The Heir She Hid

Five years ago I stood in the back of a cathedral in Moscow in a dress that was not mine and watched the man I loved smile at someone else. I left the reception in a borrowed car with a duffel bag and a secret I had not even confirmed yet. I have a bakery in Missoula now, and a son, and a life where nobody knows my real surname. Then a rental car pulled up outside at 4:30 in the morning and Ilya Agapov walked into my shop and said my name like it was a fact he had been carrying for years. He is the heir to the family I ran from. He is also the father of a four-year-old boy who thinks he is a customer. I told him he had two days. Then somebody knocked on the bakery door, and we drove into the mountains with the boy in the back seat, and the two days turned into four, and now I cannot decide whether I am protecting my son or losing him.