won’t be lying when I say you’re here uninvited, harassing me and making fraudulent claims to my daughters.”
“They’re my daughters, too.”
“Not according to the law, they’re not. Nor to them or to the whole world. Any passing stranger they’ve ever briefly met is more to them than you are.”
His formidable head inclined in agreement. “I know that being their biological father on its own means nothing. That’s why I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere until I say my piece or until you indicate your willingness to negotiate further.”
“What the hell do you mean, negotiate?”
“Over the twins, of course.”
She gaped, unable to voice any of the million violent protests ricocheting in her skull and boiling her blood.
“Before you blast me off the face of the earth, I remind you that as their biological father, I do have a right to—”
“You have absolutely no right to Eva and Zoya. None. You relinquished any right to even think of them as yours way before they were born. You made it clear you didn’t even want them to be born. You may have forgotten this, but I remember all too well.”
“I freely admit I behaved extremely...inappropriately when you came to me after my accident. You can understand I was at my worst at the time.”
“And you remained there for over two years?”
“I’m the first to admit it took me longer than acceptable to deal with everything.”
Rage deepening at his dismissal of his abandonment of her, she seethed, “I care nothing about why you did what you did, and I’ll be damned if I let you pretend it was forgivable and invade my life again. You’re sure as hell never coming near my daughters.”
“I’m not here seeking forgiveness. I don’t waste my time, and I certainly won’t waste yours pursuing the unattainable. But I’m here to acknowledge my responsibilities. Whatever I’ve done, I’m myself again.”
“If you think that makes it any better, let me disabuse you of that notion. Being yourself is proof you know nothing of responsibility or accountability or even common courtesy and basic humanity.”
Instead of stonewalling her again, he just nodded impassively. “You’re right. My old self was nothing to be proud of. But the past couple of years changed me, and the man I am today is capable of at least being fully responsible and accountable, and resolved to take on his duties.”
“Good for ‘him.’ And as long as ‘he’ takes his resolutions away from my family, I wish ‘him’ the best of luck.”
“The thing is, your family is also mine. The twins are the primary duty I’m determined to take on.”
She fought harder against the screams gathering at the back of her throat. “That would have been a commendable sentiment if they needed anything from you. Which they don’t. And they never will. You’ve done your part and can now feel proud of yourself when you leave and never come back.”
His azure gaze remained unwavering. “I do understand your alarm and rejection. But even if the past was rife with pain, I’m certain everything happened for a reason. Why else would I have twin girls, and now be called on to take the mantle of responsibility in the land of the twin goddesses?”
This made zero sense to her, leaving her speechless again.
Realizing she had no ready comeback, he straightened even more, seeming to grow bigger, more rigid and imposing. “I won’t push for this audience tonight. I’ll give you some time. Not long but enough to let it all sink in.”
And a croak finally escaped her. “Let what sink in?”
“The fact that I am back to stay. That nothing will stop me from claiming my throne, and my heirs.”
Two
Kassandra’s entranced gaze followed Leonid as he descended the stairs of her porch, then crossed her driveway in measured strides to his parked car, a gleaming black Jaguar that looked like an extension of him.
Without looking back, he got in and drove away slowly, almost soundlessly. After the car disappeared, she remained staring at the void it had left, her mind a debris field in the wake of the havoc he’d wreaked.
Had he really been here? Or had she conjured him after seeing him earlier in that news spot? Had it all been a dream, a nightmare?
But if it had been, why couldn’t she wake up, as she always did whenever his phantasm came to suffocate her at night? As much as she would have preferred an actual breakdown to him being here, she knew. He had been here. And he would be back. His last words rang in her ears in an unending loop.
Nothing will stop me from claiming my throne, and my heirs.
Legs trembling with futile rage and incipient dread, she closed the door. But it was no use. She didn’t feel she’d successfully shut him out, or that she was safe anymore inside her home.
As she shakily made her way inside, one thing he’d said buzzed into her brain like an electric drill.
Why else would I have twin girls, and now be called on to take the mantle of responsibility in the land of the twin goddesses?
What had that meant?
She had to find out. Her first priority was to understand the motive behind his sudden interest in Eva and Zoya. Knowledge would be her best weapon against his unexpected incursion.
Still unsteady, she got some water and headed to her home office. She sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. After staring at the search engine numbly for several moments, she typed in Zorya.
For hours, she read all there was to read about the mythology behind that name and the land that wielded it.
