‘What is Demyan like?’ Layla asked as they took the elevator up.
Mikael just shrugged, not quite comfortable with the cosiness of it all.
‘Surely he’s not as talkative as you?’ she teased. ‘What about his wife?’
‘I have only met her a couple of times,’ Mikael said. ‘She seems more pleasant than the first wife, but the bar was not set very high.’
Back to cynical, Mikael told himself. It was safer that way.
‘This is Layla,’ Mikael introduced her.
Alina was sitting down, holding the baby, and Demyan looked as if he hadn’t shaved or slept since they’d last spoken. Mikael tried to ignore the slight start of surprise on Demyan’s face. He had never brought a woman to his friend’s home before.
‘Actually, this is Princess Layla, and she’s on the run.’
‘You said not to tell anyone,’ Layla scolded. ‘You said that I was not to use my title.’
‘Demyan and Alina are fine,’ Mikael said. ‘Congratulations!’ He gave Alina a brief kiss on the cheek and then peered at the baby. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he duly said.
‘It’s okay, Mikael.’ Alina smiled. ‘I’m not going to breastfeed in front of you.’
Mikael actually smiled at someone who wasn’t Layla. ‘Okay, I will have a seat, then!’
Despite his reluctance to bring her along with him, Layla made the whole visit so much easier for Mikael. She handed over their gift to Alina and oohed and ahhed over the baby while Mikael and Demyan walked over to the bar, where they chatted for a while as they shared a congratulatory drink, speaking in Russian.
‘She’s gorgeous!’ Demyan said. ‘You are good together.’
‘We are good together because she’s temporary,’ Mikael said.
‘So was Alina,’ Demyan said, and they shared a wry smile because Alina had started as Demyan’s temp.
‘Well, in this instance it really is temporary. Layla has to return to her family in a few days.’ Mikael shrugged as if it really didn’t matter. ‘I’ll probably be bored with her dramas by then.’
He very much hoped that he would be.
But he doubted it very much too.
‘How is fatherhood second time around?’ Mikael asked.
‘Just as good,’ Demyan said. ‘Actually, better. I know a bit more what I am doing than I did with Roman. Alina is a natural mother.’
Even though they spoke in Russian this was all a foreign language to Mikael. What was a ‘natural mother’? He looked over to his friend—a man he had had a fist fight with a few months back, when Mikael had suggested that he stop paying child support for his son, given that Demyan’s ex-wife had told him that Roman might not be his.
Mikael had laughed then at Demyan’s passion.
He was starting to glimpse it now.
‘Why does she have to go back to her family?’ Demyan asked.
‘Because they love her,’ Mikael answered, ‘and because she loves them too.’
‘Mikael—?’ Demyan started, but Mikael shook his head.
‘Don’t.’
There was no point discussing it, for there was nothing he could do.
As they headed out to the elevator Layla was all smiles, but when the doors closed she rolled her eyes.
‘What does that mean?’ Mikael asked.
‘You know.’ Layla smiled.
‘No.’
‘All my cousins have babies, and you hold them and you smile, and you say the right thing, but…’ Layla held out her palms in a helpless gesture. ‘Then you run out of things to say.’
Very reluctantly Mikael smiled, but that was enough incentive for Layla to speak on.
‘Now Trinity and Zahid are having a baby it will be the same with them. That was how I escaped. Trinity was watching me like a hawk, but I suggested we go in a baby boutique and once we were in I might just as well have not been there.’