“The good news is that you do have options.”
The lawyer that Tom recommended sits behind her desk, across from Petra and me. She’s a severe looking woman in her midthirties, with dark hair that’s pulled tight into a low ponytail and dark magenta lips. “The bad news,” she says, and Petra reaches across the small space between our chairs to grasp my hand, “is that none of them are as easy as what you’re hoping for.”
“What is our best option?” Petra asks.
“Your fastest option for adopting Stella is to stay married. Petra, you can legally adopt her because you’re a citizen, and once you’ve adopted her, Aleksandr can also legally adopt her because you’re married.”
“But I’m moving to LA. We won’t be living together. Stella will be here in New York with Aleksandr, and I’ll be across the country.”
“You could claim residency in New York, using Aleksandr’s address as your permanent residence. Then wherever you live in LA could be a temporary residence you stay in while you’re there filming. You’d have to come back to New York frequently though, at least every other weekend if you want it to be believable that you’re married and want to adopt Stella together. And you’ll need to move your event planning business to New York too, if you’re going to continue with that.”
“But all my employees are in Park City,” Petra says, and I hear the worry in her voice.
“I’m not a small business attorney, but I don’t think there would be any reason your employees couldn’t continue to work from Park City. However, if you’re going to be a resident of New York, your business should be here, too, or it will look suspicious.”
Petra sighs, a long, low sound of frustration leaving her lips. I feel the magnitude of what’s being asked of her.
“This feels like everything is coming down on Petra,” I say to the lawyer. “Isn’t there something I could do to make this happen that doesn’t involve her sacrificing so much?”
She squeezes my hand in hers, a small offering of thanks or support or love—I’m not sure which.
“Unfortunately, whereas she’s the US citizen, she’s the one who is going to have to do the work here.”
“That feels very unfair,” I say.
“And yet it’s what the law requires. You could always go the route of getting citizenship yourself, and then adopting Stella. But as you already know, that process might take a couple years. I suspect a judge would be sympathetic to you wanting to adopt your niece after her parents’ death, and that the adoption process would be significantly quicker, but I also can’t make any promises. And you’d have to get citizenship first. There could be any variety of delays, and even if we go for the faster option of Petra adopting Stella, the judge needs to believe that you two are married and living together and in this for the long run, or he might deny the adoption petition.”
My frustration rattles around in the back of my throat, and Petra looks at me like she’s shocked by the groan I’ve let loose in this office. “This feels like an impossible task.”
“May I ask what the hurry is?” the lawyer asks. “Why not go through the process of becoming a citizen and adopting without involving Petra? You’re already the legal guardian.”
“If anything were to happen to me . . .” I trail off, but Petra picks up and explains about Nikolai and Colette’s will, and how CeCe and Tony tried to get custody and how they are still sniffing around, trying to be part of Stella’s life even though that’s not what her parents wanted.
“You don’t have any specific evidence that your brother and sister-in-law didn’t want the aunt and uncle around?”
“No,” I tell her. “Just that they had separate conversations with me and my sister-in-law’s best friend, Sofia, where they explained their wishes to each of us.” She’s already seen the will, I don’t need to explain that they clearly didn’t include CeCe or Tony in any part of that.
“Keeping families together is almost always the goal,” she tells us, and it’s exactly what Tom had told me and exactly why I’m worried. “But if their wishes are clearly spelled out in their will, I don’t think you need to worry.”
“I wish that was the case, but when the judge decided in my favor, he also said he’d reconsider if I was ever unwilling or unable to serve as Stella’s guardian.”
“Whichever option you choose,” the lawyer says, “I’d get started on it as quickly as possible. I do honestly think your best option is getting your citizenship and adopting Stella yourself. Given the . . . unique . . . nature of your marriage, having Petra adopt Stella may be the fastest option, but may not be the wisest.”
“What do you mean?” Petra asks.
“Given the circumstances, if you don’t plan to stay married, things might get messy when you separate. If you’re the one who has adopted Stella,” she tells Petra, “then that gives you a lot of leverage when it comes to the divorce. It’s possible”—she looks over at me—“that you might not end up with Stella in the end.”
Petra draws back, her eyes wide. “I would never do that. Stella isn’t a bargaining chip, and I’m not looking to gain anything from this, except to help Aleksandr adopt his niece.”
“That’s true right now, but who’s to say what might happen in a year? This whole process might take that long, and adoption is tough even for two people in a loving, committed relationship.”
