“You look—” He pauses as I stop feet from his chair, and I wonder what kind of word he’s looking for.
For a moment, I have a flash of anxiety—what if he hates the way I look? I’m wearing the one sundress I brought, an oversized sweater over it to ward off the surprising summer chill. It definitely shows off my curves, and I wonder if it’s too much.
Samson’s words ring in my head, and I’m already coming up with an excuse to change when a flick of a smile flashes on Matvei’s lips.
“Beautiful,” he finally finishes.
“Oh. Thank you.” My cheeks warm again as I wonder why Samson has gotten into my head. I haven’t always been so self-conscious.
I watch as Matvei folds the newspaper and places it on the low table beside him before standing to his full height. I thought Samson was tall, at least six feet, but his half-brother towers over him, which I like. Actually, I like a lot of things about Matvei more than I liked about Samson.
“Come on,” Matvei says, putting his hand lightly on the small of my back to guide me out. “Let me buy you breakfast,” he glances down at his watch, “or maybe lunch.”
“You were probably up at five a.m.,” I mutter, hyper-aware that people are staring at us. Do they know a notorious Chicago Russian mob boss is escorting me out? A Russian mob boss I had sex with twice in the last twenty-four hours?
“I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in until eight.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Oh, well then. Eight. You practically wasted the whole day.”
Matvei’s deep chuckle sends a vibration under my skin that rumbles through me like an aftershock of what happened upstairs. At this rate, I can expect several more earthquakes here in Prague.
As we step outside, a black sedan with dark tinted windows pulls to the curb as if waiting for us. The driver, wearing a black suit and sunglasses, completely silent as he opens the door for us, looks like he guards a head of state. Maybe he does.
“So,” I ask, uncomfortable with the silence as we settle in the car’s plush interior, “did you go sightseeing this morning?”
Yet another one of Matvei’s enigmatic smiles is the initial answer to my teasing question. “I had several meetings this morning,” he answers curtly.
I nearly make the mistake of asking what the meetings were about but quickly shut that down. I’m relatively certain I don’t want to know. In fact, I’m one-hundred-percent sure I don’t want to know.
We end up at the Four Seasons—elegant, refined—and exactly where I would imagine Matvei would stay. We eat outside on the terrace, our view of the Vltava River and Prague Castle, which probably rivals any tourist attraction.
I didn’t realize how ravenous I was, and my first taste of Czech food is incredibly impressive.
Halfway through the meal, Matvei leans across the table, his eyes boring holes into mine, and asks, “Ready to hear my proposal?”
I nearly choke on a potato and follow it with a long sip of coffee. I then put my knife and fork down with great care before looking up at this incredible man who makes my heart—and other things—flutter every time I’m near him.
“Okay. I’m listening. But no guarantees I’m going to say yes.”
Matvei dips his head. “As I said, you have every right to say no, and I will not bother you again if you do. You have my word.”
Oddly enough, I trust this man’s word. From what little I understand, one’s word is the only certainty in his world where you can’t trust anything else.
“I want you to be my date to Samson’s wedding.”
I’m glad I put down my knife and fork earlier because I would’ve dropped them, alerting the entire terrace to my shock. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
“I want you to be my date for my worthless half-brother’s wedding.”
I gape at him before finally finding words. “You do remember he’s my ex-fiance, right? That he dumped me for this woman? Besides, they just got engaged. How have they sent out wedding invitations already? That has to be at least a year away.”
Matvei’s frown looks more like pity than disappointment, pity for me as he pulls up an article from theSun-Timesand hands me his phone.On the screen is an engagement announcement for Samson’s wedding to one Genevieve Mancini. The two of them are standing in a picture-perfect pose at the Art Institute’s South Garden, looking entirely gorgeous. I feel like they’re smirking directly at me, gloating about the enormous ring on her finger.
“Oh.”
I can only stare at the article, the words blurring in and out of focus as I read all about the happy couple’s engagement and wedding, which is only two months away because “they’re too in love to wait!” They may be too in love to wait, but the timeline makes no sense unless Samson and this Genevieve Mancini were already planning before the jerk broke up with me. I doubt they’re sending out evites, which means they must have ordered the invitations several months ago, when Samson and I were still together. When I was planningmywedding.
“What better way to get back at the man who unceremoniously dumped you than showing up on the arm of the brother he hates so much?” Matvei asks quietly.
