That was a weird saying. Must be British, because Nicolai always sounded so British, except when he’d been speaking Russian to the priest last night.
I dropped my silverware on the plate and waved my hands in the air, negating his worries, because I didn’t want him to think I was just after him for his money, like his brother had said. I mean, his offer that morning of all that money for a few months of acting was crazy. The more I thought about it, the more uncomfortable I was. “They’re fine. Please don’t?—”
“I already did.”
I turned my hand, looking at the pretty little solitaire and the gold band below it, sparkling a little with wan, straw-colored fire inside where it caught the light. “Oh.”
“You sound disappointed.”
I drew cross-hatches with my fork in the baked potato, super-creamy with the whole ramekin of ranch and a piped spiral of butter I’d dumped in. “These rings are the ones the priest blessed when we got married.”
“They’re just rings. Just a symbol.”
“But they aren’t just a symbol, really. Our vows weren’t even part of the ceremony. The priest just let us say them to each other afterward. Theringswere part of it. They seem really important.”
He swallowed a bite of salad. “The rings are the betrothal part of the ceremony, theintentto marry. The part that actually married us was the crowning, when the other priest placed the crowns upon us, and the priest blessed us, and then we followed him around the altar. The crowns are remnants ofthe royal wedding service from the court of Byzantium and symbolize martyrdom, each of us dying to the self for the sake of the spouse, and we are reborn together as the king and queen of the church of our home.”
Nicolai’s voice had softened as he spoke, becoming more thoughtful, almost wistful, and he blinked a few times.
“That’s—that’s really beautiful,” I blurted. Jimmy’s church had made marriage sound more like buying the cow to get the milk, usually with a diatribe about “predatory males” who stalked young women and ruined them.
“Yes, it’s a sacrament. Sacraments fundamentally change one’s soul.”
“Okay, I guess.” I tried not to sound disappointed about the rings.
“I ordered new rings while we were with Clemmy, and they arrived. If it hadn’t been so sudden, I would have had you pick out something you liked. I’d always thought about designing a ring for my wife when I married,ifI ever married. Nevertheless, circumstances dictated a change in strategy.”
“Kostya said you didn’t want to get married.”
He shrugged. “One should always consider alternative avenues in life. Keeps one on one’s toes.”
Defeat made my whole body sag downward. “I don’t want you to spend a lot of money when this isn’t even real.”
“We must make itlookreal.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to be a real diamond, at least. White sapphires look just as good. A friend of mine got white sapphires for her set, and the whole thing was only a couple of hundred dollars instead of diamond prices.”
Nicolai paused, holding his fork with a bite of steak on it. “The people we will be interacting with tonight can grade a diamond from ten feet away. If I provided anything less than an absolutely exquisite ring for my wife, they would know something was amiss.”
“Do you really care what people like that say?”
“For the sake of cattiness? Not at all. I’ve given them plenty to talk about over the years.” His mouth may have smirked in a rueful half-smile, but his blue eyes flicked up with a touch of mischief. “However, the point of this ruse is to divert Demyan Volkov.”
Demyan Volkov’s threat to marry his mafia-princess daughter to Nicolai was the whole reason Nicolai had fallen at my feet last night and bribed me to sign the marriage license that morning. “Yeah,thatguy.”
“If people start whispering that our marriage doesn’t look real, it isn’t going to work.”
“Yeah, but you can’t marry anyone else until you get a divorce and that annulment, right?” I forked some potatoes into my mouth and swallowed them because the creamy mash didn’t need chewing. “I mean, that’s the law of the state and church. Actually, we can just pretend for a few months before we divorce and go our separate ways and live separate lives, and then you can delay the annulment for as long as you want. It’s fine with me. Heck, you can delay the annulment foryears,until you find someone else to marry, if you want. I think I’m done with men and marriage.”
His face didn’t move when I said that, like I’d missed something.
Oh, jeez. I was screwing it up. He was going to annul our marriage right away and kick me out, and then I’d be living in my car again.
My heart seized like a dry engine, which was dumb of me because I’d known this guy for less than twenty-four hours. He wasn’t even my friend, let alone anythingmore.
“Unless there’s someone else you’d rather be married to right now?” I ventured.
The quick compression of his eyelids and lips as he shook his head spoke volumes about how stupid I was being. “There’s no one else in my life. I dated a woman for a few years, but we separated about two years ago. I never felt there was a rush to be married, if ever.”
