“That’s hardly appropriate pillow talk.”
“Well, there aren’t any pillows out here. So talk.”
I chuckle at that and shrug. If my stubborn bride wants the story, so be it. “Ironically, food poisoning.”
She blinks. “Someone poisoned her food?”
“No, E. coli. We slept separately, due to the fact that I expected her to kill me in my sleep. I didn’t know she was sick until she was too weak to leave her bed one morning. I called in our family physician, and he demanded we take her to the hospitalimmediately. We did, but it was too late. Sepsis. She died within hours of getting to the hospital.”
“Why didn’t she tell anyone she was sick before it got that bad?”
“Bridgette hated doctors. Her mother had died in childbirth when she was a little girl, and she blamed them her whole life. If she hadn’t been too weak to fight me, she would have fought me about going to the hospital.”
Mina shakes her head. “That’s crazy.”
“That was Bridgette.”
Breakfast waits when we walk into the bungalow. No idea who was watching us to ensure it’d be hot when we walked in. But it is. So, I take first taste of everything to be sure. “Not from him. From the resort.”
We sit and eat, and there’s a comfortable silence. I don’t get many of those in my life, and the underlying tension of waiting for Vitaly to rear his head is always there, but as things go, the moment is…for lack of a better word, cozy.
I have never been this comfortable with another person in my entire life. Not even Olga. With her, I was always worried about being good enough to deserve her. I didn’t want to be my father—he was a cruel man who enjoyed making others suffer. That’s never been my way, so I thought I might have been worthy of someone as kind and sweet as Olga Valivova.
Funny. Mina is nothing like her, yet she has me wrapped around her finger all the same.
She is kind, but there’s a world wariness beneath it that says her kindness comes with boundaries. She has a good heart, but she’s also seen things and been places Olga would have neverexperienced. It’s not fair to compare the two of them, but it’s impossible not to.
Olga would have been the perfect wife, had I not become pakhan.
Mina may be the perfect wife for a pakhan.
Between bites of mango, she says, “I’m not fragile, you know. The sharks wouldn’t have hurt me.”
“I daresay they should fear you, not the other way around.”
She quirks a glance my way. “Oh?”
“You’re right—they wouldn’t have hurt you. I should have known that all along, but seeing you in the water face down like that with them circling you, I panicked. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“You promise?”
I nod. “I know you can handle yourself. I’ll still protect you when things get hairy, but under normal circumstances, I know you’ll be okay.”
She kisses my cheek and continues with breakfast.
“But next time you decide to go swimming in the morning, wake me. I’d like to join you.”
“I’d like that too.”
The foundation of our marriage might be fraught with complications, but this is simple. I trust her. I’m not sure I’ve ever trusted a partner more. Olga was too fragile, and our love was young and foolish. Bridgette was too volatile, and we never had love. All we ever had together was Vitaly, and he was entirelyher creature when he was young. She taught him too much too young, and he never learned to value other people because of it.
To him, other people are toys, waiting for him to play with. Their humanity means nothing to him. There is no line he won’t cross to get what he wants.
And there is no line I won’t cross to protect Mina and our sons.
19
MINA
