Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“Why do you love him?”
Nikolett groaned. “Don’t ask me that.”
“Just answer the question.”
Rather than answer, Nikolett stuck the end of her straw into her mouth and took a long sip, the dry white wine crisp and cool.
It was heathen behavior to drink wine through a straw, but she was past caring.
Nikolett was lying on the low couch, her bad leg propped up on the low, wide back to keep it elevated.
After a day spent mostly sitting, having it up like this was blissful.
However the position made it hard to eat or drink.
Nyx had called down for an insulated tumbler and a long straw.
Nikolett’s lid-capped tumbler of wine—which had been refilled several times, as new bottles kept magically appearing in Nyx’s hand—was sitting on a stack of books near her head, the end of the bendy straw never far from her lips.
Nyx was lounging in a chair across from her, a wineglass dangling from one hand, a bowl of cashews propped on her tits.
“Give me one,” Nikolett demanded, holding out her hand for a nut.
“Answer the question first.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because if I talk about him, I might scream. Or cry. Or both.”
“Good. Do that.” Nyx underhand tossed her a single cashew, which bounced off Nikolett’s forehead. “You were supposed to catch it in your mouth.”
“I’m not a dog!”
“No, you’re not. A dog would have caught it.”
“I could have you removed from this room,” Nikolett declared with a dramatic wave of her hand. A voice in the back of her mind was warning her that if she tried to sit up, she was going to find out that she was past tipsy and fully drunk.
Nyx snorted. “By whom? My husband? He might do it if he thought you really needed rescuing from me, but this was partially his idea.”
“Getting me drunk?”
“No, getting you to talk about your feelings.”
“I could get Iacob. Or Maxim… Wait, did you see him and Elena?”
“We should put them in a trinity. Just to see what happens.”
“Forming trinities is a sacred duty,” Nikolett declared seriously.
“We can’t form trinities just because they clearly like each other but are being awkward and will never figure out the attraction is mutual and we want to see what happens if we do…
” She stopped, having lost control of the sentence.
“If we did, it would be…” Her mind was blank. “What’s the trope called?”
“Forced proximity.”
“Forced proximity! Yes, that. We can’t form trinities just to do a forced proximity trope to see if we can make people fall in love.”
“That is quite literally one of the better reasons for a marriage I’ve heard. Far better than old asshole wants to fuck a younger woman.”
Nikolett winced, but Nyx’s expression didn’t change as she popped another cashew into her mouth.
Once more, Nikolett held out her hand for a nut. Nyx hugged them against her chest. “Talk or you get no snacks.”
“But I want snacks.”
“Talk.”
“I need food. I’m weak from hunger.” Nikolett rested her wrist on her forehead and sighed dramatically.
Nyx snorted, then placed exactly one cashew into her hand. Nikolett popped it into her mouth. Mmm, salt.
“Why do you love him?” Nyx’s tone was softer, more serious.
Part of Nikolett wanted to beg her to go back to teasing and banter. This was the most fun she’d had in…well, she couldn’t remember.
But maybe if she answered the question, she could stop loving him. Maybe Nyx could help her counter every reason for loving Eric until she thought and reasoned her way out of loving him.
“I have to sit up for this.”
Nikolett carefully lowered her bad leg down and sat up.
As predicted, the world tipped and tilted.
Once the earth returned to its normal horizontal position, she scooted back, resting against the arm of the couch.
She could have half-turned to look at Nyx, but instead stayed as she was, both legs stretched out in front of her, Nyx in her peripheral vision.
Three large windows across from her gave a view of the skyline of Bucharest. The original design for the house had glass walls along most of the southern and eastern sides to take advantage of the slight rise her home sat on and the view it provided.
Even when the house was being built, the glass had been declared a security risk and Dimitri had the plans edited from floor-to-ceiling glass to large windows.
Since then, they’d been upgraded twice—once to bullet-resistant glass with a privacy coating that made the windows almost like mirrors from the outside, and more recently to smart bullet-resistant glass that was wired into the security system.
With the click of a button, liquid crystals within the glass could turn it from clear to translucent and then to fully opaque.
If the security system was activated, all the windows in the house that didn’t have shutters went white completely, obscuring the view inside.
This room didn’t have metal security shutters, just the smart, bullet-resistant glass.
Vadisk had made her run drills—seeing how fast she could get from this room into her bedroom and then activate the lockdown of that room from the inside.
They’d run the drills until it was instinct—if the windows went white, even if the audio alarm wasn’t sounding—Nikolett ran for her bedroom and locked herself in.
