The Vineyard, Three Months Pregnant
"It's good for the baby."
That's all he says as he settles into the leather armchair (one of her favorites) that is at the side of the bed. The sleeves of his white dress shirt are rolled up, which is perhaps the most casual she's seen him dress.
"What is?"
She's lazing on the bed, with enough pillows propping her up to support a small country. Her stomach is now undeniably "popped," and it's becoming harder and harder for her to find a comfortable position that doesn't involve laying down.
"Hearing voices consistently. That's what all the manuals say."
He looks at her, head turned from his position at her side. Her heart flutters, setting off an aching tenderness in her chest. 47 has been devouring a book a day, preparing for the baby's birth, calling them "manuals" as if he were training for warfare. From monitoring her nutrition levels to baby-proofing the vineyard, Nika has to wonder where all of this devotion comes from, and if it might be for her sake as well and not just the child's.
As someone who has never had anyone fret over her or pamper her for the last twenty-four years of her life, it continually astounds her how much care he takes with her. She had to hide her tears when, last week, he sat her down and took feet into his hands, massaging them with surprising skill, telling her that he had read in a book that pregnant women experiencing aching feet were more likely to fall down during pregnancy.
"Oh. I talk to him all the time. Do you want more time to talk to him? Because if you do, I'll have to eavesdrop…it's kind of an architecture problem," she replies cheekily, knowing that if there's two things that 47 despises, it's talking for long periods of time and having someone listen in on his conversations.
"Well, I…"
He looks hesitant, as if he wants to suggest something that Nika might disapprove of.
"You know you can talk to him anytime you want, right? I'll even try hard not to listen if it's something secret. No promises, though."
"I thought I might read."
"Read?"
He can't be serious.
"To him – or her."
47 refuses to agree with Nika that the baby will definitely be a boy. He says that while it's her decision not find out the gender of the child, he won't commit to anything unscientific in referring to the baby as a him or her.
"That sounds – that sounds," is her voice always this breathy? "wonderful. Would you mind if I listened too?"
"I don't think I have much of a choice there," he says, smiling, sounding relieved that she doesn't shoot down his idea as he picks up a nearby stack of books that she must have completely not noticed before.
He opens one, a history of the discovery of South America, and she thinks how she would like to go to South America one day, with her husband and her son. And she pictures 47, being so precautious with her little boy, holding him up to see the water and the rainforests, cradling him when he's tired, rocking him to sleep as he exhausts himself from a long day of traveling.
She forces herself to stop thinking when she reaches the part where the child is asleep and it is just the two of them alone.
47's voice is calm and steady, as always, and she's lulled into a warm contentment as he occasionally looks over to her stomach.
She stifles a laugh at how serious he looks, as if lecturing to a class.
"What?"
Damn it. Of course he would notice.
"Nothing. I just think this is adorable, that's all."
That seems to catch him off guard. But he simply raises his eyebrows at her and continues reading in that calm voice of his, and Nika allows herself to be lulled to sleep to the rhythm of his words.
The Vineyard, Six Months Pregnant
The nightmares don't come back until the sixth month.
The first time she wakes up, sobbing and incoherent, he's there, keeping his distance but kneeling over her with a concerned look on his face.
"Nika. Nika, wake up. It's a dream, Nika."
She clings to him before she can think about what she's doing. His body stiffens in shock, and she considers pulling away for a moment.
But instead she pulls his arms closer to her by instinct almost, and – as if he had been waiting for permission – he wraps his arms around her and sinks into the bed with her, holding her with both arms against his chest, her head tucked under his chin.
He doesn't whisper any falsities to her – no "it's okay" or "it will be fine" – instead he just holds her against him, with his breath a steady line to reality.
"You were dreaming," he says, simply, not asking her what she was dreaming about.
She nods against his heartbeat through his now-damp shirt. She sits up, aware of how silly she's being, crying her eyes out to a stone-cold killer – yet, when she looks up at him, his eyes are kind and (maybe she's crazy) worried.
"I'm fine now. Sorry for waking you."
"It's okay. I don't sleep much anyway."
She snorts, and they both seem surprised at the sound of her laughter.
"Good, you can be the one to get the baby every night while I sleep for twelve hours."
He smiles at her and raises his eyebrows.
"Okay."
She thinks he might even mean it. That crazy, wonderful fucker.
