“Good. Stay positive.” She smoothed the blanket over her lap before continuing. “I’m going to see him tomorrow. I have a meeting nearby.”
“Can I come?” The question left me faster than I intended.
She gave me a look that almost carried an apology. “I believe Dmitri already told you that you can’t go. I’ll be sneaking in by myself.”
“Then at least tell me how he is afterward.” Silence settled between us again, and I took it as my cue to leave. “I’ll let you sleep.”
“Do you plan to give Dmitri a child?”
I froze. “I’m sorry?”
“I know Cole is your brother,” she said calmly. “But he already feels like a grandson to me. I would love for Dmitri to have a child before I die.”
I sat back down. The sentence rearranged itself inside my head twice before I trusted what I heard. She knew Cole wasn’t Dmitri’s son.
Which meant she knew everything else too.
“After you two are done pretending,” she continued, “maybe you’ll realize you actually make a good couple.”
“You knew?” I stared at her. “This whole time?”
She laughed. “What do you think? That I’m stupid?”
“No, I just…” I stopped midway through the sentence. “You knew I stole his money?”
Her eyes widened. “You stole Dmitri’s money?”
Shit.
I bit my lip and looked down at my lap. Why would I say that out loud?
Grandma burst into laughter, and I looked back up at her. “That is exactly why I keep telling Dmitri you’d make a good wife,” she said while wiping at the corner of her eye. “You fit into this family perfectly.”
“Shouldn’t that make you hate me?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“Hate you?” She waved the idea away. “Please. I’ve done worse.”
I snorted. “You didn’t rob a bank, did you?”
She shifted deeper into the pillows. “You’d be surprised.” She cleared her throat. “The pills are working. I should sleep.”
I sat there a moment longer after she closed her eyes. In my entire life, I never had grandparents, and I never cared enough to ask my parents about them either. But this felt nice. I pulled the blanket higher over her and stood up.
“Goodnight, Grandma.”
“Goodnight, dear.”
I left the room and paused in the hallway while the conversation settled over me piece by piece. She knew. This entire time, she knew Dmitri and I were pretending. She still welcomed us into this house and treated us like family. She saw through all of it and chose not to turn it into a problem.
Did Dmitri know Grandma knew the marriage was fake?
Chapter Thirty-nine
Dmitri Konstantinov
The numbers from Hong Kongsat well. I scrolled through the monthly breakdown on my phone while the laptop ran a wider report across the sofa armrest. The pattern confirmed what I already noticed. When Inna made the observation about the Hong Kong organization, I didn’t act because I trusted her judgment. I acted on it to see whether her judgment held weight. It did. She passed that test without effort. She had an eye for business, yet she treated it as if it were nothing special.
The door opened, and I looked up.