The collar of his shirt is unbuttoned, showing the base of his thick throat, and it bobs with a swallow. He looks nervous, or like he’s just now realizing that agreeing to marry a volatile twenty-six year old with anxiety issues that’s been dressed up like a debutante was actually a very bad idea.
Too late to back out now.
I nod at him, and he belatedly nods back, greeting enough for us.
“Willa said I need to look like I have a kid in a prep school if we want the general population to think I’m not a harlot slut trying to seduce you for your fortune,” I explain.
“I did not say that,” Willa denies. Maxim’s eyes light with amusement, which pleases me. At the root of it, he’s doing me a favor by marrying me instead of finding someone nice who can love him. Sure, I’m offering to bring life into the world, but that doesn’t change that this is a big, life-altering favor.
It’s the least I can do to make sure he’s not miserable all the time about it.
“Well, you look beautiful,” he says. “That color suits you.”
I blink in surprise at the compliment, my cheeks heating slightly.
“Shall we?” he asks. I nod before I thud the rest of the way down the stairs and brush past him to the door.
“Have fun!” Willa says, helping me into a thick, pink peacoat that I’ve never seen.
“Don’t flip off the paparazzi,” Nate says, and I flip him off instead.
A sleek, black town car is idling in the driveway, and an older man in a suit stands ready to open the door for us. I stop in front of him, eyebrows raised.
“You are fancy,” I muse, and the man offers a warm smile. We don’t have drivers, but then again, we tend to move in pairs at least. When I can, I make Leo drive.
“I’m Samuel,” he says, his Russian accent evident. “Good to meet you, Ms. Morelli.”
“Mary is fine,” I say, before sliding into the car’s back seat. The seats are leather with heatingandcooling, which is how I know the car is expensive. Plus, there’s lots of legroom, but I guess there has to be, because Maxim slides in beside me and doesn’t look cramped at all even though his legs are massive.
I wonder how many cars he has. I expect they’re all as nice as this one.
“Do you have a yacht?” I ask, and Maxim’s nose scrunches.
I bob my head. Knew it.
It’s funny that he’s embarrassed about his obvious wealth. It’s not like I didn’t grow up rich—organized crime pays—but so far as the general public knew, my dad was just in charge of a big, successful construction company. They expected him to have a nice house, theydidn’texpect him to wear a thirty thousand dollar wrist watch.
Dad had a boat, not a huge one, but there was a big deck that he entertained guests on sometimes. He liked the boat, and I liked it too. I suppose it belongs to Vanessa now, or maybe my mother, but we don’t use it. I think it stings too bad, being there without him. Mom should sell it. Put it into a college account for one of the million babies my sisters are birthing this year.
“Honestly, it would be weirder if you didn’t have one,” I say, and mess with the row of buttons on the door panel, clicking each one. They lower hidden shades on either of the back windows, then a knob changes the volume of the music.
As I said, very fancy.
“It has its uses,” Maxim says. “Certainly better than hosting people in my home. And more private.”
“I like boats. Better than planes, anyway.” I pause, then look at Maxim who is already braced in anticipation of the question. “You have a plane too, don’t you?”
“Not a big one,” he says.
I smirk and shake my head. Maxim is in charge of a massive holding company of luxury hotels and clubs around not only Massachusetts, but the entire country. There are even some international resorts, Nate informed me last week after a deep dive into everything he could find on Google about my fiancé.
No one expects Maxim Orlov to fly coach.
I can’t imagine why he would care what I think of his money unless he really does think I’m marrying him in an elaborate ploy to take his dirty fortune.
“I agree about hosting. I hate when people come over and put their germs on all of our things,” I tell him. I squint out the window (the tint certainly illegal) at the thought of all the old mafiosos who come over and don’t even wash their hands before sitting to dinner. They don’t even ask if they can help clean up. “We do have a holiday house,” I offer about the beach place in Rhode Island. “It’s not unfortunate to be as comfortable as we are. But it’s okay to be ashamed. Eat the rich, or whatever.”
“I’m not ashamed, per se, it’s just—my father was. . .excessive,” Maxim says. I would like to pry about his miserable father, but the tense set of his jaw tells me that doing so might be like pressing the butt of my gun into a bruise, so I refrain.