When it happens again next week, she finds the courage to ask him to stay with her until she falls asleep. He doesn't say anything, only nods and settles himself under the covers, keeping her tucked into the crook of his neck the entire time.
She can't sleep, though. The vividness of Belicoff's goons chasing her down and ripping her child out from her body is fading, but she's distracted by his frame, the lines of his body, the steel of his arm muscles holding her close.
So she talks to him.
"Have you thought of any names?" she asks, her voice muffled against his shirt.
"No."
"I like the name Alexander. Or maybe Leo. Like a little lion, you know?"
"All good names, inconspicuous without drawing attention."
She rolls her eyes in the dark. Always thinking about how to blend into a crowd.
"Do you like the name Frank?"
She's always wondered how he came up with the name, wondering about all of his training in assuming new identities.
"It suits me."
She knows better than to think he's cross with her for asking too many questions (though, there are most definitely times when that happens). She's about to take pity on him and close her eyes, ending the conversation and trying for sleep, when he suddenly speaks.
"Do you like it?"
"Frank?"
"Yes."
Does she like it? She's never properly thought about what she thinks about 47's new name. Her husband's name.
"It's a nice name. It's simple, strong. One syllable and no-nonsense. It suits you."
She swears she can hear him smiling in the darkness of the room. She burrows deeper into his chest as the warmth of that thought runs through her.
"I'm glad you like it," he says into the top of her head as she falls asleep against him.
"How many languages do you speak?"
"What did my file say?"
"Three."
"Close. Four."
"English, Russian, French. What's the fourth?"
"Body language."
He doesn't laugh, but 47 raises his eyebrows in a way that Nika knows means he is amused.
"I speak that language too."
The first time Nika kisses him, she swears she was possessed somehow.
It's late, and her head is tucked into his shoulder as she tells him about being an ugly duckling as a child, being mistaken as a boy in her village as she ran free.
He gives no indication that he is listening, though she knows he absorbs every word diligently. They lay there, under the guise of falling asleep, as they have done for nearly two months now. There's an unspoken agreement that has 47 sleeping in Nika's room every night even though she hasn't had a nightmare in weeks now.
"The winter was not so cold that year, so we sometimes used the fields as a pretend kingdom to rule over."
She's reminiscing about the last good year her village had before drought and local corruption dually drove its residents into poverty, she must have been 13 at the time, she muses.
"I was the princess, and my brothers the princes, and my parents were the King and Queen who ruled over us all – they played along sometimes. This was before the hunger broke them and they sold me."
She says it matter-of-factly. Something she has made her peace with many years ago.
He doesn't say anything, he must know the details of her sale as a 14-year-old village girl to a whorehouse in the capital from the file he meticulously compiled on her. In the comfortable nest of their silence, though, a sudden emotion runs through her.
"I don't blame them, they were poor and had few choices, but I will die before I ever let my child be a pawn in anyone else's world."
He turns towards her, his eyes looking downwards to meet hers.
"I know you'll fight. I'll do everything I can as well."
He doesn't guarantee anything, but he gives this unwavering commitment she's never asked of him, and he gives it so simply as if he were giving her a trinket for Christmas.
And then her mind stops controlling her body, and she kisses him. Possessed, she maintains.
She only has a second to be mortified by her actions, though, because it only takes a second for her to realize that he hasn't pushed her away. In fact, she may be delirious, but she thinks he's actually kissing her back.
She thinks this hormonal shift is driving her crazy. They make out (like hormonal adolescents) all the time, but she's still craving his lips on hers at all hours of the day. Ever since they kissed (really honest-to-god, tongues roaming, not a peck on the forehead kissed) last week, they haven't really been able to stop.
That's not true, really. It seems that she can't stop.
"You never kiss me."
If he is caught off-guard by her accusation, he never shows it.
"Is that not what we've been doing?"
"No, I've been kissing you senseless all week, and you kiss me in return, but you never kiss me first."
He remains silent, blankly staring at her. What she wouldn't give to know what he is thinking.
"Do you not like it?"
That seems to jolt him out of his silent staring contest.
"No, I enjoy it. Very much."
He didn't have to add the "very much," and her heart would have still swelled.
"Oh."
She lets it fall out of her mouth, gently, processing his words slowly.
"Then why?" she asks, almost afraid of the answer.
"I don't want you to think…that I am like the other men you have encountered."
Stay still, Nika tells her heart. But she feels a rush of butterflies in the pit of her stomach, and the baby is kicking excitedly as well, as if sensing his mother's heart filling with joy.
