Chapter 21 #2
The glare in Nicolai’s eyes as he turned to stare at me was the incinerating depth of a blue-hot star.
“I’ll discuss the matter with a few friends.
His university will revoke his degree. The banks that do business with his parents’ construction company will call in their loans and refuse to issue more.
The same for their mortgages, car loans, and credit cards.
News sites will insinuate terrible things about him, and those articles will rise to the top of search engines like fucking magic.
I could have him and his whole family destitute in a week, pariahs in two. ”
My chuckle was a nervous rasp in my throat. “Okay.”
His mouth curved into a small, calm, terrifying smile. I think he’d stopped blinking. “In the old days, I would have had him tortured to death and his family sent to Kharp or Vorkuta gulag, where they would slowly die of hunger, scrounging in the dirt for black potatoes.”
“Wow, that’s oddly specific.”
He shrugged. “But that was the old days. Times are different now.”
Yeah, okay. “Do you think about the old days a lot?”
His smile dropped. “No. Of course not.”
“Right.” The conviction in Nicolai’s voice was the scariest thing about all that. “You’re a little on the ruthless side. Remind me never to get you angry at me.”
“It runs in the family. Being ruthless is the only way to rule Russia.” He brushed his thumb over my knuckles. “But I’d never do that to you. Indeed, the whole rest of your life will be a charmed existence, one easy day after another. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Eh, you never know. I might blow the whole ten million bucks on dirt bikes or a boat.”
“Ten,” he scoffed.
“What are you going to do if I run through it? Set me up with one of your rich friends to marry?”
Nicolai’s arm stiffened around me like he was grabbing me against his side, but he just looked around the hotel bedroom and cleared his throat. “You won’t need a rich man. You’ll have plenty of money.”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah, if we ever sign that pre-nup.”
His arm relaxed some, but I was still a little mashed against his dress shirt and his firm body underneath. “We’ll hash it out. The lawyers will undoubtedly have their say tomorrow. They have an opinion on everything. I suppose they must earn their retainers somehow.”
The high-end lawyers, his rich friends, all those guys at the party.
Heck, all the guys in all the exotic places Nicolai had said we would travel to.
“So, how about this?” I offered, finally spitting out my proposition. “I get it that you want to make sure the annulment is valid, to be absolutely sure that no one can mess things up later for you. So, we can’t.”
Nicolai nodded, his head bobbing sideways a little like he was allowing it, not agreeing with it.
“And, there really isn’t a virgin test. It doesn’t really exist.”
He nodded slowly, frowning.
“The way I see it, it’s still non-consummation with you if I sleep with someone else, right?”
“What?” That one word popped out like he’d taken a gut punch.
“Last night, I was just going through the motions to keep something fatal from happening to you. I didn’t expect that fake wedding to last a year. I want my life to change. I need my life to be different in every way. Every, every way.”
Nicolai’s hands curled into fists, crumpling the velvet duvet cover we were sitting on and the copper silk of my dress beside my thigh.
“I mean, there were a lot more guys at that party tonight than girls. I counted, and it looked like two men for every woman. That whole nightclub was the male loneliness epidemic in miniature. Maybe I could go out with one of them. Maybe I’ll even end up with one of them, after we get divorced and annulled next summer. ”
“No one, else,” Nicolai growled.
Whoa. I’d hit a nerve there. “Okay, but you’re not willing, at least for me, which is fine. I wouldn’t ever pressure anyone into anything they didn’t want to do. That’s not cool. Totally, not cool.”
Nicolai still didn’t move.
“And you could have flings, too. Or relationships. Or call up your list of women you meet in hotels for a quick boink.”
His head-shake was quick, definitive. “Even with an annulment planned, I am married to you. We’re married. I won’t cheat.”
Those sleeper codes ran deep, the poor guy.
Mine did, too. “But this isn’t a real marriage. We aren’t going to end up together. It’s fake, and it’s only for a year. After that, we’ll be on our own. Apart. Alone. And I don’t want to end up alone.”
His body was rigid beside me, like his joints had locked up.
“I don’t want to live my life celibate anymore.
I’m not going to settle for half a relationship, half a life.
It’s not like one of us has a physical problem and can’t.
I’m not abandoning you in sickness or disability.
You just don’t want to sleep with me. Maybe something is wrong with me.
But for whatever reason, you don’t, and I respect your absolute right to not want to. ”
“Lexi, no. There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t think that.”
“This isn’t a real marriage. It was just a piece of paper and a ritual in a church.”
“It was a sacrament.” His voice sounded breathless.
“You’re not willing, and that’s okay. We aren’t really married, not forever, not for real, not for love, not in our hearts. I don’t want to miss my whole life waiting. I already did that. I wasted so many years of my life. I don’t want to wait anymore.”
He turned his head and stared straight at me, unblinking. His jaw bulged. “I’m willing.”
This was ridiculous. “No, you aren’t. You said you weren’t. I’m just trying to find a compromise.”
“I said, I’m willing.”