Saving Katya (9 page)

He’d get to the bottom of that mystery, but only after he made sure Kate was all right. Right now he had to do what was best for her. And that was finding her husband. Alexei would like to be the one she needed, but he no longer looked at the world through rose-colored glasses.

Dennis rolled the car to a stop at the hospital’s emergency entrance. The ambulance was already there, and Alexei barely caught sight of Kate being wheeled inside on a gurney. He wanted to hop out of the car and rush after her, but instead he folded his arms over his chest and hid his fisted hands beneath them. His need to run to her side was so strong he hoped the containment would deliver him from his desire to act foolishly.

Debra didn’t seem so worried about her outward appearance. She threw the door open and barreled out of the car, beckoning Katya and Angeline to do the same. Alexei was ready to follow suit by the time Dennis opened his door.

“I do apologize, Mr. Petrova. I intended to open their door.”

“It’s all right, Dennis.” Alexei was the last person to condemn someone for other people’s blunders—unless he thought they were directly responsible.

He straightened his grey cashmere overcoat and headed inside with a relaxed gait meant to display all ease and casualness. Glancing from side to side, he made a quick decision to go toward the right and found a waiting area just around a corner. Debra and Katya were there. Alexei took a seat next to the woman, wondering briefly where Angeline was.

Debra shot up as soon as he began sitting. “I want to find out what’s going on,” she said, and gestured toward Katya. “Will you stay with her?”

“Of course.” He nodded and smiled what he hoped was an expression of reassurance. “Take as much time as you need. We’ll wait here for you.”

Alexei avoided Katya, instead watching Debra disappear. Katya scooted into Debra’s vacated chair, moving into his peripheral vision. “Mr. Petrova...?” Her meek, mild voice surprised him. Or maybe it was her conventionalism. Either way, who would expect a six year old to remember his name, much less use it when speaking to him?

“Yes.” He cut his eyes in her direction.

“Do you think my mommy’s going to be okay?”

“I’m sure she is.”

“And this is just a precautionary measure. Right?”

Alexei looked at Katya. Her blue eyes engaged him with candid interest. “You’re very astute for a six year old.”

“I’m seven,” she announced with pride.

Seven
? Alexei’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. He counted off the months inside his head. Her birthday needed to be sometime between December and February, maybe March for her to be his. Alexei needed to know her birth date.

Commanding his composure to return, he smiled. “Pardon me.” He laid a hand over his chest. “I should’ve known that a young lady as grown-up as you must surely be seven.”

She grinned and there was something oddly familiar about her face, but he couldn’t recall what. “You talk funny,” she said. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from Russia. St. Petersburg.” Alexei draped his arm along the back of her chair. “Did you know your name is actually the Russian translation for your mother’s name?”

Katya’s brow furrowed. “Really?”

“Honest.”

“Is that why you called her Katya before?”

“Yes.” Alexei nodded. “When your mother and I knew each other years ago, that’s what I used to call her.”

The child sighed. A pensive look of intensity crossed over her eyes. She was thinking about something, and deeply. She was probably worried about her mother.

“I’m sure your mother’s going to be okay,” Alexei said in his softest and most supportive voice. “She wouldn’t want you to worry.”

“I know.” She cut her eyes up toward him and gave him what Serge oftentimes had referred to as a poker-faced look. “Did you know my birthday is on Valentine’s Day?”

Valentine’s Day
. Alexei’s heart slammed against the cold, hard floor. The possibility that she might be his had just become very real. If she was his—and that was a very big if—how could Katya do this to him? How could she not tell him he’d fathered a child? Their child. Alexei peered down at the little girl who had a mixture of curiosity and concern swimming in her blue eyes. His mood softened instantly. “Happy belated birthday. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“Me too.”

Debra appeared around the corner and Katya shot to her feet. “Miss Debra...can I see Mommy now?”

Yes, I’d like to see her too
. Alexei figured his reasons were much different than Katya’s, although he sympathized with…his child?

