The Actuary in Trouble

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The fire in the huge grate cast a dusky glow over the furniture, turning the dark oak black and giving the room an ethereal hue. Emma shifted her head on Rohan’s chest, feeling his body shiver as her long curls caressed his flesh. With a lazy finger she traced the outline of a shrapnel scar on his stomach, knowing by heart its jagged, winding route but tracing it through an innate compulsion.

“I regret so many things.” Rohan’s low, gravelly accent broke the silence, fracturing Emma’s peace like a hatchet blow.

“What?” Alarmed, she raised her head and sought his vibrant blue eyes in the flickering light. “What do you regret? Us? Me?” Self-preservation dictated the pitch and tone of her question and Rohan brushed her rebellious fringe away from her forehead.

“No, dorogaya. Not you. I regret my conduct only.”

Emma moved so she could study his face, searching for the threat of rejection in his strong jawline or the glittering diamond blue of his irises. Her sitting distracted Rohan, his eyes roving over the silky smooth skin of her breasts and stomach as she sat between his arm and ribs and faced him. The firelight played across her nakedness and Rohan sighed and fixed his gaze on the ceiling high above his head. Emma nudged his hip with hers and the sheet slithered away from both of them.

“Relax, devotchka,” he soothed, tugging at the soft fabric. When Emma kept hold of her end he relented and lay in the half light, his muscular chest like a brick wall against the mattress. She lifted her hand and traced a line from his hip to his navel, feeling the lumps and bumps of the scars which almost killed him.

“What do you regret?” she demanded, her voice gritty with fear.

“I regret lying to Mama about falling in love with my step-sister,” he replied and Emma inhaled, his answer unexpected. “So much of my life has been intrigue and deceit and I wonder if it could’ve been different.”

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know, Rohan. We were children thrust together in a blended family by adults who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I don’t regret the secrecy but I’m amazed it never blew up in our faces.”

Rohan nodded. “Didn’t it? I think sometimes that Mama knew.”

Emma stroked the line of hair below Rohan’s navel, smoothing her palm across his flat stomach. A smile touched her lips. “She didn’t. We fell in love, eloped to Gretna Green and married, all without interference. Even when you were deployed to Afghanistan and she discovered my pregnancy, she still didn’t realise you were Nicky’s father.”

“Da, and that’s why I feel guilty.” Rohan’s exhale shook the bed. “She had a grandson and didn’t know until it was too late.”

Emma winced. “Ro, I didn’t have a choice. She wanted to force me to abort my son. What did you expect me to do?”

“Nyet, no blame.” Rohan sat up using his stomach muscles and Emma turned, dangling her foot over the bed. Coldness seeped up her leg, the heat from the fire leaving a void outside the range of its glow. His long arms reached out to pull her into an awkward embrace which bent her spine sideways. “Der was nothing we could do. I t*****e myself with the hope she might have accepted my syn if she’d known. It’s just fantasy, Em. My regret is not giving her the opportunity.”

Emma shook her head and rolled her eyes against Rohan’s collarbone. It seemed pointless reminding him that Alanya’s medicinal herbs ended the lives of children and husbands alike. Her brand of maternalism involved poisoning and death. “I don’t want to go over it again,” Emma sighed. “We can’t change anything. Anton rescued me and made me promise to keep my baby away from his mother, which also meant no contact with you. You have us now, Ro. We need to look forward, not back.” Emma ran her palm across the growing mound below her belly button. “You can watch this baby be born and take its first smile and steps. It has to be good enough, Ro. I can’t give you back six years of Nicky’s life, so it’s this, or nothing.” The veiled threat hung over them both and Emma registered it at the same time it exited her lips.

Rohan’s eyes became hard like ice, his expression changing as he pushed Emma upright, holding her shoulders in his strong hands. “Don’t say that,” he said, his voice shaking. He released her left shoulder and ran his index finger down her cheek, following her jaw line to brush across her bottom lip. “Never say that. You’re all I have left.”

Emma nodded and swallowed, seeing the heartbreak behind Rohan’s curved eyelashes. “You’re grieving,” she whispered. “It’s normal, Ro. Your mother’s death was unexpected and after losing Anton too, it’s hit you doubly hard.” Emma wrapped her arms around his neck and inhaled the familiar scent of him, aftershave and male. She scooted closer, pressing her breasts against his bare chest and sensing him relax.

“But she died in prison,” Rohan said, his voice bitter. “A murderess.”

Emma squeezed him harder, her own fears pushed aside. “I know, baby. I know.”

Rohan Andreyev wouldn’t cry. Emma doubted he knew how. Watching their families grafted together without skill from the age of six, Emma grew up with the Russian brothers in her life and never saw Rohan cry. His younger brother, effeminate and tender, cried like a girl over anything which tugged his heart strings; movies, sad stories, death. But he laughed with abandon also, his acting ability making it difficult for Emma to know when it was truth or charade.

Thinking of Anton felt like picking at a loose scab, the wound underneath still fragile. Her saviour, gone without warning. Emma struggled with her own emotions, hiding her face in Rohan’s blond hair and waiting for her equilibrium to right itself. Her husband’s emotional candidness flashed warnings in her brain and wariness replaced grief.

“Is everything ok?” she asked, her tone guarded. “Is there something I need to know?”

“Da,” Rohan replied, pushing her upright. His vulnerability back under control, he smiled at her, his blond hair tickling her cheek as he nibbled the soft flesh beneath her ear lobe and nuzzled the ligament in her neck. “Ya lyublyu tebya.”

Emma sighed, recognising the Russian phonetics as she stroked a soft blond curl at the back of Rohan’s neck. “I love you too,” she replied, meaning it and hoping it was enough to get her through the storm she sensed rolling across the horizon.