Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
Kirill
It was a twisted feeling: dreading going home and at the same time eager to get it over with.
After Lucy’s home decorating fiasco yesterday, whatever progress I thought had been made with my wife screeched to a halt. It might have even reversed into a flimsy guardrail and fallen off a cliff.
I had Sato take out the plant, and just my luck, Lucy was standing right outside my office.
“Put that in the TV room, I don’t care,” I told Sato.
“It has better light in your office,” my wife insisted.
“Who do you expect to water it?” I asked. “Me? And do you know how that water would ruin the wood paneling?” I exhaled heavily. “It seems you need to hire an interior designer.”
“You’re saying I don’t have taste?”
“I’m not falling for that trap,” I said.
It was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t.
It was like the question Aralina asked me one Thanksgiving about whether she looked fat.
And I told her, “Baby fat is cute,” and I paid for that comment for months.
Aralina was mute, but her silent treatment spoke volumes. “Do you want a drink?”
“Yes. But not with you!”
“Fine.” I walked into my study and slammed the door.
We shared an awkward dinner afterward. I’d been wrestling with an apology, but by then Lucy had shut down.
I’d never seen her shut down like that. She always had a smartass reply, and she rarely backed down.
I didn’t know why that troubled me more.
We didn’t spend time past dinner. She retreated to her room and claimed a headache.
Which was why I had no patience for the man being tortured in front of me. Normally I would be focused on getting information out of him, but it was the apology flowers sitting in my office that were yelling at me to go home to my wife.
“It wasn’t me who leaked the route,” the man cried.
Kolya was the executor of the hurt. I had no desire to get blood on my clothes, delaying my arrival home if I had to change clothes.
“You got this?” I asked Kolya impatiently.
Vasquez, who was the other one involved in this shipment mess, came forward. “Where are you off to, Zahkarov? Weren’t you the one so gung-ho to capture the mole?”
“He’s your man and not one of ours. Kolya needs to get back in the game, and I have complete faith in him.”
My friend snorted.
“The shipment is being redirected. You’ll get your guns tonight,” I told Vasquez. “I expect payment in full.”
Without another word, I left the basement of horrors.
So now I was returning to my house with the bouquet.
After I had time to think about it, I realized I was just being an asshole.
I was rarely home anyway, so what did I care if there was an eyesore in the foyer?
And the plant. Fine, it wasn’t as if I took care of the plants in the house.
Sorcha could ask one of the staff to water it.
But when I arrived, it was to see a commercial truck and people moving things out of the house.
One of them was the yellow painting, and I wondered if Lucy had decided to leave me.
I checked my phone. Why weren’t there any messages from Sorcha or Sato?
Didn’t they think I had the right to know if my wife was leaving me?
Did they think I deserved it?
I stared at the flowers on the passenger seat, and suddenly they seemed an inadequate gesture to make up for my heartless attitude yesterday. Was that how a husband was supposed to behave with no regard for his wife’s feelings?
A lump formed in my throat. An uncomfortable pressure radiated its way to my chest. Jaw clenching, I grabbed the flowers and exited the vehicle and hurried up the steps only to be met by my mother-in-law.
Fuck.
She and Lucy were standing in front of a new painting. Another abstract but with more muted colors and splashes of yellow.
When Lucy saw me, her eyes fell on the flowers and then her mouth twitched. It wasn’t a full-blown smile, but her eyes sparked with pleasure.
Encouraged that I was on the right track, I first gave Lucy a light peck on the lips and turned to Lottie.
“Kirill,” my mother-in-law exclaimed. “You’re home so early. We thought to surprise you.”
“Kolya is back and is taking some load off,” I said.
Once I’d tapped the right people for key positions, I could spend more time with Lucy. In the last years of his reign, Ivan rarely left the house.
Lucy cleared her throat and pointedly looked at the flowers I was still white-knuckling so hard, it was a feat I hadn’t mangled the stems.
I coughed a rough, brief chuckle. “I was an insensitive ass yesterday, and I’m sorry.”
“Aww.” Lottie clutched her chest in a swoon. I hadn’t intended to make my apology in front of witnesses. Heat climbed up my neck. I was embarrassed. It was a feeling I hadn’t associated with myself in a long time.
Lucy stirred unsettling new emotions and novel experiences inside me, and I was powerless to shut them down because the compulsion to explore them won over any misgivings I might have.
