Chapter 1

My nerves started to build up this morning when I woke up. I chose to ignore it but as we boarded the plane and the wheels left the ground, I couldn't really think of anything else but my nerves. Dimitri did take my mind off of it for a short while as we made love in the bathroom of the plane, but it did not last very long. As the wheels touched the ground, my stomach starts to churn. I'm going to meet Dimitri's family in less than two hours. He said that it's about one and a half hours drive from the airport. I know how much this means to him and he has told me over and over and over again not to worry.

"They will adore you Roza, just like I do." He said more than once. It feels like a mantra being drilled into my head. The landing is smooth and I'm grateful to be back on the ground. I hate flying. The twins were little Angels on the flight, only crying once or twice. We grab our luggage and head to the car rental place. Dimitri gets us a Honda CR-V for the stay. It's nice and spacious, perfect for the car seats. If it was just us grown ups, we could have rented a sports car and flew on the long country roads to his home town. But it's not just us and my twin's safety comes first. They are about three months old now and they are growing up too fast. Alexei's hair is dark and full like mine is. His eyes are the same shade as mine, but all his facial features are the same as Dimitri's. I was worried about Valerie. I was worried that she would take after Adrian but she didn't. She looks just like I did as a baby. Her hair is a shade lighter than mine is and it looks very close to Dimitri's. Her eyes are a deep chocolate brown. I don't see a trace of Adrian in her. They both sleep the whole drive and as we get closer to the house Dimitri grew up in, my nerves stared to flare again.

"We are here." He parks the car in front of a really nice two-story house painted blue with white trimmings. It looks homey and lovely. Dimitri looks over to me with a small smile on his lips.

"Don't worry Roza, they will…"

"If you say 'adore you', I will kick you in the balls." I warn him. He looks at me with his head tilted for a few seconds before he starts to laugh.

"Just don't say stuff like that in front of my mother." He says and gets out of the car. We leave the bags in the car; we will get them once we have met everyone. I cradle Alexei close to my chest as Dimitri rings the doorbell. A beautiful woman I recognize as his mother, opens the door. A wonderful smile forms on her lips as she sees who her guests are. I thought she would tackle Dimitri into a hug first or coo over her grandchildren. I was pleasantly surprised when she reached out and hugged me first. I hug her back instantly.

"Oh, my dear. I have waited so long to meet you. You are so beautiful." Her accent is thick. She talks very fast. She looks down between us to see Alexei being squished between us.

"And this is my grandbaby." I let her take my son from my arms. She gives him two kisses on each cheek.

"Hello to you to mamma." Dimitri says with an amused but loving tone. Olena turns to her son as if remembering only now that he is here to. She hugs him, being careful of the baby in her arms and the baby in his. She says something to him in that I did not quite catch and they talk back and forth for a while. I see a young boy approach the door slowly. He looks to be ten. His light brown hair is almost as long as Dimitri's.

"Hello." I say, hoping he is not too shy. He looks at me with wide eyes.

"Hello Miss." I'm not surprised that his accent is hard to understand too. I'm going to really have to pay attention to what they are saying. Olena finally turns back to me with a smile on her face.

"Let's go in." We follow her into the house. It's a beautiful family style house with pictures everywhere. This is not just a house, it's a home. I hope that my house is one day as inviting and loving as this one. We are greeted with three women in the living room. One is around my age while the other two are a bit older. It must be his sisters. They pull Dimitri into a family hug first and I stand to the side waiting for them to finish up.

"This is Roza and my son Alexei. Roza, this is Viktoria…" The younger girl steps towards me and pulls me into a hug. She is really pretty with long light brown hair with one purple streak in the front. Her facial features are like Dimitri's just much more feminine. The one thing I notice about all the Belikov's is their eyes are the same brown. One would not be able to tell whose eyes you are looking at if their faces were covered.

"This is Sonya and my older sister Karolina." Sonya only gives me a handshake and a curious glance. I don't think too much of it as Karolina pulls me into a hug.

"Can I hold him?" Karolina asks and points to my son. I hand Alexei over to her and watch as she and her sister's coo over him. Viktoria takes Valerie from Dimitri and they sit down on the long couch with my twins.

