Not romantically. Gratefully.
He looks at me, not giving me time to explain anything. “I was about to come find you.”
Alina turns slightly. “Why?”
Maksim answers without even blinking. “Because I wanted to make sure she’s good. I checked her earlier.”
That is plausible enough to save me and blunt enough to stop questions for the moment.
Alina looks from him to me. “You’re playing doctor now?”
“I am a doctor,” he says. His hair is slightly ruffled. “It comes up surprisingly often.”
I have to look away for half a second so I don’t laugh from pure relief.
I clear my throat. “When did you come back?”
He gives Alina a look, though she’s still staring at me. “Just a bit ago. I left the hospital and came straight here.”
“The girl… is she okay?”
“Stable now, but barely,” he says, shaking his head.
Relief shoots through me. Alina scoffs. “We made a big deal for nothing. It must have been just food poisoning.”
I glance at her. Viktor might be the mafia, but I know where Ethan gets his cruelty from. Alina is staring at my belly now, her mouth twisted. I resist the urge to put an arm over my belly to hide it.
Maksim nods toward the far end of the hallway. “Walk with me.”
I don’t hesitate. “Sure.”
Alina’s gaze lingers on me for one more beat, still too sharp, still too curious, but she can’t exactly challenge a medical follow-up without sounding strange even to herself. So she steps aside.
I murmur something polite I don’t mean and start walking beside Maksim before she can ask anything else. We don’t speak until we’ve turned the corner.
Then Maksim says, quietly, “You’re welcome.”
I let out the breath I’d been holding. “You really are.”
He glances at me. “I assume I don’t want to know.”
“No,” I say. “You definitely don’t.”
That gets a short breath out of him that might be amusement.
“Fine. Then I’ll settle for this. Go back to your room and try not to run into any more of his family tonight.”
“That sounds like excellent advice.”
“It usually is.”
I look at him properly then, at the tired eyes and the dry expression and the fact that he stepped in without asking a single unnecessary question.
“Thank you,” I say again.
This time he nods once, more serious. “Get some sleep, Sienna.”
I almost tell him that sleep is not really the problem anymore.