Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Viktor
After a long, private meal curated by a five-star chef and more bottles of champagne than five people probably should have drank, we finally make it back to our hotel.
We’re in the honeymoon suite, of course, and it’s a beautiful room with all the amenities.
A fully stocked bar. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Strip. A balcony with a hot tub.
All the things a newly married couple would love.
The irony doesn’t escape me.
I planned a real marriage and wound up being stood up.
Now I planned a fake marriage, and here I am in the honeymoon suite without a real wife.
Fate can be an asshole sometimes.
Not only am I spending my wedding night sleeping on a pull-out couch in the living room of our suite, I’m taunted by my beautiful bride. She’s not my typical type, but there’s no denying how beautiful she is.
Big blue eyes with long, light lashes.
Wavy blond hair that falls in soft curls around her shoulders.
A body that definitely turns heads.
And now she’s my wife.
My wife.
That’s a term I’m going to have to get used to.
She’s my wife legally and publicly, but it’s in name only. And now that we’re alone together—our first night as husband and wife—I’m a little frustrated by the fact that I can’t touch her. That’s probably the alcohol talking, so I figure I’ll be back in control after I sleep off this buzz.
Because the truth is, the one thing we didn’t really discuss was sex. Or the fact that we’re not going to be having any. I guess it was just an assumption, probably on both our parts, but now that reality is setting in, I’m not sure how to handle it.
Going a year without sex seems…unfathomable. Impossible, really. I became sexually active at sixteen and have never gone more than three months since then. A whole year will be—well, difficult is putting it mildly.
But if that’s the sacrifice to get my mother off my back, it will be worthwhile.
“I think I’m drunk.” She announces, sinking down next to me on the couch. She’s still wearing the pretty white cocktail dress she wore to get married but has kicked off her heels and I catch a glimpse of pretty little feet with toes painted a soft pink.
Damn, even her toes are cute.
What’s wrong with me?
Apparently, we both had way too much champagne.
“I am also…drunk.” That might not be entirely true but I’m definitely tipsy. And I need to stop staring at her legs.
She giggles. “We’re like two virgins on our wedding night trying not to talk about the elephant in the room.”
I was good until she started talking about elephants.
“There is elephant?” I look around, trying to figure out what that has to do with virgins on our wedding night. I’m far from a virgin, and since I know she lived with her ex for two years I’m relatively positive she isn’t either.
“You know—the big thing we don’t want to talk about. Sex.” She whispers the last part like someone might hear her.
I have no idea what elephants have to do with sex but maybe I’m drunker than I thought. “Sex?” I finally ask.
She giggles again and then claps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry. It’s just…this is our wedding night. We should be all over each other. Instead…we’re just sitting here like we’re scared.”
Her meaning is beginning to sink in.
The elephant in the room is the awkwardness between us. Because we are legally married and we should be having sex.
“I think we will be okay,” I say.
What else can I say?
“Aren’t you scared?” she whispers, suddenly turning big blue eyes to me.
I don’t have to think about that. It takes a lot more than an in-name-only marriage to scare me. I grew up in a rough neighborhood of Moscow. That was fear. This is…something much less terrifying.
“I am not afraid,” I say quietly. “A little bit of worry but not fear. There is nothing to fear.” I pause. “Well, maybe some fear of my mother. She is…difficult.”
“Like my father.”
“Yes. Except with guilt.”
“Yeah.”
We’re both leaning so that our heads are resting on the back of the couch, and she turns to look at me. “What do we do next? I don’t mean tonight, but when we go home?”
“We go to see house.” I contacted a realtor before we left and said I needed a house fast. Quick sale. Cash. I gave her some parameters and just this morning she emailed me three possibilities. One is too far away, but the other two are in Peachtree Heights, which is where I live now.
“In the meantime, we have to live together. Share a room. A bed.” There’s enough concern in her voice to sober me up quickly.
I meet her gaze directly. “You do not have to worry about me. I will never touch you without…” Shit, what’s the word for consent in English? “Approval?” I finish with a scowl.