"Babushka is in the kitchen, come." Dimitri takes my hand and we follow Olena into the kitchen. An old lady is sitting by the big dining room table. Her hair is completely white, but her eyes are the same brown. She has this aura around her that says she may be old but she will kick your ass. Olena talks with her mother in Russian as she enters. Dimitri gives his grandmother a big kiss on the cheek and then pulls her into a hug. He motions for me to come closer.

"Babushka, this is Roza. The mother of my children." He says. She looks at me from my head to my toes and then meets my eyes again. She says something in Russian. I'm not sure if I should tell her that I don't speak Russian or if I should just smile and wave.

"No Babushka, not yet. Please speak English, she does not understand Russian." Dimitri says gently. She looks at him with narrow eyes and they have a very heated conversation in Russian. I stand to the side awkwardly as I wait for someone to tell me what the hell is going on.

"Let's just give them some space." Olena says as she leads me out of the kitchen. I glance back at Dimitri and his grandmother one last time. They are obviously arguing about me, but why? What did I do to piss her off in the first five minutes of us meeting? I have no idea.

"I'm sorry if I caused a riff…" I start to apologize to Olena but she shakes her head.

"Don't worry Roza. She is very old school and the fact that you two have children together without being married is kind of hard for her to accept." I can see how that could make her mad. My grandparents were also very old school and they didn't approve of many things.

"It wasn't really planned. Dimitri and I… our relationship, it has been very odd since the beginning." I try to explain. There is no easy way to explain to her how our relationship came to be and how attached we grew over the past year. I honestly can't imagine my life without him.

"You don't have to explain to me. I can see the love he has for you and I hear how he talks about you whenever he calls me. Don't worry, sweet girl." She gives me a pat on the back. We enter the living room where Dimitri's sisters are with my twins. I sit down in a chair opposite them and watch as they play with the babies. I can't help but feel responsible for the argument between Dimitri and his grandmother.

XX

"I'm sorry Dimitri." I say to him as we get ready to crawl into bed. The twins just went to bed and we need to get some sleep in before they wake up in three or four hours from now.

"For what?" He asks as he pulls me into his arms. I let out a deep breath. His argument with his grandmother has been eating up at me the whole day. I haven't really had a chance to talk to him about it.

"The whole thing with your grandmother today. Why didn't you tell me she would have been upset by the fact that we aren't married?" I ask him. He must have known she would not approve. I'm not saying he should have asked me to marry him before we came here, but a little heads up would have been great.

"I didn't think it would matter. Our whole relationship hasn't been normal from the beginning. I thought it wouldn't matter." He says. I sit up and run my hands through my hair.

"I just don't want her to think I'm leading you down the evil path?" Dimitri sits up too and rubs his hand over my back.

"The evil path? Roza, I love you and my babushka will just have to live with that." I lean over and kiss him on the cheek.

"I love you to. I'll show your grandmother that we don't need a piece of paper to show how much we love each other. She will like me, even if it kills me." I say and I mean it. I will get her to like me. I'm going to be in Dimitri's life for as long as he wants me. She is the great grandmother to my babies so, that means she will be in my life too. We lay back on the bed, wrapped in each other's arms. I toss and turn for about two hours before I give up on sleeping completely. I check on my twins before I head down to the kitchen for a class of water. I nearly piss my pants when I open up the fridge and the light inside reveals someone sitting by the dining table.

"Yeva, you gave me a fright." I put my hand over my heart and try to stop my erratic breathing. She looks at me with a straight face. No emotion can be seen on her aged face. I switch on the light and sit down across from her.

"Can we please talk for a few minutes?" I ask her. She doesn't nod her head or say yes but she doesn't say no either.

"I understand that you don't like me, I know that me having children with Dimitri without us being married is not very traditional, but I love your grandson." I say to her, hoping that seeing me vulnerable will help her accept me into her family.

"He is the father of my kids and he is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with." She looks at me briefly and then turns her eyes back to her laced fingers on the table. She is quiet for a long time. I sit there, waiting for her to say something, anything. After a full five minutes of silence, I stand up and start to make my way to the doorway.

"The two of you should have tied the knot as soon as you found out about the babies." She says just as I'm about to leave the kitchen. I turn back to her and we lock eyes.

