One black-suited guy stepped right into my personal space where I sat at the tiny table, glowering at me.
I jumped backwards out of my chair and plastered myself to the wall. “Nico!”
Nicolai was following them back into the bedroom area, and his disinterested hand-flap at the guy stalking me was like how you’d gesture to a stubborn toddler to climb down from the top of the monkey bars. “Ueli, don’t hover.”
The men’s body language changed as Nico strode through the area where they stood.
All six men were still scanning for threats, but his person drew them like a magnet, like if he waved a hand, they would sway.
Command,I thought. Nico was in command.
“I need to run a background check on this woman,” Ueli said, his throaty accent different than Nico’s. “We were not advised that you wouldn’t be alone.”
“It’s a little late for background checks,” Nico told them, back at the table and picking up his coffee cup. “I married her last night.”
“What?”the other guys demanded.
Hubbub ensued.
“Mr. Romanov, we were not advised?—”
“Shri Ram, I’m going to kill Sussex’s security. Theysaidthey had you covered.”
“Do you need a lawyer?”
“Do you need to beextricated?”
I smashed myself against the hotel room wall while the new guys kept looking around the really small space like a nefariousassassin was going to jump out of the narrow sliding-door closet or the tiny bathroom, both of which they’d checked already.
Nico sipped his coffee like he was ignoring their ongoing outburst, then held up one hand until their demands died away. Even wearing nothing but a hotel towel, authority radiated off him. “It was sudden, but it’s none of your concern.”
They all started talking again, arguing with him and each other.
Ueli, the one who’d been crowding me at the table, turned toward where I stood, snarling. His pale blond hair and gray eyes almost blended in with his plaster-light skin. “You trapped him, didn’t you?”
Oh, that was too darned much.“Hey, buddy!You’re the ones who didn’t take care of him,” I said, straightening as much as I could so that the top of my head was near his collarbone. “He waswastedin public, falling-downassdrunk on the street and flashing huge amounts of moneyin the middle of a crowd,and I kept him from gettinghurt.Where wereyou guyswhen itmattered?”
Nicolai laughed.
Ueli blinked, but he leaned back.
“Besides, what couldIdo totraphim? This isn’t the eighteen-hundreds. I didn’tlurehim to a dark corner of the pleasure garden and allow us to be discovered by the mama-chaperones, so they’d insist he marry me lest I be ruined. Seriously, think before you talk. ‘Trapping someone into marriage.’Get real.”
Nicolai looked up at where I was trying to mash myself into the drywall, still grinning. “That’s my girl. Lexi, you haven’t finished your breakfast. Come eat.” His voice dropped. “Ueli, back the fuck away and let her move.”
Confusion dropped Ueli’s jaw, and he whipped around to stare at Nicolai. “Sir?”
Nico smiled at me, and it was sunlight and magic. “Lexi, angel, your coffee is getting cold. Come eat.”
I slithered around the brick column that was the security guy and settled back in my chair, trying to watch out of the corner of my eyes in case that Ueli dude moved to attack me.
“Lexi,” Nicolai said. “They work for me. They’re here to protect us. Don’t be afraid of them.”
“Okay.” I ate a bite of yogurt and fruit that tasted like school glue in my mouth because the heavily armed guys were still staring at me.
While the other security operators continued to stand, Ueli sat on the end of the bed and braced his hands on knees, a white bulldog of a man with legs akimbo. “Nicolai, we’re going to need an update.”
Nico didn’t look up from sprinkling more granola on his yogurt. “We met around two years ago in Italy. Verona, actually.”
