Postcards From New York. Stefanie London

      ‘You gave me the version you wanted me to know, but things have changed. We are having a baby and, if we’re to marry, then I want that marriage to be a success. I don’t want our child to grow up knowing any kind of insecurities.’

      ‘What do you know of insecurities, Emma?’ His voice had softened, taken on a more resigned tone.

      ‘Much more than you might think.’ Her own childhood, the unhappiness of continuously moving to new foster homes, crept back to the fore, as did her father’s rejection. She pushed it away. Nikolai must never know what sort of mother she’d been raised by. If he did, he might think she wasn’t fit to be a mother herself, and she couldn’t risk her baby being taken away, like she and Jess had been.

      ‘Do you really think that’s possible?’ He glared at her and she knew he was angry that she was not only challenging him but being evasive herself.

      ‘Tell me, Nikolai. I know some of your story but, as your fiancée, I want to hear it from you.’ She spoke softly and held her breath as he paced the room and ran his fingers quickly through his hair.

      * * *

      Nikolai didn’t know where to start. He was angry, at himself and Emma. She knew the basic facts so why did she want more? He looked down into her eyes and realised it didn’t matter any more what he tried to keep from her; she knew half the story and he was sure that it would only be a matter of time before she’d know every sordid detail. Better it came from him—now.

      ‘Why exactly do you feel it is necessary to know?’ Why the hell was he doing this? It was far too deep, too emotionally exposing, and he just didn’t do emotion. He’d learnt long ago how to keep fear, anger and even love out of whatever he was doing. Each time he’d come to his mother’s rescue as his father had used his fists, he’d acted calmly and without emotion. It hadn’t mattered whether he was wiping her bleeding nose or merely standing between them, he’d been devoid of any emotion. It had been the only way—and still was.

      ‘You said before, in Vladimir, that your parents were forced to marry.’ She nudged his memory with the start of the story he’d told her that night they’d first slept together. Then, just as now, being with her had threatened to unleash his emotions.

      ‘Yes, they were, but only because she was pregnant with his child.’ He watched her face pale and had the urge to kiss her, to forget the past and lose himself in her wonderful body once more. It surged through him like a madness. Thankfully, sense prevailed. Despite the fact that she looked so sexy sitting there naked in his bed, her hair no longer sleek but ruffled from sex, he was sufficiently in control to acknowledge things were already complicated enough without giving her hope of having a normal, loving marriage.

      ‘That’s hardly the crime of the century,’ she said, sympathy in her voice and a smile lingering tentatively on her lips as he sat on the bed and looked at her.

      He knew what she meant. She was pregnant with his child and they were going to be married; that fact only compounded his misgivings, making him ever more determined to keep emotions out of this deal they’d struck, because that was how he had to think of it: as a deal for his child. Just as his father had forced his mother into marriage, he was forcing her.

      Now the one thing he didn’t want to happen was happening. Emotions were clamouring from his childhood, demanding to be felt, and he hated it. Memories rushed back at him and he fought for control. What would she think of him if she knew the truth?

      He should just say it. However he tried to dress it up, those words would be painful; knowing how he’d come into the world, how it had forced his mother into something she hadn’t wanted, made him feel worthless. It was that sense of worthlessness which had driven him hard, making everything he did a success.

      He looked at Emma and knew she had to know just who he was.

      ‘He’d raped her.’

      There, he’d said it. Finally said the words aloud. He was the unwanted product of a rape which had devastated his mother’s life, forcing her into a violent marriage.

      ‘Rape?’ Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, and it helped to be near the warmth of her body as the cold admission finally came out, but strangely just saying those words wasn’t enough. He wanted to tell it all now he’d finally started, as if he’d opened a door he could never close.

      ‘My father was a family friend and had asked to marry my mother. He’d wanted the connections our family name and wealth would bring him.’

      Emma didn’t say anything but moved a little closer to him, heat from her body infusing him. He wanted to hold her, to feel the goodness within her cleanse the badness from him, but he couldn’t, not yet, not until she knew it all. ‘Did she refuse him?’

      He gritted his teeth as he recalled the time he’d first found out what had happened, how his gentle and loving mother had become the wife of a vicious brute of a man just because of him. He had no idea why, but now he wanted to talk, to tell Emma everything, even knowing she could use it all and destroy him. He wanted to prevent it all coming out as a headline story in the press. That was why he’d flown from New York to a country he barely remembered to ensure a grandmother he’d come to hate didn’t tell her the damned story. Now here he was, spilling it all out to the very woman who wanted to know his family story for that very reason.

      ‘She did. And because of that he attacked and raped her.’ He bit down on the anger which raged in him now, just as it had done the day he’d realised he’d been the reason his mother had married a violent man. Surely their life would have been better without a man like that in it? He’d never questioned his mother, never asked her about it. She didn’t even know he’d overheard her and his stepfather talking. That would break her heart as much as the story being leaked to the world would.

      ‘I don’t understand. Why did she marry him after that?’ Incredulity filled her voice as she once again looked up at him.

      ‘That is something I have never understood.’ Despite the warmth of her body his mind drifted back in time, to the many occasions when he’d cowered in a corner, hiding from his father’s wrath. ‘When my mother and I left Russia I was ten and I never wanted to go there again. I did all I could to fit in with our new life, to please my new father. It was like being given a new chance.’

      ‘Why did your mother marry your father if he’d done that?’ It was a question he’d asked himself so many times.

      ‘Maybe she saw marriage to that brute as her only chance. She was from a well-known family and wouldn’t have wanted to bring such a scandal out into the open.’

      Emma moved and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her lips to his forehead. It was strangely comforting to be held by her, to feel her compassion wrapping around him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘For making you go there again.’

      ‘Maybe I should have faced my father’s mother when I had the chance, asked her why she helped to hide such horrible things from the world. From the outside we must have appeared a normal family. I want to know if she realises that by doing that she trapped my mother and I with an angry bully. Only his sudden death freed us.’

      ‘It doesn’t mean we shall be the same,’ she said, homing in on the worry he’d had since the moment she’d arrived in New York with the news of her pregnancy. He wasn’t fit to be a father with a past like that, but that just made him more determined to be a part of his child’s life, to be a better father.

      ‘How can you say that when you only agreed to marriage for the child’s sake?’ He began to build his barriers back again, using all the ammunition he had to push her away. As he spoke he looked into her eyes and saw the flash of pain within them, but buried it deep inside him.

      ‘Our child was not conceived through violence,’ she said firmly as she touched his face with the palm of her hand, a gesture he wanted to enjoy, but he couldn’t allow himself that luxury.

      ‘But it most definitely wasn’t conceived out