No man had ever restrained himself from his own pleasures to make sure she was okay.
No man had ever worried about her as a human being, let alone a woman with her own set of needs and wants.
"I know you're not. You should not stop yourself from kissing me – if you want to, that is."
The air between them sits on an expectation as neither of them say anything. Her hitman stares at her intently, as if gauging her body language for the truth in her words. Nika worries that perhaps he is trying to find ways to let her down gently, rejecting her without hurting her feelings.
And then his lips are on hers, so light that it might have been a breath gracing her lips.
"Okay."
And for the first time all week, she kisses him back.
He doesn't kiss her as often as she would like. Though, if Nika had her way, they wouldn't have time for things such as eating or sleeping or going to the bathroom, so she supposes it's probably for the best.
Regardless, he seems to hold back, kissing her only after taking a moment to look at her, as if to make sure it's truly okay. And every damn time, that gentle look asking for confirmation makes her knees go weak.
Nika is not one to kiss with her eyes closed, she has spent too many years needing the extra edge of keeping her eye on monstrous men to really feel comfortable with losing the advantage of sight. So it surprises her to learn that her hitman closes his eyes to kiss her, surrendering his vision to her.
It would be humorous for her, if it didn't make her heart do somersaults every time it happened.
Sometimes she muses that maybe she is just like her hitman in all things sexual, using every move as a strategic ploy for survival, keeping her eyes on exit routes and potential weaknesses at all times.
That begins to change, though. The first time it happens she blames the baby for making his presence known and causing her to temporarily have her guard down.
She's lounging (not napping, thank you very much, lounging) on a chaise overlooking the sloping hills and tangled vines of her land (that pronoun still sends shivers of excitement through her even after half a year).
She's just woken up (okay, maybe she was napping after all) and finds herself covered neatly by a thick, wool blanket, the book she was reading neatly dog-eared and stowed away on a nearby stand.
When she looks toward her book, Anna Karenina, she finds that he's also made her tea and left it out to cool. Stupid silly man, she thinks, as her eyes being to water up at the thought of 47 waiting on her in her sleep.
She's about to sit up and reach for the tea when she feels it. A kick.
"Frank!"
She alternates between his name and his number when it's just the two of them now, and it's unsettling how their invented story is now becoming their real life.
He must pick up on the excitement in her voice and mistake it for panic, because his footsteps are quicker than usual and, when he comes outside, he crouches by her side and looks her over as if something is wrong.
"Is everything okay?"
"I think so. I think the baby is kicking. Here," she takes his hand and places it over the spot where she feels the movement, "I just felt it."
He waits, his demeanor patient, but she swears she can feel a thrum of anticipation from where her fingers are holding his wrist.
And then his eyes go wide.
"Huh."
Nika doesn't think she will ever tire of her hitman being speechless.
"Does that hurt?"
"No. Not really. It's just strange, feeling him moving inside me."
Nika blushes, and if 47 let his mind go to what Nika inadvertently suggested, he's not letting it show.
"Thank you."
He pauses, and though Nika's brain prompts her to ask him what he's thanking her for, her heart stills her motions and accepts the words, knowing that somehow this is something important.
"For letting me do this," he clarifies, answering nothing and everything at the same time.
And then he leans in, and there is that moment again, where he looks at her and she smiles down at him through her still hooded lashes. She doesn't know what it is this time, their hands overlapped over this little person making his presence known, the stunned look about him that she never sees, or the first thank you she's ever heard from him. She doesn't know what makes her do it, but this time, as he leans in, she lets herself close her eyes.
And then there's no going back. When her eyes were open, kissing 47 was a wondrous and knee-weakening experience, but with her eyes closed she is in another world – a world where all the hurt, all the pain, and all the scars are someone else's life, and all she has is this hope and this warmth and this…this love.
And that's when Nika Boronina knows for sure that she loves him, this hitman who never says more than two words if he can help it, who would rather assassinate a target than tell her what he's feeling, who is the only person in her entire life who has cared for her and treated her like an equal, a partner.
The thought makes its way to Nika's brain, fully formed, and she pulls away from him abruptly. If he's surprised, he doesn't show it. He simply sits there, in his white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up (a common look for him these days), and looks at her, waiting, giving her the first move like he always does.
It's infuriating, but it may be the best part about him (apart from his abdominals, because those are definitely the best part about him).
And she loves him.