She nods. “Consent. Yes. I sense that about you. But here’s the thing.” She sits up and faces me. “I’m pretty sure my father is going to do everything in his power to either discredit you, break us up, or make us so miserable it becomes more trouble than it’s worth to stay married.”
“Your father does not scare me.”
“He’s a state senator. He has powerful friends. If he gets wind that this isn’t a real marriage…”
“How? He will be in our bedroom in the night?”
“No but…” She chews her lip. “If you’re out with other women, and he hires someone to follow you—this whole thing is going to blow up in our faces.”
I study her thoughtfully.
She has a point.
I honestly didn’t even consider sex until today, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind I assumed I would discreetly take care of my needs with the occasional one-night stand.
That way, I wouldn’t be overly frustrated and she would never be embarrassed.
I’d probably have to suck it up during the off season, but one-nighters are easy once hockey season starts. Especially on road trips.
Her father having me followed adds a complication I hadn’t considered.
“You are saying I must remain faithful.”
She looks embarrassed. “I think…if this is going to work, we can’t give my father anything he can use against us. Especially you.”
“I am not afraid. I have done nothing bad. There is nothing to find. Let him look.”
She stares at me and then nods. “Okay.”
I feel like the conversation is unfinished, but I’m not sure what else to say.
“I guess I should go to bed,” she says finally, though she doesn’t move.
“Not yet,” I say quietly. “We can talk? Just for few minutes.”
“Okay.” She cocks her head. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Tell me something about Holly that your husband should know.”
She frowns for a second and then nods. “Well, my favorite color is purple. I love dark chocolate, and the top three places to visit on my bucket list are Tahiti, China, and Sri Lanka.”
“Sri Lanka?” I ask in surprise.
She nods. “A friend in college was from there and she told me such wonderful stories about the beaches and the culture and the food… I want to go.”
“I never think about Sri Lanka,” I admit. “For me, I would like to go to Antarctica. See the penguins and the…” I frown. “Big pieces of ice?”
“Glaciers?”
“Yes!”
We grin at each other.
“I hear the Drake Passage is rough.”
“Yes, this is the sea that will bring together Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.”
“Yes. They say the waves can be over fifty feet high.”
I grimace. “Is good I have strong stomach!”
We laugh.
“I would go with you,” she says after a moment. “If, you know, you wanted to go.”
“We cannot,” I say glumly. “Is best to go from October to March. I have hockey.”
“Oh.” She looks almost as disappointed as I felt when I looked into it. “What about during the All-Star Break?”
I shake my head. “Is not enough time. Two days just to cross Drake Passage.”
“You’ve done your research.”
I nod. “As you say—bucket list. Sadly, I cannot go until I retire.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Also, I would like to visit Japan.”
“That’s on my list as well.”
“For the summer, when we go on honeymoon…where do you like to go?”
“You choose,” she says quickly. “You’re paying for it.”
I shake my head. “This is not how marriage works. We must…compromise? Yes? We have business arrangement but also we are friends now. I would like to go somewhere we both enjoy.”
I watch a flicker of surprise cross her features before she says, “Tell me the other places on your list.”
“Egypt or—”
“That’s the one,” she says with a grin. “Egypt. I’ve always wanted to do one of the river cruises up the Nile.”
I stare at her for a second and then nod. “This is good. I like this idea. I will be very busy with hockey once we return to Atlanta—you will plan trip?”
“Sure.”
“I have ordered you credit card,” I say. “So you can charge everything to me.”
She frowns. “Viktor, I don’t need your credit card! I can—”
“You must.” I keep my voice gentle but firm. “You will need to shop with other wives. Travel. Decorate new house. You must.”
“Oh. Um, okay.”
“For honeymoon, first class everything. Please.” I meet her gaze and she seems to be staring at me intently. Like she can’t quite figure me out. Which is fair, because I can’t quite figure her out either.
“First class. Got it.”
“We have plan for honeymoon.”
Too bad we don’t have one for the wedding night.