Carina scoffed. “I don’t know much about that, but you sound like you want to do this. Do you even hear yourself? And wouldRodion agree? No. Sit on your stupid idea and let Matvet handle it.”
“You’re right.” I rubbed my face. “I don’t want to do it either.” My head fell back on the seat, staring at the ceiling. “But… I could. If Dmitri agreed to do something.”
Carina fell silent, and so did I. I let the thoughts spin before I looked at her again. “What if Dmitri agreed to help me before the wedding happens?”
“You’re sick,” she accused.
“Well, I am sick, and you know why.” My eyes watered. “I don’t want anything to happen to him, but if he stays under dialysis too long, it’ll be bad.” My eyes blurred. “Fine. Yes. I love him. How? I don’t know. Why? I don’t know either. But I’ve started feeling things for him.”
Tears slipped before I could stop them. Carina’s eyes welled up too. She sniffled. “Fine. Let’s go. I’ll get tested. If we are a match, I’ll give him a kidney.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me up.
“What?”
“Yes.” She guided me to the door. “If that’ll stop your stupid idea, we’ll check.”
“Hey.” I tried to yank my hand off. “Your parents would disagree. Stop.”
“It’s my body,” she snapped. “So let’s go get this test.”
“Fine. Fine. Wait.” I stopped, and so did she. “You’re not serious.”
“Call Matvet. Tell him I need to be tested.”
I shook my head. “Carina, giving a kidney isn’t handing out a bag of popcorn.”
“Oh, and agreeing to marry some strange man is the solution you could come up with?”
“Fine. Okay. I’ll call Dorothy.” I walked back to the table and grabbed my phone. “We can ask her. Trust me, she wouldn’t agree.”
Carina’s determination was evident, but it didn’t matter. When we called Dorothy, she only asked for Carina’s blood type. That was all it took for us to know she wasn’t a match.
We gave up and sat on the office sofa, silently. Carina was right, it was stupid to consider marrying another man. However, the truth was that Rodion’s life hung by a thread.
“Ice cream?” Carina asked, and I turned to face her. “It’ll help us reboot so we can think straight.”
“You are right.” We both got up, leaving the office we had occupied for hours. But I knew the ice cream couldn’t erase the fact that Leonid was an option here.
As we walked down the hallway, I pulled my phone from my pocket and typed a message to Dmitri. It took me nearly a minute to hit send.
Rodion would be furious if he knew. And what if things went wrong? I would end up carrying Leonid’s child?
I started typing another message to tell him to forget it, but before I could send it, my phone buzzed with his reply.
Chapter Forty-six
Alessia
The plane floated higher, thecity shrinking beneath us until Los Angeles was nothing but a smear of lights fading into the dark. I pressed my forehead to the window, watching as the night swallowed everything familiar. And the fear I had been outrunning pressed heavily into my chest. My life had stopped the moment we took off. I couldn’t take it back.
Tears fell, grief bleeding through me. I had left nothing but ruins behind. My actions hurt my parents. The memory of my father’s tears was unbearable. I had never seen him cry before, and when he did, it wasn’t only sorrow I saw but betrayal and rage. He would never forgive Rodion, and it was all my fault.
Carina’s voice still rang in my head, pleading with me to call this off. But I ignored her, just as I did to Matvet. His words, desperate and heavy, still pressed on my chest. He told me theycould find options beyond Leonid’s reach, that I didn’t have to bow to this. He asked me to think again, to consider what Rodion would want. But I didn’t listen. I told myself time was killing Rodion faster than promises could save him.
Matvet was the only one who saw through me. He knew about the lie Dmitri and I had spun in two days. I watched him resent me to the point that he refused to let me see Rodion again. And now I sat across from the man I hated, with his son beside me.
Leonid leaned back with an easy smirk, his glass swirling with liquor. He chuckled as if we were sharing some private joke. “You should accept it,” he said. “That’s who Rodion is.”
My throat ached. I was crying because I had destroyed everything I loved, but Leonid thought it was over the deal. He didn’t know we had tricked him. Neither did his son, Vincenzo, who sat quietly, drinking.