10. ANDIE
Nikolai waits for me at the bottom of the stairs, and when he sees me approaching, a grin spreads over his face. “Andrea,” he greets me, gaze sweeping up and down like he can barely believe what he’s seeing. “You look beautiful.”
I smile back at him. I do feel confident in what I’m wearing, having careful styled myself as best I could to fit the event tonight.
Nikolai asked me if there was anything I needed to pull together the rest of my look, and I had requested some makeup and haircare stuff that I know I would never have been able to afford back home.
I’m not exactly a pro behind the makeup brush, but I have watched enough artists working on blushing brides to have an idea of what to do.
I settled on a light smoky eye with a nude lip, along with the dark dress and a pair of heels with silver details that match the glittering jewelry on my arms and at my ears.
I can already hear the buzz of a party taking place when I reach the bottom of the stairs, and Nikolai proffers his arm to me.
I take it, gripping a little tighter than I need to.
I don’t normally wear heels this high, and I’m determined not to make a fool of myself in them, though on some level, it feels kind of inevitable.
Nikolai is wearing a dark gray suit with a blue tie, his hair swept back from his face to show those piercing blue eyes.
His aftershave is the same one he wore on our wedding day, and the sense memory casts me straight back to the private plane together, the way he talked me through our encounter, taking control like he owned me…
I push that thought from my mind, and cast a look along the corridor to an open door, which spills light and conversation outward.
“Already started, huh?”
“My father likes to make sure his guests are comfortable,” he replies, and he places a hand on mine over the top of his arm and leads me along the corridor and toward the room.
I take a deep breath, bracing myself, willing myself not to show the nerves that feel like they are ricocheting off every inch of my body right now.
We step into the room, which is just as impressive as the rest of the mansion. Portraits line the wall, stern-looking men in military uniform gazing out from inside gold frames. A couple of wait staff move through the room to freshen drinks and offer food to the dozen or so guests in attendance.
At the far side of the room, Marcus, Nikolai’s father, lights up when he sees the two of us together. “Ah, and here is the woman of the hour!” he announces, moving toward us and clasping my hand warmly. “My new daughter-in-law. Andrea.”
“It’s so kind of you to introduce me to your family friends like this,” I tell him, smiling as sweetly as I can muster against the overwhelming nerves inside of me. “I…I appreciate it.”
“Well, you’re part of the family now,” he replies, and there’s a slight edge to his tone, as though he’s reminding me exactly what my place is in all of this. “Only fair that you are treated like it, hmm? Now, let me introduce you, I’m sure everyone will be interested to get to know you…”
“Yes, I’m certainly curious as to how Nikolai found a wife so beautiful,” one of the men remarks.
He looks to be in his seventies or so, with thinning white hair and a warm, twinkling smile.
Hard to believe, just looking at him like this, what kind of business he’s involved in.
To so much as be standing in this room hints at what he’s capable of, and it drains the blood from my face for a moment to think of it.
I pray that the makeup does its job to cover my expression, and I smile back at him.
“You’re too kind.”
“Now, Ilya, no flirting,” Nikolai remarks, but it’s clearly little more than a joke.
“So how exactly did you meet?” Ilya asks, taking a sip of his drink. I notice a ring glinting on his pinky finger, and I wonder what exactly it announces to those who are aware.
“Didn’t you hear?” another voice cuts in, this time laced with sarcasm.
I glance over and see Max making his way toward us.
My stomach sinks. There’s something about the way he spoke to me the other day that stuck in my head, as though he can see through us in a way that doesn’t sit right with me.
I know he has no reason to view us through that lens, but there’s clearly some resentment between him and his brother, and I’m caught in the middle of it.
“They fell in love when she was planning some wedding,” he replies.
“And she decided she just couldn’t wait any longer to get married herself. I suppose my brother was the first one she saw once she’d made her mind up, hmm?”
He laughs loudly, but it’s clearly little more than a cover for how he really feels.
I feel Nikolai’s grip on me tighten, as if making it clear to anyone looking that I am well and truly his.
“Well, when I met Nikolai,” I reply, turning to him, putting on my best adoring expression in the hopes of selling what I need to sell.
“I was so impressed by how accomplished he was. So many of those men in America, they put such little stock in protecting their family name, and he poured so much care into making certain that his father’s legacy was upheld…I knew he would do the same for our family too.”
Marcus nods proudly. “A fine investment, a man who cares for his family,” he agrees.
“And your sons both certainly do that,” Ilya agrees, being met with a mutter of agreement around the room.
Max lifts his drink to his lips, not taking his eyes off of me.
“Maybe you could find me a beautiful American woman to make my wife too, hmm, Andrea?”
he asks me pointedly. “I’m sure you have a few of those brides of yours who got left at the altar who are looking for another man to fill the void…” He cocks an eyebrow.