Her concern gives me a moment’s pause. Petra has put her life on pause to stay in New York and help me over the last couple weeks. There hasn’t been even the slightest indication she’d do anything that wouldn’t be in my or Stella’s best interest. But. The word rattles around in my head. But could she?
She’s been extraordinarily honest about the fact that she doesn’t want kids. I know the idea of getting a divorce also weighs heavily on her mind, as she doesn’t want the attention that would bring. Could she—would she—ever use Stella as a bargaining chip to get what she wanted out of a divorce?
Petra wouldn’t do that, I assure myself. But the question is there, digging into the soft spot in my heart that I didn’t even know existed before I had Stella: Are you sure?
Do I know her well enough to know this for sure? How could I guarantee that she wouldn’t cross me down the road to get something she wanted?
I glance over at Petra, who is gazing at me as if she can read my mind and looks disappointed in my thought process. “Thank you. We’ll take your advice into consideration,” I tell the lawyer as I reach for Petra’s hand.
Petra is still working when I get home from picking Stella up at school, and she’s quiet through dinner. It’s a combination of watching her lost in thought and submersed in sadness—one minute she’s staring off into space, the next she’s choked up while answering a question from Stella. She’s a hollow shell of herself. I’ve never seen her like this, and it’s breaking my heart to watch.
After dinner, I suggest we walk over to the ice cream stand in the park, and while Stella practically hits the ceiling in her excitement, Petra just says, “You guys go, I should probably stay home and pack.”
“Do you really have to leave? I want you to stay,” Stella speaks the words I’ve been thinking for days.
“Unfortunately, I do,” Petra says. “I have a lot of things going on for work right now, and I have to be there for them. But like I told you the other night, I’ll be back in a few weeks.” Her smile is small and pitiful.
“But at least come for ice cream, please,” Stella draws out the last word for a few seconds, and I hate to see her like this, begging for Petra’s attention. I equally hate watching Petra withhold it when she doesn’t want to, like she thinks it’ll be easier for Stella when she leaves if she starts pulling away now. I wish she understood that nothing will make her leaving easier.
If it’s possible to regret letting someone into your life and also wanting to hold them tightly and never let go, that’s how I’m feeling. And I’m pretty sure it’s how Stella is feeling too.
“I wish I could, cutie,” Petra says, then turns her head and gazes out the window.
“Why don’t we take a walk and get some ice cream,” I say to Stella, “and give Petra some time to pack. Then maybe when we get back, we can watch a show together before it’s time for bed.”
“Will you watch the show with us?” Stella asks Petra.
“Sure. I’ll go start packing now.”
The air is warm, and the sky is still quite blue as we head across Fifth Avenue and into Central Park. I’m confident Stella could find the ice cream cart with her eyes closed. As we take our treats and walk over to the playground where she sometimes likes to get her energy out at the end of the day, it occurs to me that soon I’ll need to start teaching her how to navigate the city. Not that she’ll be doing it on her own for about another decade, but just to make sure she always knows where she is and how to get where she wants to go. I never want her to feel lost or powerless.
I’ll also need to teach her how to keep herself safe, which has me thinking of Petra and how she’s the person I want to ask about this. I don’t know how women keep themselves safe in a city or how they should react under different circumstances, but I’m confident Petra will be an expert in this area. It’s interesting to me that the more deeply I think about it, the more I find that Petra fits well into all parts of our life. Not only because I want to be with her every minute of the day, but also because Stella looks up to her and Petra is exactly the kind of woman I want Stella to grow into—strong, independent, thoughtful.
“What do you think things will be like when Petra is gone?” Stella asks as she leans back on the lip of the fountain overlooking the playground.
My throat feels tight and my eyes burn at the thought of answering this question. “Probably a lot like before she arrived.”
“I don’t want to go back to our life without her in it.” Stella’s normally confident voice is small and pinched, and her eyes look a little lost as she gazes past me at the trees.
Neither do I. The words almost slip off my tongue, but I bite them back just in time. I need to appear unified with Petra on this front or it will be confusing and even more painful for Stella when Petra leaves. “We’ll be okay,” I tell her instead. “And you’re going to love Raina. She’s like Natasha, but even nicer.”
“But do you think she’ll love me like Petra does?”
The question slices through the last of my willpower. “I don’t know.” My voice cracks with emotion. “You and Petra have a special bond. But that doesn’t mean you and Raina won’t have a different, special bond too.”
“But Raina will only be my nanny. I wanted Petra to stay and be my mom.”