It turned out Zorya was a plural name, incorporating the two guardian goddesses, Zarya and Zvezda, who represented the morning and evening stars. According to Slavic mythology, they were charged through eternity with guarding the doomsday hound, Simargi, lest he consumed the constellation Ursa Minor. They were also responsible for opening and closing the gates for the sun. Zorya, the former—and soon to be again—kingdom was said to be the only place where both stars could be perpetually seen on all clear nights. Its coat of arms depicted the blonde and dark-haired goddesses holding up stars. Though the goddesses were twins, they were quite literally night and day.
Just like her girls.
Eva had taken after her, Zoya after Leonid.
So this was what he’d meant. He considered this a sign he was meant to have both the throne and the girls.
And she’d seen it in his eyes.
He would make it all come true.
* * *
After an oppressive night spent pondering every possible distressing outcome of Leonid’s reappearance, Kassandra struggled to perform her morning rituals with the girls before leaving them with Kyria Despina and heading to work. Not that she expected to get any work done, but she needed to be away from them. She’d be damned if she’d let Leonid poison their moods, too.
In half an hour, she was in her personal office on the second floor of her company, looking out the window at downtown LA but only seeing the chaos inside her mind.
What disturbed her most was that she hadn’t come up with a plan of action in case Leonid did pursue his objectives. Which she had no doubt he would.
“I’m sorry, Kass, I tried to...”
Even before her PA’s cut-short exclamation, Kassandra’s senses had gone haywire.
Swinging around, hoping she was wrong but certain she wasn’t, the air was still knocked out of her at the sight of him. Leonid.
He filled her doorway, dwarfing her delicate PA. Mindy was looking up at him with a mixture of mortification and all-out awe.
Kassandra understood. How she did. A god walking the earth wouldn’t have looked as imposing and overpowering.
Their gazes collided, almost making her stumble against the plate glass of her wall-to-wall window. It was him who relinquished their visual lock first to look down at Mindy, who resembled a tiny herbivore that found itself in the crosshairs of a great feline.
“I apologize for overriding you, Ms. Levine. Ms. Stavros will fully understand that there was nothing you could have done to stop me. You can rest assured she’ll chastise me appropriately for such high-handed behavior.”
Gathering what she could of her wits, Kassandra tore her gaze off him and focused on her assistant. “It’s okay, Mindy.” Mindy looked back as if in a trance. Kassandra sighed. “You can go now, thanks. I’ll let you know if I decide to call security.”
With a ghost of a smile, Leonid stepped aside to allow Mindy to stumble out. “She won’t. You can drop the red alert.”
The moment the door closed, Leonid turned his focus to her. It was a good thing she’d moved to her desk so she could mask her own unsteadiness and feign a confrontational pose.
“Don’t be so sure, Leonid. My private security isn’t the police and won’t care if you broke any laws. The one thing that will matter to them is that I don’t want you here.”
“How do you know you don’t want me here before you hear what I have to say?”
“I already heard it, and I not only would rather you spare me an encore, but I also wish there was some cosmic erase button to have it unsaid. If that’s all you’re here to say, I will cut everything short and have you removed.”
“You don’t need to bother. I will remove myself once I’ve done what I’ve come to do. And it’s not to reiterate what I said last night. I’m here to state my terms.”
“This time I will spare myself the aggravation of reacting to your terminal audacity. The answer to anything you have to say is no anyway.”
“If you remember anything about me, you should know I do not take no for an answer. Now, more than ever, I won’t.”
Every nerve jangled as he approached, as if to emphasize that there was no stopping his invasion of her life. With every step, she felt as if he was planting a foothold that she wouldn’t be able to uproot.
“My terms are the following—I want to become Eva and Zoya’s father, in name and in reality. You will give me full access to them, effective immediately. You won’t try to do anything to put them off me, or to put off the procedure of declaring me as their father. I will have them bear my name before the coronation. It is in just over a month’s time.”
Feeling she’d taken a deep breath underwater, her protest came out a gurgle. “Now, look here...”
He continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. “As their mother, you can and will of course dictate your own terms and I will meet every one.”
She shook her head, as if to shake off a punch to the face. “My only term is that you get the hell out of my life. You stayed out of it for two years. And that is where I demand you stay.”
His face remained as hard as stone. “That is not an option. Anything else is negotiable.”
“Nothing else is worth negotiating. I won’t let you walk into my life, making those insane demands and expecting me to fall in with your timetable.”