I laugh, plucking a glass of champagne from one of the waiters passing me by.
“I’m not sure there are many American women like her,” Nikolai responds.
“None as beautiful,” Max remarks, letting his gaze linger on me a little longer than a brother-in-law should. “That much, I’m sure of.”
“Max, you’re too kind,” I tell him firmly, keeping the smile on my face, as though it’s all just flattery.
“And besides, what’s wrong with a Russian woman?” one of the other men cuts in jovially. “My wife is of good Russian stock, and she has borne me a whole brood of children.”
The conversation turns to their shared homeland, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Every moment the focus isn’t on me is one I can use to observe the back-and-forth between this group, just how they interact with each other.
They seem relatively comfortable, but there is still this edge to the way they speak, as though they’re making certain that nobody gets ahead of them.
For every boast one makes, another is quick to cut in with a reminder that they can keep up or even exceed them.
Whether it’s wives, children, money, property, there’s nothing that they will not try to outdo each other at.
I laugh at an anecdote one of them—Vadim, that’s the name that I heard the others calling him—about his wife.
“She sounds like quite a woman,” I remark.
“I’m sure the two of you would get on well,” he replies. “You remind me of her, when we first married.”
“Well, I’m sure that’s a compliment,” I reply, and he laughs.
“It certainly is,” he replies. “Though she’s a finer woman now than she was when we met. Like a good wine—she gets better with every passing year, eh?”
Another gale of laughter emerges from the men in the room, and Nikolai chuckles along with them. I wonder, briefly, what he thinks of all this mention of the future, of what comes next.
I know I’m not the one he wanted to marry in the first place, and it’s hard to believe that he will still want to claim me when we’re back in America, when he has convinced his family that he’s a married man.
I’m still not entirely sure why he was so insistent upon coming back here with a wife, but judging from the way these men talk, they take their marriages and families with the utmost seriousness—maybe it’s proof that he is capable of keeping up their legacy.
The group splits off into smaller clusters, and Nikolai is drawn into conversation with one of them.
I do my best to keep up, but they dip in and out of Russian, which leaves me with little to hang on to.
My eyes dart back and forth, attempting to parse what they’re saying just by reaction alone, but soon I find myself well and truly lost.
“Still learning the mother tongue, eh?”
I glance around, and find Max standing beside me again.
I tense at once. I can smell the alcohol coming off of him, and I am not ignorant to the fact that he’s been drinking harder than anyone else all evening.
Maybe because there’s something he’s trying to forget.
Like the fact that his brother is the center of attention this evening, and he’s stuck at the sidelines, trying to keep up.
“I don’t speak much Russian,” I confess, and he shrugs.
“It’s a difficult one to learn, so I’ve heard,” he replies. “But something tells me your tongue would be able to keep up.” He lowers his gaze to my mouth.
Though Nikolai is engaged with the conversation happening before me, I can feel him watching out of the corner of his eye, all too aware that there’s something going on that he would not approve of.
“I don’t know, I’ve never been good with foreign languages,” I reply, playing at dumb, as though I don’t have a clue what he’s getting at.
His own tongue darts out, skimming across his bottom lip. “All you need is a good tutor,” he replies. “And if you need one, I’d be glad to step in if my brother isn’t as…capable.”
“Max,” Nikolai cuts in, his voice low, warning.
Max looks to his brother, raising his eyebrows, playing at dumb. “What is it?”
Nikolai replies to him in Russian—though I don’t speak the language, I can guess just from his tone that it’s a warning of some kind, telling him to keep his distance, to remember who he’s talking to. Max snaps back to him, petulant, but turns on his heel to walk away.
I glance to Nikolai, frowning. “What was that?”
“Pay him no mind,” he replies, staring after his brother as though making sure he’s gone. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
I part my lips, about to ask more—but I think better of it.
I need to play it cool tonight, keep from making too much of a scene.
Rubbing along with everyone is the best I can do this evening, and as much as I can tell that Max is trying to hint at something more between us, that doesn’t mean I need to entertain it for a moment.
Nikolai turns back to the conversation he was having before, and Max retreats to the other side of the room.
I glance over at him, making sure he’s truly gone.
And I find, with a creeping sense of discomfort, that he’s watching me from where he stands.
He lifts his glass to me when he catches me looking in his direction, and I swiftly avert my gaze once more, not wanting him to think that there’s anything happening between us.
Because there isn’t. I’m married to his brother, even if he seems incapable of respecting that. And no matter how difficult it might be for Max to make sense of it—I trust Nikolai more than I trust him.
And in this world, I’m starting to get the feeling that who you put your trust in can be the difference between life and death.