I look at her in alarm, but her face is hard and certain. My throat is so tight I feel like I can’t speak, which is just as well because I don’t want to give her false hope, and I also don’t want to crush her dreams. Will Petra and I pursue the path of her being the one to adopt Stella? Will we stay married to make this all possible? Or will she leave for good, and I’ll pursue citizenship instead so I can adopt Stella without her help? I don’t know yet, and since Stella doesn’t even know that Petra and I are married, I can’t even begin to explain this possibility to her.
“I know,” I tell her and reach my arm around her shoulders to hug her to my side.
“Do you think that will ever happen?”
“A lot would have to change for that to happen,” I say tentatively. “I’d have to be your dad and—”
“But you already are my dad, aren’t you? I mean, now that Mama and Papa are dead and I live with you?”
Goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. I’m not sure how I thought this conversation was going to go, but this isn’t it. “I mean, yeah.” I shrug because I don’t want to make a big deal out of her questions and give her any reason to think maybe that isn’t what I want. It’s exactly what I’m trying to make happen.
“Can I call you Dada then, instead of Dyadya?”
“Sure.” Why does my voice sound like it’s being pushed out the spout of a steaming teakettle? “But even so, that doesn’t mean Petra would be your mom.” My chest feels so tight it’s painful.
“But she would be if you marry her,” Stella says, like it’s the most obvious and simple thing in the world.
The urge to confide in my six-year-old niece is astounding. I want to tell her that I don’t know how to be enough to make Petra want to stay, and the not knowing and the not being enough makes me feel so small and insignificant when Petra is such a huge part of my life already.
“That’s not really how marriage works,” I tell her. “You have to love the person, be in love with them. And you both have to feel the same way about each other.”
“But don’t you guys love each other?” she asks before shoving an enormous spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.
“We’ve been friends for a long time, and we do love each other. But that’s different than being in love.”
“What’s the difference?” she asks, her mouth full of ice cream.
“You can love someone like they’re family, you know, like I love you. But being in love with someone is . . . more.”
“How?”
I don’t know how to explain this. I’ve loved Petra since she was thirteen and been in love with her since she was fourteen—and I’m not sure I even know what the difference is anymore? I only know that I’ve never felt this way about anyone else and that my feelings and attraction to her are even stronger now than when we were teenagers.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I tell Stella, hoping that answer will suffice. How do I explain love and sexual attraction, and the difference between the two?
Stella looks up at me. “So, are you not in love with Petra, then?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s a really complicated situation.”
“No, it’s not,” she insists. “We love Petra, and we want her to be part of our family.”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“It is, you just have to ask her to stay.”
I love her confidence, her reckless belief that life is asking for what you want and then getting it.
“There are a lot of reasons she can’t stay,” I remind Stella. We literally just had this conversation in the apartment, I’m not sure why she wants to rehash it out here.
“But have you asked her to stay?” she asks, her voice more insistent.
“No, because she can’t, and I don’t want her to feel bad about that.”
“That’s silly. Maybe she’s just leaving because she doesn’t know you want her to stay.”
Could that be right? Could it really be that simple?
“I don’t think so, honey.” I pat her head affectionately.
“Well, you won’t know unless you ask her,” Stella says.
But I do know. I know what Petra’s goals are, and I know she has to be in LA next week. There’s no way she can stay, which we’ve explained to Stella over and over. But just like me, she’s having a hard time wrapping her head around the reality of life without Petra in it.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and give her a little squeeze. I hate knowing how much she’s going to hurt when Petra goes, and I hate that in order to support her through it, I’m going to have to pretend that I’m not hurting just as much.
When we return from ice cream, Petra is waiting for us in the living room with a bright smile on her face. She’s changed into the sleep shorts and tank top she’s worn most nights, and she’d look so perfectly at home here in my living room if that smile on her face wasn’t so fake.
Stella’s so thrilled to see Petra waiting to watch a show with us that she doesn’t even notice how all-wrong this is—her lips stretched too tight across her teeth, the way her cheeks shake with the effort of holding the smile, her glassy eyes. How does Stella not see that Petra seems like a facsimile of herself?
In the middle of the couch, Stella curls up into Petra’s side and I take a seat on the opposite end of the couch, so Stella’s between us. Stella chooses a show and gets it started, and over her head I keep glancing at Petra. Memorizing the milky skin of her neck, the graceful slope of her shoulder, the way her dark hair curls into perfect ringlets that spring over her shoulder even as she tosses them behind her, the way her eyelashes swoop and curve, the small scar she has where her ear meets her jaw. Every time I look at her, I notice something I hadn’t seen before. She’s like a 1,000-piece puzzle where you spend ages looking for a tiny piece and immediately when you find it, you’re already searching for the next one.