Lucy, probably realizing how much this whole scene was costing me, came to my rescue.
She grabbed the flowers from me and clasped my hand to lead me away.
“I’m putting this in water, Mamma. Be right back.
” She squeezed my hand while staring up at me.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you. And yes, you were insensitive yesterday.
And I’m sorry too for making assumptions regarding redecorating—”
“Stop right there. I told you to do it. But why is your mother here?”
She sighed. “I prided myself on knowing the right people for the job, and I didn’t think about my mother, who used to be an interior designer.”
I remembered glossing over that detail in her mother’s dossier. Carlotta Moretti had been featured in luxury home magazines.
Lucy asked for a vase from Sorcha. My stoic housekeeper was smiling from ear to ear, making me wonder if she derived any pleasure at all in running my household before. She seemed to be in a better mood nowadays.
“These are really pretty, Kirill. So colorful. I don’t know what half these blooms are. You need to tell me who the florist is.”
“And give up my secret weapon?” I drawled. It was Margo, of course. The flower shop was part of her Marriage Ink business, but apparently she also dabbled in husband groveling.
“I came home to tell you, you can keep that yellow monstrosity.”
Lucy laughed, and my chest expanded.
“No, that’s fine. Mamma told me I was chaos, and you were control, we need to come to a middle ground.”
I raised a brow. “She did, did she?”
“Come on, let’s see what she’s doing before she turns our home into a showroom.”
Our home.
I liked the sound of that.
Lottie stayed for dinner. She did most of the talking and tamed the confetti room to a manageable brightness. The orange and yellow furniture were more pleasing with the cream throw pillows, and she moved my two-million-dollar painting in there.
“I took measurements for drapes,” Lottie said. “You want to keep them neutral too.”
“It’s not too bright, is it?” Lucy asked me. “I thought it would be the perfect foil to your frosty presence.”
“Lucy!” Lottie was aghast.
But I laughed. A deep-chested laugh that startled Sorcha into dropping the utensils. I caught myself, but that didn’t stop a wide grin from forming. I sipped my wine. “That’s fine. I love my spunky wife.”
Did I just say that?
It wasn’t that I loved her. It meant I loved her spunk. I refused to clarify my words because I didn’t want to draw more attention to them.
Lucy dropped her eyes to her plate as her mother made another swooning sound.
I could be quite the Prince Charming, apparently.
“Dom and Sloane arrived last night. How about family dinner at our house tomorrow?”
“They might be jet-lagged,” Lucy pointed out. “But I don’t mind catching up.”
“I’ll check with them,” Lottie said.
“That’s not possible,” I cut in. “I’m taking Lucy for a mini vacation to the Caribbean islands tomorrow.
To escape the cold of November.” I picked up my wife’s hand and kissed her knuckles.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a honeymoon, but I promise once I’ve settled into my position, we can take a longer vacation. ”
Lucy narrowed her eyes. Ever since we talked about her brother’s honeymoon, there was a surge of competitiveness inside me. But with the demands as pakhan, it’d been impossible to find a block of time we could go on vacation. With Kolya back, I could breathe easier.
My wife didn’t say anything, but Lottie vocalized her approval. “Aw, that’s so sweet. Of course, get working on those grandbabies, hmm.”
“Mamma,” Lucy grumbled.
I was still clasping her hand, and I was glad she didn’t pull away. “We’re working on it, Lottie.”
When her mother finally left, Lucy turned to me. “You didn’t have to go that far if you didn’t want to have dinner with my family.”
I hooked her around the waist and kept her pinned to me. “I don’t mind having dinner with your family.”
She raised a brow. “You don’t?”
“I have a problem with mine, not yours. Your family is more tolerable.” Except her brother.
Lucy pulled away in confusion. “I love your family. Believe me, I’m more relaxed around Irina than my mother.”
Hmm, I noticed Lucy tightening her jaw more, her lips forming a thin line when Lottie was speaking. At my penetrating stare, my wife squirmed out of my arms. I let her stalk off for a total of two seconds before following her.
“Lucy.” She was making a beeline for the TV room.
She paused, sighed, and then faced me. “What, Kirill?”
“You don’t get along with your mother?”
Her chin tilted up. “It’s not that we don’t get along, it’s that her expectations are different now that I’m married.”
I gestured for her to go inside the TV room. She exhaled heavily again. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I told you about Ivan. Help me understand your relationship with your mother so I don’t trigger undue stress.”