My house just so happened to be the one we grew up in. When our parents died they left each of us a different avenue of their fortune. I got the house. I didn’t have particularly fond memories of the place but there was no way I could ever get rid of it.
It had been passed down through the family for years. It was basically an heirloom.
Except, you couldn’t stuff this one in a closet and forget about it for years to come.
So, after a lot of thought and renovations, I swallowed my tongue and moved in. I had always felt a small amount of guilt that I got it over my brothers. Zedd and Drex hadn’t ever given it a second thought. I think they had similar feelings about the house.
But Finch? There’d been animosity there.
Maybe he felt he deserved it because he was the official head of the family. But, despite how much I didn’t want it. A childish side of me didn’t want Finch to have it more.
I gave him my position.
I wouldn’t give him my inheritance as well.
Besides, with the renovations, I began to come around. It would prove itself useful as a family home. I had a feeling Anastasia would make that long-wished-for dream disappear into thin air if she ever found out about it.
But I still held out hope.
“I just don’t think forcing my family on her right now would be such a good idea. I mean, I don’t want to scare her even more.”
When I’d run to Finch for help five years ago, he’d laughed at my notion of love at first sight. He hadn’t thought I was serious. I remembered the night as if it were seared into my brain, it was the night I visited her father - her sixteenth birthday. Finch said to give it time, that it was just a crush and that it would go away over time.
It had started to really sink in a few days later, when I couldn’t stop thinking about her I knew I had to have her.
I would describe myself as a very focused person, goal orientated. Other people had different names for it, I’d heard them all my life but my brother would insist I wasn’t to listen.
It’s just how I was, for as long as I could remember. But, in all my days, I’d never had a woman capture my eye like her before. Anastasia had stolen something from deep inside my soul that first night, I’d spent years trying to figure out what - and years working on a plan of how to get it back.
“Or it could have the opposite effect? If anyone could put her at ease it would be Zedd. Just think about it, a relaxed fun night to show her that she’s not in this alone. Anyway, I know you haven’t come around just to brag about bagging your missus. You know I can always tell when something’s up. So, tell me, why are you really here, Nikolai?” He suddenly got real with me. His stare gaining a pensive quality, his hands folding across his lap. “The last time you dropped by my office unannounced was after you first found Anastasia. Now, forgive me if I’m wrong but, you now have Anastasia. So what is it you want?”
He had a point. I didn’t even know why I was there. I supposed I just didn’t want to be at home when Anastasia woke up, I didn’t want to be sitting and waiting for that bomb to explode.
“She’s asleep.” I looked away.
“Okay…”
“I’m afraid of what she’ll do when she wakes up.” I blinked as my brother erupted with laughter at my level of patheticness. I sighed through my nose, jaw tight. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I would’ve laughed too if I weren’t deadly serious.
He had no idea. The spirit of Anastasia was unmatched by any mythical beast. Her inner fire unrivaled by any common street thug.
The last thing I wanted to do was go about this the wrong way.
I sat patiently waiting for him to settle before continuing with a flat tone. “What would you do?”
“You don’t wanna know. How about I follow you back? I’m basically finished for the day, I’m sure I won’t be missed around here.”
“I don’t need you to babysit me, Finch,” I snapped but then thought better of it. I shouldn’t have done that - I needed to recognize that he was only trying to help, in his way. I arose from my chair and scrambled quickly for a solution that would appease my younger brother.
“I think maybe you’re right though, on second thought. How about we all have dinner together? Tomorrow night, at the main house. A kind of...family night?”
At Finch’s nod, I took my leave.
I didn’t know why I thought I’d be better off with all three of my brothers instead of just Finch. Maybe it was that he wasn’t great with first impressions, or maybe it was that he didn’t have the best manners around women. I hadn’t even spoken more than a few sentences to the girl and already, I didn’t want her to be spoken to like a common whore at the strip club.
The women that ran in our social circle were toys, to be used and thrown away. As interchangeable as they came. But that’s what I was led to believe all women were like - my brothers were very promiscuous, and why wouldn’t they be. They were young, single and free of all responsibility - except Finch.
But Anastasia was special, I knew she was; like you know when you’ve been struck by lightning. So young and pure when I first laid eyes on her. But her innocence wasn’t a facade, it was the truest thing I’d ever known.