I stretch my arm out along the back of the couch and drag my fingers along Petra’s bare shoulder. I feel her stiffen, and I’m about to pull my fingers away when she glances over at me—her eyes are filled with tears and her body relaxes. I stroke the soft skin along the column of her neck with the backs of my fingers, then cup her jaw in my palm. The pads of my fingertips play with the hair behind her ear, and she rests her head in my hand. With my thumb I trace the curve of her ear and the strong line of her cheekbone, trying to memorize it all—the way she looks, the way her skin feels under my fingers, the way she’s welcomed Stella into her life, and how this domestic scene feels like everything I never thought I’d have.
When the show is over, Stella asks if Petra can put her to bed tonight, and Petra agrees even though she wears all her reservations on her face. I want to gather her up in my arms and take away all her fears, and dammit, I don’t want her to walk out that door tomorrow. Yet I want her to achieve all her dreams, and I hate that the two things are at odds.
When she comes out of Stella’s room, I hear her quietly padding down the hallway toward the living room, and I’m up off the couch before she reaches the wide entrance to the space. I’ve been waiting to wrap her in my arms for hours. I want to kiss away those tears that have been threatening to fall since dinner. I want to spend our last night together wrapped in each other’s arms, because even though I dread the dawn, I’m planning on making the most of this darkness.
“Well,” she says when she comes into view. “I think I’ll head to bed.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “I’ve got an early morning.”
“Come here, Petra.” I keep my feet firmly planted on the floor, because even though I know I could go to her, I need to know she’s willing to come to me.
“Aleksandr,” she whispers.
“Don’t do that,” I say, keeping my voice low since we’re still within earshot of Stella’s bedroom door.
“Don’t do what?”
“Push me away like that.”
“How am I pushing you away?”
“You only call me Aleksandr when you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad . . .” She trails off, either unwilling or unable to finish that sentence. But she does take a few steps into the room so we’re standing face-to-face.
“It doesn’t make it easier on the person you’re leaving if you start pulling away before you’re gone,” I tell her as I put my hands on her hips.
She looks away, her gaze focusing on the windows on the far side of the room.
“I just don’t want to make promises I can’t keep. And being with you now feels like a promise for the future.”
“I’m not expecting that.” Just hoping for it.
“Yes, you are,” she says, looking back at me. Her eyes are full of sadness, not the steely reserve I normally see there.
I’m not sure what to say to that. Do I admit that she’s right? That I do want to know where this could go? That I do want her to stay so we can see what’s possible between us? We barely talked about the lawyer’s recommendation on our way back here after the appointment this morning because she said she needed time to think about it. There are so many strings left untied, and I want things wrapped up so badly, but at the same time, I know she needs time to process all this. If she thinks about it in LA, far away from me and Stella, will that make her less likely to want to come back?
I lock eyes with her, studying their bright blue depths. Her irises are like one of those prismatic pictures where all the colors are changed into geometric shapes that swirl into larger shapes. Hers are a mixture of the color of water in the Caribbean, the sky on a bright and cloudless day, and a dark storm over the North Sea.
“I promised myself a long time ago,” she whispers, and her hot breath bounces off my lips, “that I’d never again do anything I didn’t want to do, that I’d stay true to myself. And this—leaving—is me doing something I don’t want to do.”
Her admission is both hopeful and heartbreaking. “Then don’t go.” I squeeze her shoulders tightly, hoping she can feel some of what I’m feeling right now.
“Don’t you see, Sasha, I have to. I—”
“That doesn’t mean this has to be over.” I need her to give us a chance more than I’ve never needed anything in my life. I don’t want to beg, but I can’t let her leave without knowing how I feel. “You have to leave New York, but you don’t have to leave this relationship.”
“How could we keep this going across an entire continent?” Her words are weak and hopeless.
“Let’s just see, okay? You need to go to LA. You have dreams and I want you to chase and attain them, to be everything you’ve always wanted to be. At the same time, I want to be with you and I can’t follow you to LA because my team and Stella are here. But we can still try to make this work.”
“You’d follow me to LA?” Her words are barely audible.
The thought hadn’t seriously crossed my mind until it came off my lips. My thoughts of us together had always centered around her staying here, because logically, I knew that was my only possibility. “If I could, I would.”
She leans forward, bowing her head and resting it on my chest. I wrap my arms around her back as her shoulders begin to shake.
