The Kremlin fortress itself was not strong enough to protect such a treasure as the kindness in her heart.
And yet I had walked into her life like a dictator and demanded she tie herself to me legally and religiously, and now I was imprisoning her within that marriage.
Was I holding her to something she didn’t want? She’d negotiated for the money that morning, but there wasmoreto life than money.
“Look, this problem with Volkov is my problem, not yours,” I told her. “If being married to me makes you unhappy, we can end this. We can be legally divorced in a few days, as you said, and you can go live your life. I’ll obtain the annulment as soon as possible, so you’ll be morally free as well. I can make a few phone calls and have it over with before the end of the month, I’d wager. I’ll give you money to resettle yourself somewhere else. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
She looked back at me again, her dark eyes flicking back and forth as she seemed to be searching for something in my expression. “Do you not want to be married to me?”
The vulnerability in her eyes, the pathos, her admission of some idiot leaving herat the altar,broke through the royal decorum I’d been inculcated to maintain all my life.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I fuckingblurted.
She blinked, startled.
Against everything ingrained since my birth about the elegance of reserve and the importance of courtly manners, about discretion in the words I spoke because every connotation could be treacherous, I kept talking.
Looking into her dark eyes was too difficult while I was dredging the words out of the depths of my soul, a place I never ventured to, lest I find something monstrous there.
So I stared at the ice-clear diamonds I’d put on her hand and very gently ran my thumb over her knuckles. “You areunlike anyone I’ve ever met. I want to. . .spend time. . . with you. It’s been less than a day, and yet I am desperate to hold onto you, to watch you, to hear who you are. I don’t want to lose you when I’m just beginning to know you.”
I didn’t want to lose her at all.
Her fingers closed around mine, a gentle squeeze. “I want to spend time with you, too.”
And yet I couldn’t stop talking. “You are utterly different than anyone else I know. You could have left me to die on the street. Maybe you should have. Anyone else would’ve. But you didn’t. And you didn’t want anything from me. I remember you trying to stop me from making mistakes, even though I didn’t make any mistakes last night, except for the rings. I should have known better than to give you pawnshop rings.”
Her chuckle filled my ears. “You and your preoccupation with these rings.”
I looked up into the deepness of her eyes. “I found a treasure in you. Letting you leave my life this morning would have been the mistake. Whether or not we stay married, I amso gladI met you last night. I’m happy I didn’t let you walk away. I’m ecstatic I insisted you stay in that terrible little hotel room with me, in that bed where nothing happened, and didn’t let you go to wherever your own hotel or home is.”
“Yeah,” she said, looking down, her shoulders hunching. “We should probably talk about where my home is, or sort of isn’t.”
“That priest was right,” I barreled on. “I want you to be happy. No matter what the end will be, I want to give you a year of delight. I want you to be gloriously happy every day you’re with me.”
Her fingers curled around mine. “Nicolai, I am happy. Don’t think I’m not. It’s just been a lot, this past week. I feel like I’m a cheap sweater that’s been beat up in a washingmachine, and now I’m stretched out of shape and soggy all the way through. But I’m not ungrateful.”
“So let’s start with tonight,” I told her, my voice firm. “I don’t want you to be upset when you’re with me. You areyou,Lexi. You’redifferent,and I don’t give a flying fig what they think. It’s just a stupid party to celebrate my idiot friend getting married at the end of the month in what must be described as the most ill-advised marriage to ever be planned, not that I told him that. They’ll all be drunk tonight. Just have fun. If anything comes out wrong, I’ll tell them thattheywere knackered, and they’ll believe me.”
“What if they don’t believe the story about us meeting in Italy, like you told Clementine?” she whispered. “I’ve never been to Italy.”
I waved the thought away. “These idiots will believe anything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said absolutely insipid things, and they’ve utterly believed me. Persuasion is all in the tone.”
A smile was curving the edges of her mouth.
I liked that.
“And we’ll go to Italy,” I said. “So we can play through our meeting. Then we won’t make mistakes.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“You have nothing to worry about.” I crooked my elbow at her and slipped her hand under my biceps, smoothing her fingers around the inside of my arm and resting my hand over hers. “Just stay on my arm. I’ll protect you from all these people, from their prying eyes and their irritating questions.”
She was smiling a little more now.
Good.
“Give me your phone,” I told her.