Alexei’s phone vibrated in the inner pocket of his overcoat, dragging his thoughts away from his potential fatherhood and the things he wanted to say to Kate. He reached for the phone as Debra led Katya away. Relief rained down on Alexei when he saw the caller ID lit up with Serge’s name.

He flipped the phone open. “Did you find him?”

“This guy is like damned ghost.” Serge’s frustration reached across the wire. “He’s not on the grid anywhere.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Tell me about it.” Serge’s querulous laughter flowed out of the cell phone’s ear piece. “I don’t get it, but the guy doesn’t exist. Not before, and not after he married Kate Peterson.”

Serge might not understand, but Alexei was beginning to. Keith Carlson had to be a fabrication of Kate’s desperation to hide the true parentage of her child. Question was, who was she trying to hide it from? Him? The press? Perhaps both?

“Forget about Carlson, Serge. I’ve got it under control.” Alexei snapped the phone shut and dropped it into his overcoat pocket. He laid both arms along the back of the chairs at his sides and peered around the empty waiting area.

She’d made the guy up. Alexei was convinced. But why? Why wouldn’t she tell him they’d conceived a child? She’d said she loved him. Why would she go to all this trouble to hide her from him?

Craving answers, he shot to his feet. Kate had the information he sought and he intended to get it from her too—just as soon as he figured out she was okay. He planted his hands inside his trouser pockets and contemplated looking for the vending machines to give himself time to cool down.

Kate was injured, and he didn’t know how badly. Alexei had to believe she had her reasons for making up a faux father for the child he was now eighty-five percent certain was his.

He moved toward the corridor and looked for someone to point him in the direction of the gift shop. He’d get himself some sugar, and perhaps a little something for Kate.

A nurse approached him in the hallway and he slowed his gait when they were no more than a few paces from one another. “Pardon me...the gift shop?”

“Left, left, and then a right,” she said, moving on past him.

“Thank you,” he said, but she’d been long gone.

He followed her directions and found the gift shop with ease. A bell jingled as he passed through the door. The elderly clerk behind the counter looked up from the novel she was reading and smiled.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she said, and went back to her book.

Alexei began to mill around the shop, half put out and half thankful that he didn’t have to carry on a conversation with her. He grabbed a soft drink, a bag of fruit snacks and a white teddy bear holding a heart that said:
Get Well Soon
. Moving back toward the clerk, he laid the items on the counter.

“Do you deliver flowers?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

“What you see.” She waved a hand toward the display of arrangements nearby.

Alexei scanned his choices and one stood out. A simple arrangement of orange rosebuds and white baby’s breath. If memory served him correctly, Kate liked orange roses. “I’ll take that one.” He pointed to the bouquet. “Could you deliver it to room three-fifteen?” he asked, thumbing through the bills in his wallet.

“There’s a ten dollar delivery charge.”

Alexei tossed a hundred at her. “Will this cover it?”

“Sure thing,” she said, eyeing the money.

Alexei gathered the other items he’d purchased and left the shop.

Back in the emergency room area a nurse cornered Alexei in the corridor. “Mr. Petrova?”

“Yes.”

“Ms. Peterson is back from her tests and she’d like to speak with you.”

Me
. He tried to hide his anxious nerves by plastering on his trademark grin. He didn’t need to see it to know it was effective. The nurse practically melted at his feet. “Lead the way,” he said, and followed her around a corner and halfway down the hall. She stopped in front of room three-fifteen.

“Here we are.” She pointed to the door. “Please keep in mind that she shouldn’t get out of bed on her own.”

“I’ll make sure she stays put.” He wanted to ask about her condition, but since he wasn’t family they wouldn’t likely tell him a thing, and Alexei rarely wasted time on futile endeavors.

K
ate looked at the brighter area of the blur in front of her and focused. Nothing. This wasn’t good. The truth was closing in and so was her illness. The temporary bouts with the blindness were coming more and more frequently and lasting longer and longer with each occurrence.

Katya had taken a ride to the hospital in Alexei’s limo. It was only a matter of time before she started asking questions about him, especially now that Katya had heard Alexei calling Kate by
her
name.