“Why?” she asks. “Why does this have to happen right now? Why couldn’t we have gotten together years ago or years from now? We had to pick the one point in time that is impossible.”
She looks up at me and tears are streaming down her face. It’s only the second time I’ve ever seen her cry.
“Nothing is impossible,” I kiss her forehead and run my thumbs across her cheeks to smooth away the tears.
“It feels impossible,” she mumbles, looking down at my chest.
“It’s not. We just have to figure it out,” I say, and I trail my lips down the bridge of her nose to her mouth.
Her lips meet mine in a hungry, greedy kiss. She’s not giving right now, she’s taking, and I’m here for it—for whatever she needs. I have a good idea what that’ll be when she takes my hand and leads me down the hall, past Stella’s door and past her own, to my bedroom. She closes the door quietly behind me, then reaches up and threads her fingers into my hair, pulling my head down to hers. Her lips are insistent as they part, her tongue demanding as it strokes mine. Her other hand tucks under my shirt and her fingers play with the skin at the edge of my waistband, teasing me as she slides her fingers across my abs and over my hipbone. In one step, I have her back against the door, and she trails a foot up my leg and snakes her knee around my hip, pulling me even closer to her.
With one hand on her thigh to anchor her leg in place, I push my aching dick against her center and am rewarded with her groan as it reverberates into my mouth. She leans her head back against the door, eyes closed, and says, “I want you so fucking bad.”
I grip the hem of her tank top and pull it up over her head to reveal a bra I’ve never seen her wear. It’s pale pink and sheer with lace trimming the cups and a lace band. “You are unbelievably sexy.”
Her upper lip curves into a smile as she looks at me with those lust-filled eyes. The look says I know, but at the same time, it communicates so much more than that. I know Petra is well versed in the bedroom, but I also get the sense that there’s an emotional component to our sexual relationship that doesn’t exist for her otherwise. Or maybe I’m just projecting my own feelings?
I move my fingers to the waistband of her shorts and she drops her leg, letting me slide them down to her ankles. I kneel at her feet to pull them off, and the matching sheer pink thong does nothing to hide her body from me. I look up at her from the ground, then trail my fingers along the edge of that fabric until I’m at the seam between her legs. I sweep my fingertips under the fabric and marvel at how wet she already is. As I slide the thong to the side, I use my other hand to lift one leg over my shoulder. My lips trail up the inside of that thigh as I tease her by stroking back and forth along her folds with my fingers while never actually touching her clit or entering her. When my lips reach the top of her thigh, she uses her leg to pull my head closer and lets out a throaty growl. “Sasha . . . now.”
In an instant I’m driving two fingers inside her while my tongue attacks her clit, and her whole body tenses with need. The view from here, looking up over her flat abdomen and across her lace-clad breasts, watching her mouth twisted in pleasure, her eyes shut tightly—this is the future I want. Petra, every single day. I want sex, yes. But I want her. I want her parenting Stella with me, I want her sitting at my dinner table, I want her wearing my jersey at my games, I want to watch TV on the couch with her at night, and wake up with her in my arms. I want her making decisions with me about our future together. I want us to be the family I never had, and the family Stella deserves. I want forever.
My tongue moves faster, my fingers stroke harder at that thought—forever. She can’t leave. I pour all those feelings into the orgasm I give her, and the way she moans my name as her legs shake and her body convulses around my fingers gives me hope that she’s feeling the same way.
The minute she’s done, she reaches down, grabbing the neckline of my T-shirt and pulling me to my feet. Our lips meet in a possessive kiss, her tongue swirling around mine as she invades my mouth. Reaching behind her, she locks the door and then walks me backward, her lips never leaving mine, until the backs of my legs hit the bed.
Petra pulls back for a second, long enough for me to pull my shirt over my head and for her to unbutton my pants and slide them down my legs so I can step out of them. She looks at me then, her eyes sliding down my body to where my dick is straining so hard against the fabric of my underwear that it’s actually pulling the elastic waistband away. She reaches out and snakes her hand between the fabric and my abdomen, then slides her fingers and palm down my shaft, gripping me as the muscles in my lower back contract into a shudder. Holy shit, the things this woman does to me.
While I strip off my boxers, her eyes never leave mine, not even when she slides her thong down her legs, leaving a trail of moisture along one thigh, or when she slides the straps of her bra off her shoulders and reaches behind her to unclasp it one-handed. She’s the most amazing creature I’ve ever seen—naked or clothed, in a business meeting or being a surrogate mom to my kid.
It doesn’t matter, I’ll take her any way I can have her.
