Because it certainly didn’t feel like her. The morning of Pavel’s birthday, she woke to the same sight she’d been waking up to for the last five weeks. An empty room. Her husband already gone for his morning workout, which would be directly followed by his commute to work, since he’d started going in even earlier to make up the extra time he spent training Pavel after he got out of school. She sat up and stretched, but the movement in no way addressed all the little aches and pains that came from sleeping on a chaise lounge while four months pregnant. Yet another reason she was seriously doubting her winner status these days. Two months ago she’d been sure Nikolai would eventually tire of sleeping on the floor and might even send her back to her former room in a fit of frustration. But he hadn’t sent her back to her old room. And though she never saw him when she went to bed or woke, she’d become used to either stepping over or walking around a sleeping Mount Nik during her increasing number of late night bathroom visits.