"No, then we would be marrying for the wrong reasons. When we get married, it will be because the time is right and we are ready." I give her a minute to say anything to me. She just looks away from me, ending our conversation. I walk back up to the room my twins are sleeping in. I see that Valerie is awake. I pick her up and sit down in a chair in the corner. She sucks my finger, telling me she is hungry. I start to feed her and lean back in the chair. Well, I tried talking to her and it didn't go over so well. I will just have to show her that Dimitri and I are soul mates. I will not give up so fast. If there is one thing that has stuck with me since I was a kid, it's my tenaciousness. I don't give up easily. Even in the past when I thought I have reached that point of giving in, I always overcame it and rose up. After a good feeding for Valerie, I put her back into the carry-cot Olena dug out of the basement for us earlier. I make sure Alexei is still sleeping soundly before I go back to Dimitri. Valerie eats much more than Alexei does. She is like me in that department. I snuggle into Dimitri's side, loving the warmth coming from his body. He wraps his muscular arm around my small body and sighs in contentment. This is my happy place. In the love of my life's arms.

XX

I wake up to the heavenly smell of bacon and… I sniff the air two more times without opening my eyes. Waffles. I smell bacon and waffles. I open my eyes to see that I'm alone in bed. I hate it when Dimitri gets up before me. He usually always does so I have to deal with waking up on my own. Somedays he will just lay in bed and read a western while I would sleep. It happens very rarely that I wake up before him because he chose to sleep in. I pull a pair of sweatpants on and tie my brown hair into a high ponytail. After I use the restroom to freshen myself up, I make my way down the stairs. Everyone is in the kitchen helping Olena make breakfast or just sitting around. I see Yeva holding Valerie and Sonya holding Alexei. The only two Belikov woman who don't like me are holding my children, wonderful. I wonder if Yeva will dislike Valerie if she knew about my daughter's DNA. She probably would. Better to keep that to ourselves. I make a mental note to discuss that with Dimitri later. I feel a small pug on the hem of my shirt and look down to see Karolina's little daughter, Zoya. She is about three years old with the same eyes and hair color as the rest of her family. I crouch down to her level and tap my index finger lightly on her button nose, making her giggle.

"Aunty Roza." She says. I look up to see Dimitri and Karolina looking at the two of us. I know Dimitri and I are endgame, but is it okay for his niece to call me aunty? I don't know.

"Yes, she is your aunty, baby girl." Karolina says to her daughter and then winks at me. I give her a grateful smile. I can see that I'm going to get along with her and Viktoria wonderfully. I don't know what I did to Sonya to make her so cold towards me. She doesn't seem to carry her coldness over to my children, so I don't mind her not liking me.

"Good morning Roza, take a seat. The food is ready." Olena says as she puts a hot pan on the dining table. Dimitri puts a steaming cup of hot coffee by a place setting and pulls out the chair for me. I give him a soft kiss on the lips and sit down. Dimitri takes his daughter from his grandmother and places her onto a thick blanket on the floor near our seats. Sonya puts Alexei next to his sister, giving them each a soft toy to hold onto. They can't play with things yet but they love to hold onto anything they can. The only seat left open is next to me. Sonya doesn't look extremely happy about sitting next to me, but she doesn't say anything or act super weird. After a short breakfast prayer, we dig into the lovely feast Olena prepared for us. The conversation going around the table is light and airy. Yeva only talks when she is spoken to or if she wants to say something, which is almost never, but it seems to be her thing.

"We have to show Roza the little clothing shop that opened around the corner. It has a bit of everything. We can leave the babes with momma and Dimitri and babushka and us younger girls can go." Viktoria says as we start to clear the table. She is talking really fast because she is excited making it kind of hard for me to understand everything, but I got enough to understand. Karolina nods her head, a bright excited smile on her lips matching that of her youngest sister.

"I'll stay with the kids too. I'm not up for shopping." Sonya quickly says. Viktoria gives her sister the biggest frown I have ever seen.

"Since when are you not up for shopping? Who dragged us through that big mall is Moscow at two in the morning just to get the sale…"

"I said I don't want to." Sonya says slowly. Her tone is a waring. She is telling Viktoria to back the fuck off or else. Dimitri uses that tone with people sometimes. It's scary as hell. I'm glad I have not been on the receiving end yet.

