13. NIKOLAI
“Goodnight, son,” my father tells me, as he embraces me outside the dining room.
That’s how I can tell that he’s had a drink too many, when he hugs me like this. He’s a far more reticent man most of the time, but this evening seems to have left him in a good enough mood to ignore his normal reservations.
“Goodnight, Dad,” I reply with a chuckle.
“And get back to that lovely wife of yours for me,” he remarks. “You can’t leave a woman like that waiting too long, you hear me?”
I nod, grinning. It seems as though Andie has made a damn good impression on my father, all things considered, and it’s a relief to see that he seems to have taken to her as well as he has.
“Agreed,” I reply, and he lifts a hand to bid me farewell before he turns to make his way back to his room. I watch as he goes, and as soon as he’s out of sight, I turn to make my way back to Andie.
I’ve made no mention of sleeping in bed with her again tonight, but I’m reluctant to wake up anywhere else but her side.
I try to convince myself, as best I can, that it’s about nothing more than keeping up the front for the staff and the rest of the household.
No matter what reason I give, I’m sure there will be chatter about the fact that we, as newlyweds, are not sleeping in the same bed.
But it’s more than just that. It’s being close to her that has me tempted, the smell of her skin when I rolled over to pull her against me in the middle of the night, the deep, sweet warmth of her body in the bed next to mine.
It has been a long, long time since I’ve shared my personal space with anyone like that, and there’s good reason for it too.
Even Natalie, who I was supposed to marry, didn’t stay over at my apartment before the wedding.
I had little interest in her physically, beyond doing what needed to be done to ensure that there was an heir eventually, but Andie?
There’s something about her that draws me in, something that I would never have noticed were it not for the ring on my finger giving me all the permission I need to see her in a whole new light.
She fits so comfortably into this world too.
I suppose it’s a learned skill from all the families and friend groups she’s had to become a part of over the course of her career.
My father clearly adores her already, and he’s not an easy man to please in that regard.
I always imagined that any wife of mine or Max’s would have a hard time proving themselves to him, but he and Andie swapped stories about their childhoods as though they were old friends.
I’m about to take a turn up the stairs when a voice cuts through the silence in the rest of the mansion.
“Nicky…”
I clench my jaw. I know who it is at once.
Only one person uses that nickname for me.
And the way he just said it, I know he means it to hit exactly as it did when we were kids, and he would sneer it across the room at me when I was playing with some toy he wanted or when I got a little more of our father’s attention than he thought I deserved.
“What is it, Max?”
“Nice dinner with Dad?” He stalks out of the kitchen. He’s stumbling slightly, as if he’s already drunk, and I look him up and down with disdain.
“Yes,” I reply. “Thanks for asking.”
“Didn’t want me to join you, huh?”
“I didn’t set it up. Dad did. He probably just wanted a chance to get to know Andie properly. One-on-one.”
“Andie,” he repeats after me, a mocking tone to his voice. “How sweet, you have a nickname for her.”
“It’s just what she goes by,” I reply. I can’t rise to his bullshit, I know that’s what he wants from me. It’s what he always wants, for me to get down on his level, for him to be able to prove that I’m no better than him.
“And I’m sure you know her well, hmm?” he remarks, shoving his face close to mine. I can smell the vodka on his breath.
I wince, drawing back. “You’re drunk, Max. Go to bed.”
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do,” he slurs back, stabbing his finger into my chest.
Anger flares at the back of my head. He’s trying to get a reaction of me, maybe hoping that someone is around to catch it so he can prove that I’m not the man I seem to be.
“Max, we’re not kids anymore,” I tell him sharply. “You don’t need to get jealous when I spend time with Dad. Shit, I’m in America most of the time anyway, you don’t get enough of him as it is?”
“You know it’s not about that,” he hisses, his eyes blackening.
A fake marriage, real jealousy, and one hidden heir waiting to complicate everything.
See where the trouble starts on Lokepub.
“Then what the hell is it about?” I snarl back at him. No point keeping it under wraps now, since he wants to lay it all out. If he has something to say to me, then he can come out and goddamn say it, that’s for sure.
“You’ve been all the way across the world, living your life,” he replies, lip drawn back into a sneer. “And I’ve been the one here. Holding down the fort. Doing what needs to be done where it matters?—”
“You think what I’m doing doesn’t matter?” I retort. “I’m expanding the business. Keeping watch to?—”
“To make sure that I don’t get a scrap of what you know I’m owed,” he shoots back.
“And what are you owed exactly?”
This business,” he replies, taking another step toward me, clearly hoping that I’m going to rise to the challenge he’s laying down. “You hear me? I’m as much his son as you are, and yet you’ve been handed everything on a silver fucking platter?—”
“That’s not true and you know it.” I keep my voice as steady as I can, though all I want to do is chew him the fuck out for daring to speak to me like this.
“What, that he didn’t give you preferential treatment?” He lets out a bark of laughter that I know is designed to get under my skin. “Come on. We both know that’s not true. You were the one he handed over the American business to. I wasn’t even in contention?—”
“And have you ever asked yourself why that might be?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow.
“Because you’re always getting what I never do. You?—”
“I get what I earned,” I cut in sharply.
Is he really forgetting everything I’ve been through in order to prove myself to our father?
All the hard work I put in to make sure he knew that I was ready for it?
The contracts I oversaw, the deals I brokered, the territory I watched over for him?
Max is acting like I just sauntered into this position after putting in no effort at all, but I’ve gone out of my way to show our father that I’m prepared to do whatever the fuck it takes to make sure this business thrives exactly as it needs to.
“And I didn’t earn it?”
I turn away from him. This conversation is going nowhere. If he really wants to stand there and act like he doesn’t get it, I’m not going to be able to get through to him.
“Hey, listen to me!”
“Max, I’m done here,” I tell him. “My wife is waiting for me.” I make sure to layer a little more weight on that word, making sure he understands that this is as much about her as it is anything else.
“Oh, that woman you brought from America? The one none of us heard about before?”
he replies. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you paid her off for this. Tossed a few thousand dollars in her direction so she would stand around looking pretty and keep her mouth shut about what the two of you really are?—”
“Be very fucking careful,” I mutter, not turning around, “what you say next.”
And that, at least, seems to be enough to silence my brother. I don’t bother looking back over my shoulder to make sure he’s gotten the point. He knows. He understands that I’m not going to take this kind of shit from him, especially not on the matter of my new marriage.
Even if he came closer to the truth than I would like.
I know he’s just throwing shit out there, convincing himself that he’s onto something because it means I would have put a foot wrong. But that’s about as much time as I want to hear him putting into thinking about my marriage, given that it’s what has sealed the deal for my future in this business.
I pick my way back up the stairs, back toward Andie.
I’m not going to let my brother get to me.
I can’t. If I let him under my skin, he has won, and that’s the last thing I want to grant him right now.
That bastard might think that I’ve just walked into everything that I have, but I know that I’ve worked every day of my life to show that I’m worthy of accepting the mantle that our father wants to pass down.
And Max was never going to be worthy of it.
No matter how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise.