Leaning over, I whispered, “Your food will get cold.”
He shook his head, and I didn’t realize until he spoke that these were the first words out of his mouth since he walked into the room. “Eat, kotyonok.”
Kitten. He called me kitten in his mother tongue. I didn’t know why it felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest, hearing him call me kotyonok, but it did, and I could only obey.
I opened my mouth, and he fed me a few more bites until I was full. I shook my head when he tried to feed me the last of the food.
I looked up at him.
He didn’t say anything, his gaze focused intently on me. The haunted look still clouded his blue eyes. My brows pulled together, and he pressed his thumb gently between them, smoothing out the wrinkle.
It seemed time had stopped completely. The world was at a standstill, and I didn’t know if everything was okay between us.
I blinked.
He pulled back, and the noises around us slowly crept into my awareness.
Mikhail stood up so suddenly, that my hands moved to grip his large shoulders as he deposited me on Nikolay’s lap. Then, before I could even utter another word, Mikhail was gone, his plate left untouched.
“Just give him some time, princess,” Nikolay said softly against my forehead. Somehow, I didn’t think time was what Mikhail needed.
I didn’t reply. I buried my face in Nikolay’s chest and shut the world out.