Kate had to find out where Alexei stood before Katya put two and two together. She had never lied to her daughter about her father and she didn’t want to start now, but protecting Katya came before everything else. If she had to look like the bad guy, she would, just to keep Katya from feeling unwanted.

The door creaked open and she directed her eyes toward it, seeing nothing more than an obscure blob oozing toward her. Hopefully, it was Alexei. She’d asked to see him. But she wasn’t taking any chances.

“Hello,” she said, and dropped it at that.

“Katya.” Worry seeped out in his tone and wrapped around her like a warm blanket. She didn’t know why she found his discomfort so enjoyable, but she did. “How are you?” His shadowy figure stilled near her bedside and she turned her head in that direction.

He had to go and remind her what a fool she must’ve looked like out there on the ice. Good luck landing an endorsement deal now. “I’m feeling pretty stupid.” She let out a feeble laugh and fisted the bed sheets in her hands.

“What happened? Are you badly injured?” His hand raked over hers, sending delicious chills up her arm.

“Just my pride.” She continued to avoid the reality of her illness, but it wasn’t so easy to shut out the nature of its cruelty.

“What happened out there on the ice?” he asked in a tone that suggested Kate Peterson shouldn’t have fallen.

She dismissed the fall with a trivial shrug. “I’m a little rusty these days.”

A long silence filled the space between them and Kate searched for something to say. But the thing she needed to say was not the thing she wanted to say. For that, she couldn’t find the words.

“Did Katya find you?” he asked. “She wanted to talk to you.”

“I had to have some tests done. She and Debra went to get a bite to eat.”

“She’s quite the young lady.”

“Yes. She is.”

“She told me her birthday is Valentine’s Day. Seven years old is it?”

“Yes.” Kate’s voice drifted into a hushed whisper.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His tone had hardened considerably.

“I did tell you!” Her words snapped out at Alexei. “I wrote you letter after letter. Why didn’t you answer any of them?”

“Letters.” Alexei shook his head and canvassed his brain for a memory of any letters that he might have received from her. There were none. “I didn’t get any letters.”

“Well I wrote them. The last few, in which I told you specifically of our baby girl, came back marked:
return to sender
.” Her words, cold and damp, crept across the space between them and crawled underneath Alexei’s skin and poisoned his heart.

Alexei felt like a heel. She’d promised she’d write, and all this time he’d thought she’d lied to him. What happened to her letters?

Mikhail. This had to be the work of his notorious ex-manager.

And Katya, what about her? “Does she know?” Alexei would deal with Mikhail later. Right now, he had to worry about Kate and Katya—his daughter. Starting right now, they’d come before everything else, including revenge.

“No.” Kate paused. “I never told her because I thought you didn’t want her.” She hesitated, and Alexei thought she might cry. “Alexei, I know what it’s like to be an unwanted child. I didn’t want her childhood to turn out like mine.”

“Then what exactly did you tell her?” Unflattering thoughts reeled through Alexei’s mind, of some made up guy who was forever meant to remain a mystery.

“That her father couldn’t be with us. That sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way you plan. Sometimes fathers love from afar.” The pain was in her voice. It was well-disguised, but it was there. Alexei knew her history; he knew that’s what she wanted to believe about her own father.

Remorse filled him up and seeped out in his voice, “I’m sorry, Katya.” He handed the bear to her.

She raised her hands as if giving up and, oddly enough, she didn’t reach for the bear. “What are you sorry for?” she asked.

Figuring she didn’t want the bear, he laid it at her side on the bed. “That I wasn’t here for you...and our daughter. That you thought the worst of me. Sometimes fathers do love from afar.”

She stiffened. “Well, it’s neither here nor there now, is it?”

True
. “Are you going to tell her?”

“If that’s what you want. But Alexei...” She looked his way, but she didn’t look him in the eyes. “You can’t treat her like a new toy and then discard her when you’re done playing with her.” Strong words for an evasive glare.