SIXTY-TWO MEET THE IN-LAWS
SIXTY-TWO
MEET THE IN-LAWS
When Brennan scowls at me, I scowl back. “What?”
“No wedding. No invitation. Camille cried.”
“Inessa did too,” Eoghan rumbles.
“It’s what Victoria wanted.”
“Victoria didn’t want her sisters there? At her wedding? At the Russian ceremony?” Eoghan clucks his tongue. “I’m not buying it.”
I take a slow sip of very good whiskey. “You know you don’t intimidate me.”
“We should,” Eoghan echoes. “You never know when I’ll have eyes on you.”
“Ah, but Victoria loves me. You can’t kill me.” I smirk at them both. “I think you’ll find that’s checkmate.”
Brennan and him share a glance.
“Why did she want it to be such a small affair?”
“She wanted my name. Look, do we have to talk about this on Christmas Day?”
“Yes. We do,” Brennan snaps. “What else are we going to talk about?”
“I don’t know. Soccer? You own a team, don’t you?”
“Are you treating her well?”
“Of course I am, Eoghan. Jesus.”
And my thanks for that? A six-week course in archery.
The little minx is better at eavesdropping and playing possum than I expected.
“If she gets pregnant too soon, I’ll make you regret the day your father so much as looked at your mother.”
“If that’s your idea of a threat, you need to hang out with my father more.”
Eoghan’s head angles to the side and I pick up on my mistake. Fuck. “Father? I thought you were adopted?”
“Slip of the tongue.”
Brennan arches a brow. “Who’s your father?”
“Why does it matter?” Spying Aoife O’Grady bringing out a turkey from the kitchen, I grumble, “Dinner’s served.”
“That can wait.” Eoghan yanks on my arm. “Who’s your father?”
“Nikolai,” I grit out. “Veles.”
“Adopted?”
My fingers tighten around my glass. “Yes.”
“Has Victoria met him?”
“Of course.”
“A pole?!” Savannah shrieks, earning our attention.
I find her talking in not-so-hushed whispers with my wife, who’s giggling behind her hand.
“What’s that about?” Eoghan studies Victoria and his sister-in-law. “The Poles?”
I can’t tell him that one of her Christmas gifts was a dedicated room to pole dancing.
Though, I’m not entirely sure that isn’t a gift to myself…
She certainly rewarded me with a new routine this morning. One she’d choreographed for, “The man who has everything.”
“Did he attend the wedding?” Eoghan growls.
“No! For fuck’s sake,” I snipe. “Nobody was there apart from her best friend and mine, dammit.”
“Brennan! Are you being mean to Maxim?” Camille asks sweetly as she sidles up to her husband.
“Of course I am,” he scoffs.
She smiles at me. “Good.”
“Why are you blaming me for the small wedding? It’s like you don’t know your sister at all,” I deride.
“Victoria would have wanted us there if you hadn’t convinced her otherwise.”
Family.
God, Thanksgiving with mine and now Christmas with Victoria’s.
Fuck my life.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Can I go and eat now? Is the Irish Inquisition over?”
“It’s never over,” Camille snipes in Russian.
Deciding to put an end to this conversation, I slide into the place marked with my name. Then groan when I realize I’m seated beside Inessa on one side and Camille on the other.
“You didn’t think you’d get away from us that easily, did you?” Camille hisses.
Inessa frowns at me as she sits down. “We need to talk to you.”
“What about? Your husbands have already warned me off.”
Victoria, sliding into the chair opposite me, wonders, “Hey! Why am I not next to Maxim?”
Brennan flicks out his napkin and lays it on his lap. “Because you can be separated from him for a meal.”
“Did you change my seating plan around again?” Aoife nags.
“I did no such thing!”
Aoife glowers at Eoghan. “You.”
Victoria, ignoring this side conversation, rants, “You’re both sitting next to your spouses. Shay, switch with Maxim.”
Releasing the long-suffering sigh of a man who just wants to eat his Christmas meal in peace, Seamus stands and moves around the table.
“Maxim wants to sit next to us.” Camille digs her nails into my shirt-covered forearm. “Don’t you, Maxim?”
“I’d prefer to sit next to my beautiful wife,” I answer, making a swift retreat before his uncles can sway Seamus’s mind about switching.
Victoria glares at her sisters. “Leave him alone.”
“Lyanov doesn’t need you to defend him,” Brennan argues.
“Against you, he does. It isn’t like he can stab you with the carving knife!”
“Victoria,” Aela admonishes as she cuts up the food on a plate for the boy next to her. “There are kids around.”
She pouts but settles as I curl my arm around her shoulders, my shirt sleeve snagging on her hand-painted silk shawl that I bought her for Christmas—the one with ladybugs. “Well, it’s true. Stop bullying my husband.”
I have to smile as she draws Charlie onto her lap and snags a sausage from one of the dishes to feed to him. “Yes, I’m feeling ostracized.”
Aidan Jr. coughs out a laugh. “I’m sure you are.”
Aoife, who I sense is the peacekeeper of the family, offers, “Turkey and ham, Maxim? Or just turkey?”