“I’m not walking into your life, but my daughters’.”
Knowing he was powerful enough to do whatever he wished, her mind burned rubber trying to latch on to an alternative to anger or defiance to hold him at bay. Those had gotten her nowhere. Continuing to challenge him head-on would only make him more intractable. If that was even possible.
Her only way out could be to negotiate a less-damaging deal. Something other than the takeover he was bent on.
“Listen, Leonid, let’s take a time-out and rewind to the beginning. Let’s say, for whatever reasons, you wish to acknowledge the girls as your daughters. I can, if necessary, live with that. We can come to an agreement where you can be...included. That doesn’t mean you have to be in their lives. You haven’t been since before they were born and they are totally fine without a father. I’m not saying this to be vindictive, or because of our personal history. It’s just a fact. Also consider the effort and time commitment that goes into being a parent. You can’t possibly want to be a father, especially now that you’re on the verge of becoming a king. You literally have far better and more important things to do.”
He waited until she finished her speech, then demolished it with that vacant look. “There’s nothing better or more important than becoming the father my daughters deserve. And need. No matter how adequate you are as a single parent.”
Her rage seethed again. “You know nothing of how adequate I am as a single parent, or what my daughters need.”
“Like you take exception to my opinion of your life, I would appreciate you not passing judgment on mine. Being a father is exactly what I now want to be. Becoming a king only makes it more imperative I claim all my responsibilities with the utmost commitment.”
“Fine, I won’t presume to know what you want. I’ll keep to my side of things. I need no commitment from you.”
“Then, I will change your mind about what you need.”
The way he’d said that... The way his gaze dropped to envelop her body before returning stonily to hers...
Did...did he mean something personal? Intimate...?
Before her thoughts caught fire, he disabused her of any ridiculous notion this was in any way about her. “No matter how strong, resourceful and successful you are, and though you’ve been coping exceptionally well being both a mother and a businesswoman, you will experience a huge improvement in the quality of your and the twins’ lives when you have me as a fully committed partner in raising them.”
She shook her head, feeling punch-drunk. “You come here...and just dictate to me...about the quality of my—”
“I came here, your territory still, but a less personal one, after your reaction to my showing up on your doorstep last night, because I thought you might feel less cornered here. It’s also why I didn’t have you brought to me.”
That made her locate her faltering verbal skills with a vengeance. “Oh, how considerate of you. I should be grateful you didn’t have me dragged to your territory, and instead chose to invade my professional space, getting my whole company abuzz with speculation, launching a hundred rumors, undermining me and generally disrupting my life?”
“I figured whatever I did, it wouldn’t meet with your approval, so I did what I thought least threatening to you.”
“Great rationalization, but...”
He continued speaking as if he was playing back a recording. “Starting tomorrow, I expect to be allowed in to see my daughters without resistance or ill will. I would very much prefer, for their sake and yours, if we do this on the most amicable terms possible. I hope you won’t force me to resort to more drastic measures.”
Having finished the speech he’d come to deliver, he turned and walked away. She could only stare after him, feeling as if she were sinking in quicksand.
Before he stepped out the door, he paused, turned. “I’ll come by your house a couple of hours before the twins’ bedtime.”
Kassandra waited until he closed the door after him, then collapsed on her chair like a demolished building.
As everything seeped into her mind and its full impact registered, she reeled harder. Not only with the disaster in progress she could see spiraling out of control, but with how much of a stranger he’d become.
Those first hellish months after he’d kicked her out of his life, she’d been anguished by how his feelings for her had withered, then reversed. But with him so distant and clinical now, she finally believed he’d never felt anything in the first place. She didn’t count at all to him, neither in the past nor in the future he had so carefully planned for them all.
The future she couldn’t let come to pass.
She couldn’t let this automaton near her daughters. His new programming might dictate it, but if there was anyone Eva and Zoya were better off without it was him.
But she couldn’t stop him. He had the legal and personal clout to do what he wanted. She didn’t have a leg to stand on, let alone a weapon to fight him off with.
But...that wasn’t true. She did have weapons.
At least her best friends did. Selene, Caliope and Naomi had access to three of the most lethal weapons in the world. Their husbands. Each man was at least as powerful as Leonid was, if not more. He’d have no chance against their combined might.
Fumbling for her cell phone, she called Selene. As soon as she answered, she told her she was adding another call to Caliope, then repeated the process with her, adding another to Naomi, too, merging the calls.