Married By Christmas. Оливия Гейтс

of the impending reunion stopped her, made her unable to seek his refuge.

      Which was just as well, since his offer of solace and protection didn’t seem to extend to anything physical.

      And she had to abide by his rules—this man she’d once loved, who’d injured her in the past and healed her in the present, both with no explanation.

      But she didn’t need to understand him to give him his due. It was what Alex would have wanted her to do. “Alex couldn’t have hoped to leave his legacy in the hands of anyone better or more capable than you.”

      His eyes darkened again, whether at the mention of Alex’s name or at the implied gratitude in her statement.

      Before he could respond, she asked, “How long before we land?”

      His turbulent gaze flitted to his phone. “Two hours.”

      She lowered her seat back to a flat position, pulled the blanket over her aching body. “I’ll sleep again, then.”

      He surged forward, helping her adjust the seat and the covers. “Do that. Rest.”

      You’ll need it went unspoken.

      * * *

      Ivan watched Anastasia sleeping, and knowing this would be the last time he did had bleakness expanding in his chest.

      They’d landed an hour ago, but he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt her sleep. As restless as it was, it was still better than what she’d go through when she woke up. This way, he had her beneath his eyes, where he could ward off the world, for as long as possible.

      That had been one of the reasons he was escorting her home—to prolong his time with her. As Antonio had said, that was for himself as much as it was for her.

      But the main reason he was doing this remained her, and Alex. Antonio had been right. He couldn’t keep her any longer from the people she loved, those who were her lifelong support system. She needed her family, needed to bury her brother, give them all the chance to grieve, to say goodbye.

      And he couldn’t stomach letting her take the brunt of her family’s shock alone. He couldn’t bear that Alex would be buried without him being there. His abhorrence to being close to his family had been outweighed by his need to shield her, to honor Alex.

      Now he had to rouse her. And they both had to plunge into their own version of a waking nightmare.

      * * *

      Two hours later, Ivan stood behind Anastasia on the threshold of the home Alex had shared with his wife, Ivan’s sister, and their two children, his niece and nephew.

      As they waited for the door to open, he felt Anastasia swaying, as if she was coming apart under the weight of the dread of confronting her best friend. And though it hurt to touch her, his hand clamped her trembling arm, offering her his strength, letting her know he’d step in anytime she needed.

      In the next moment, he wondered if it was he who needed support.

      The woman who opened the door had an eager smile that, in spite of all the changes twenty-eight years had wrought, was still the same as that of the baby sister he’d known. Her smile immediately froze when she saw Anastasia without Alex, looking desolate, and with him, a stranger, towering over her.

      To say the next hour was harrowing would be to say that his time with The Organization hadn’t been too bad.

      At first, Anastasia had haltingly introduced him, so she wouldn’t break down on the spot, needing to be strong for her best friend and sister-in-law. Then Katerina’s—Cathy’s—questions had come, the dread mounting until each answer fleshed out the scenario he’d created, validating her worst possible fears.

      Then the agony had come. He’d felt every stab of it in his own gut as he watched yet another person he cared about in the throes of absolute anguish. For just seeing his sister in the flesh had brought back the memories of how much he’d loved her, from the moment his mother had told him she was pregnant again. In spite of her maturation from his Russian baby sister into a thoroughly American woman, she was still somehow his little Katerina.

      He’d thought nothing could be worse than being ambushed by those kindred feelings he hadn’t thought he could ever feel again, or than suffering shearing empathy for her loss. Until her—and his—parents arrived.

      Seeing the man and woman he’d once loved completely, whom he’d idolized, rush to their bereaved daughter’s side, seemingly as overcome, rocked him to his core.

      For almost three decades, since he’d discovered what they’d done to him, he’d imagined how he’d feel if he ever saw them again. He’d come up with a thousand scenarios. He’d known he’d hate it, had been determined never to expose himself to it. But he’d thought he’d braced for each possibility, that none could actually hit him too hard.

      He’d been wrong.

      After their desperate attempts to contain their daughter’s agony, their focus had converged on him. He’d thought he was being too sensitive to their merest glance, but none of those who’d flooded the house, including his other sisters and brother, had looked at him like that.

      As if they recognized him.

      But of course they couldn’t. Nothing remained of the twelve-year-old they’d bartered away for their freedom but his eye color. And then how would they even suspect a resemblance, when they must have believed him long dead?

      A big percentage of the boys culled by The Organization couldn’t endure their brutal training. Of those who did, more than half didn’t last in the field. It was why they were always harvesting more, with their mortality rate so high. And the boy his parents knew, the slight nerd he’d been, wouldn’t have been able to survive the inferno he’d been tossed in. If it hadn’t been for his brothers, he wouldn’t have.

      He’d waited for anger to overtake him, but all he felt was desolation. Even now, he couldn’t hate them. The only thing he felt when he looked at them—older, frailer and in their grief, even fragile—was pity.

      There was no doubt in his mind they’d loved Alex as a son. Instead of that making him more bitter, it was like a knife of sympathy tearing through his guts.

      The ordeal continued into the next day. Everyone, as if responding to his superior powers, let him steer everything. He’d fast-forwarded the process and arranged for the burial, laying Alex’s body to rest, along with the true circumstances of his death.

      Now they were back at Alex’s house, and the true grieving had just begun. Alex’s parents and Katerina seemed to be sinking deeper into despair. The only one who’d already gone through the stages of loss was Anastasia, and he felt her pour out her support to everyone who needed her. As he’d feared she would. But there was nothing he could do to stop that, to make her preserve herself, not give too much.

      He now stood at the periphery of the jarringly sunny living room watching those who’d loved Alex flocking around his family in an effort to absorb a measure of their distress.

      Then the agitation that had been rising and falling in jagged waves since they’d arrived crested again. The three people whose very presence tossed him from one level of turmoil to a higher one were approaching him.

      Anastasia, and his parents.

      The one who addressed him, puffy-eyed and broken, was his mother. “Mr. Konstantinov, Ana told us everything you’ve done for her and Alex. We—we wanted to thank you, even if there’s nothing we could possibly say to express our gratitude.”

      “But we are grateful, beyond expression, on behalf of everyone.” That was his father, looking nothing like the imposing figure he remembered, smaller, weaker, even helpless in his anguish. “Thank you, son.”

      He’d once had a bomb shower him with shrapnel, almost tearing his leg right off. The word son from the father who’d given him away tore through him with far more force and pain.

      His