"Why don't you girls go? I need Sonya's help in the garden anyway. Be safe and keep an eye out for Roza. She does not know the language and the town." Olena says before there is a massive fight between Viktoria and Sonya. I could see that Viktoria wasn't going to back off on her own. Dimitri has told me that she is a very hard-headed person and she loves to argue.

"We will mamma. Let's go Vika. Grab a coat Roza, it's really cold outside." Karolina takes Viktoria's hand and leads her out of the kitchen, I hear them talking in Russian to each other.

"Let me just feed the babies and then we can go." I yell to Karolina as I pick up Valerie. I see her giving me a thumbs up. Dimitri takes Alexei and follows me to our room. He shuts the door behind him and I take a seat on the bed. Valerie latches onto my nipple as soon as it is exposed to her.

"Why is Sonya against me? I know why I don't tickle Yeva's fancy, but what did I do to Sonya?" I ask Dimitri. He lays down on the bed with Alexei on his chest.

"I don't know why Roza. My family is normally very welcoming. All of them. Yeva takes a day or two to warm up to new people but I have never seen this side of her and Sonya." Dimitri says honestly. I love that he can tell me things like this without hesitation. If I was in his shoes and my sister didn't like him, I would have tried to play it cool and make up some lame excuse to make him feel better. But Dimitri knows that I want the truth and not be wrapped up in wool to protect me from getting hurt.

"Great, I bring out the worst in even the nicest people. Are you sure it's okay to leave you here with the twins?" I ask, needing to change the subject. Dimitri takes Valerie from my arms and hands me my son. He takes Valerie's place and starts to suck immediately.

"They are my babies too, Roza. I know how to take care of children and my mother is a nurse." Dimitri says with a big eyeroll. After I finish feeding my son, I get dressed in some jeans and a form fitting red sweater. The weather in Russia is terrible. It's cold and wet and the snow is thick. It's very beautiful but I'm done with cold weather.

"There are snow boots by the door, Vika said you two should be the same shoe size." Dimitri says, he is still laying on the bed with his kids around him. It's a beautiful picture, seeing the love of my life with our kids smiling and just being together, it's magical. I meet Viktoria and Karolina at the front door. Viktoria gives Sonya a dirty look before we leave the house. We decided to walk even though it is snowing buckets outside. It's probably better to walk in the snow than drive and get snowed in and Viktoria promised that the shop is just around the corner. We make it into the store after a ten-minute walk. It's very old-school on the inside. Karolina runs her hand through the blouse rack close to us with a wishful smile on her face.

"Karo wants to by the store but it's just out of her price range. She has been eyeing it for a year and trying to save enough, but with two kids… it's hard." Viktoria says. Her face shows the sympathy she has for her sister. I can imagine the frustration she is feeling because she can't do anything to help. I would feel it to if I were in her shoes.

"That sucks." I say as I scan through the clothing. It's really nice stuff.

"Can I ask you a question about Sonya?" Viktoria looks up at me and nods her head. Karolina joins us by the pants rack.

"Why does she not like me?" I ask. I realize how vein I sound asking that question but it has nothing to do about being popular or not. I going to be a part of their family and I don't want to be the cause of a riff in their tight-knit family.

"It's because of the whole jail thing." Karolina says. I raise both my eyebrows at her, silently begging her for more information.

"You accused Dimitri of kidnaping you a while back and he got thrown into jail. We all sort of disliked you from then on but Dimitri called the whole family right when you learned you were expecting. He explained how a guy named Andre…" She stops her explaining, her face scrunched up while she is thinking.

"No, Adrian, planted everything and you only did what you thought was right. Sonya wasn't there the day he called and she didn't really believe the story he told us. She still feels that you unfairly jailed our only brother." I rub my palms over my eyes to stop the tears I feel from falling. I hate remembering what I did to Dimitri.

"I wasn't thinking when I accused him and I will never make it up to him. I was just scared and…" Viktoria puts her hand on my shoulder and smiles at me fondly.

"We know, but Sonya is a little moody right now. Give her time to warm up to you." Viktoria makes a bump motion with her hands over her belly. It looks like she is trying to form a pregnant belly.

"Sonya is pregnant?" I ask, shock clear on my face. Dimitri didn't tell me this.

"Yeah, but no one knows. Only us, so don't blab. Sonya will really hate you if you do." Karolina says. I pretend to zip up my lips and throw away the key. Well this is interesting.