“Do you think Vadisk is happy?” Nikolett asked abruptly.
“Vadisk?” Nyx pursed her lips as she thought. “Yes, I think he is. It sounded like he was already in love with his Americans. Are you worried about him?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And I miss him.”
“Understandable. He was your second best friend.”
Nikolett snorted out a laugh. “Second best friend?”
“I am your first best friend.”
“Of course. Though I doubt he thought of me as his friend. His project? His job? Those, yes. But not friend.”
“Why are we talking about Vadisk?”
Nikolett tipped sideways, resting against the back of the couch. “He left.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” Nyx countered.
“He did. I know Vadisk. If he’d wanted to remain a member of the Masters’ Admiralty, I think he could have.”
“It was two against one,” Nyx pointed out. “His husband and wife are both part of the Trinity Masters.”
“If being here was important to him, and he explained that, I think his new trinity would have agreed to move here.”
Nyx was quiet for a moment. “You’re hurt that he, maybe, chose to leave.”
“No.” Nikolett shook her head definitively. “No. I want him to have a life, a good life. When they announced the trinity… Yes, I panicked. But Vadisk deserves to be loved. Be happy.”
“A familiar sentiment,” Nyx mused, and Nikolett realized Nyx had said something very similar to her.
They were both quiet for a minute, and Nikolett chose to snatch up her tumbler and take a sip of wine to fight the tight feeling in her throat.
“Part of me wonders if he left because he thought I’m a lost cause.” Nikolett barely got the words out.
“What?” Nyx leaned forward, setting her glass aside. “What do you mean?”
“Vadisk was there. He saw it. He knows, better than anyone, what an idiot I am.”
“When you say he was there, you mean he was there when you were with Eric.”
Nikolett nodded. “Not all the time. Maxim nearly had to knife the entire Spartan Guard to get us out of Triskelion one time, but Vadisk was there every time Eric and I…”
“Every time you had sex?”
Nikolett nodded. “Depending on your definition of sex, we haven’t actually had sex. Not traditional, heterosexual sex.”
“You told me...” Nyx arched a brow. “Do you want me to pretend penis in vagina is the one and only definition of sex, so that we can say you haven’t had sex with Eric?”
“No.” Nikolett slumped. “That’s stupid. We’ve had sex, but I know he would say we haven’t.”
“Bullshit justifications.” Nyx stood and grabbed Nikolett’s glass, popping the lid off. “While I’m glad we’re finally talking about Eric, I want to go back to Vadisk. Why did you mention that he was ‘there’? Why does that matter?”
“What if he left because he, better than anyone, sees how stupid I am when it comes to Eric? He was with me every time I was stupid enough to enter a room with Eric and a bed. Vadisk saw that and realized he didn’t want to be a part of this.
” Nikolett gestured around, indicating not just herself, but her home—the headquarters of the territory.
“You think Vadisk left because this is a sinking ship and he wouldn’t go down with it?”
Nikolett nodded once, her throat tight with tears she refused to shed. She felt stupid for everything she’d done, and to have her bodyguard leave as if he knew it was an unwinnable fight hurt more than she’d let herself realize until wine started ripping down her defenses.
Nyx put the lid back on the refilled tumbler with a snap. “Don’t insult me.”
“What?” Nikolett stared at Nyx, bewildered.
“You are not the only person running this territory. Your belief that your stupidity is the sole deciding factor when it comes to our survival is insulting to me, Grigoris, the finance ministers…”
She was right, and Nikolett felt like an ass. “Nyx, I’m sorry—”
“Do we need you? Yes. You have the vision and skills and people respect you. Would it be hard without you? Yes. But will we survive? Yes. You got us through the worst of what Petro left behind.”
“You’re right, and I’m so sorry for—”
“Now, you personally?” Nyx topped up her own glass and resumed her seat. “You’re a bit of a disaster.”
“Thank you,” Nikolett deadpanned, hiding her relief that Nyx was shifting the focus and didn’t seem seriously offended.
“And the fact that we don’t know who’s hurting you, can’t figure out how to stop them…” Nyx’s expression was sober—despite all the wine—and serious. “That eats at them. All of them. Every knight, every security officer. It keeps Grigoris up at night.”
Nikolett thought of apologizing again but knew Nyx didn’t want that.
“Now that we’ve established Vadisk didn’t leave us because he thinks you’re doomed, I’ll ask my question again. Why do you love Eric?”