47
IVAN
“It’s good, right?” Anya is bouncing from foot to foot in front of my desk, eyebrows wagging in impatience. “Isn’t it good?”
I scowl up at her. “Shut up and let me read. Then I can tell you what I think.”
But she’s right. The interview Cora and I did two days ago is good. Great, actually.
Which begs the question: How the fuck did that disaster of an interview turn into this?
“You two sound so in love!” Anya snatches the paper away, her eyes seconds away from turning into cartoonish hearts. She points to a paragraph. “This part. I love this part. Listen. ‘Ivan and Cora admit their relationship is a bit of a whirlwind, but it doesn’t feel that way from the inside. ‘My whole life has been a series of experiences and disappointments that have made me ready for someone like Ivan,’ Cora said. ‘Someone dependable and loyal. I know that he’ll always take care of me.’”
She sure as hell never said that. Not when I was around, anyway.
Anya tosses the newspaper at me and throws herself down into a leather chair, practically vibrating with glee. “Oh my God, I knew sending the two of you out on that date would work.”
“So much for that being ‘strategy.’”
She snorts. “You know me too well to think I was serious about that. I wanted the two of you to get loosened up and then—” She winks suggestively.
“As my sister, you’re supposed to be repelled by that kind of talk.”
“As your sister, I’m supposed to want what is best for you. If you have to get some in order to see that, then that’s fine by me. It’s all part of the process.”
Nothing about what is happening between me and Cora is part of any normal process. We’re doing everything backwards, or sideways, or inside out. Whatever direction we’re going, it isn’t a straight line, and it doesn’t make any fucking sense.
That’s probably why I haven’t talked to her since I dressed her in those sinfully small pajamas and tucked her into bed.
I fold the newspaper and drop it into the top drawer of my desk. I’ll read it later when Anya isn’t breathing down my neck.
“I know what is best for myself.”
Anya stares at me for a few seconds…then she bursts into obnoxious laughter.
I’ve learned that it is best to let her run her course, so I go back to working until she can breathe again.
“The—whooo, that was a good one; I’m tearing up—the fact that you believe that is really cute, brother. I mean, you were going to let that interview run without any intervention. It doesn’t speak well to your judgment.”
I frown. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Did you really think this is what that interviewer wrote about the two of you?”
My stony silence is answer enough.
Anya shakes her head and continues. “The first draft read like a medical report. It was fucking bleak. The writer was afraid of upsetting you, but it was obvious you two gave her nothing to work with.”
“Because there is nothing to work with. We aren’t a real couple,” I spit.
Anya slouches down in her chair and rolls her eyes. “Thank God your fiancée has a good head on her shoulders, at least.”
“What does Cora have to do with this?”
“With the interview?” she asks. “Everything. She wrote it! The reporter said she couldn’t pull it because they didn’t have a backup article and her editor would have killed her, so Cora begged her to let her take a shot at rewriting it a bit.”
Cora did that. On her own. She reached out to the interviewer and took action without me ordering her to. Without any prodding. She just…saw a problem and fixed it. She didn’t even ask me about it.
“She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?” Anya is smirking far too smugly for it to be safe.
I wave her away. “Some of us have work to do. Go be a nuisance to someone else.”
She stands up and tosses her hair dramatically. “Maybe I’ll go hang out with my future sister-in-law.”
“She isn’t real.”
Anya simply blows me a kiss and hurries out of the room.
I try to get back to work, but a few minutes later, I find myself kicked back in my chair with the newspaper in my hands.
The article is good. Really good. Even people who don’t know a damn thing about me or my family would read this and root for us. Cora softened me in all the right ways, making me approachable, desirable. She also made me sound like the luckiest fucker in the world for having a woman like her on my arm.
I could call her up and thank her. It would be the right thing to do after ghosting her for the last two days.
I tap the edges of my phone, considering.
Finally, I pick it up and text Kieran. Have a simple gold bracelet sent to my house for Cora. For the note, just write, ‘Thanks.’
She won’t be able to wear the wedding ring once our sham marriage is over, but she can keep a bracelet if she wants to.
For some stupid reason, I find myself hoping she will.
Yasha walks into my office ten minutes later with a breakfast sandwich in his hand. I scowl up at him. “You’re late.”
“I was hungry. Oh, shit.” He winces. “I can go grab you one.”
“I’m not hungry; I’m impatient.” I point to the chair across from my desk. “Sit. Tell me what you found out.”
He sets the sandwich on the edge of my desk and blows out a breath. “Well, not much, honestly. Your dad had never heard of the St. Clairs because there isn’t much to hear. Cora’s dad is pretty well-off, but he makes his money the boring, legal way. He also dipped out when she was a kid and has a whole new family now. Cora isn’t in any of the pictures I could find of his ‘family’ online.”
That’s reason enough for me to hate the bastard. I don’t need to know any more.
“And her mother?”
“Her mom, Evaline, married Alexander McAllister almost ten years ago.”
I frown, scouring my mind for any mention of that name. “Do I know him?”
“It’s possible. He moves in some of the same circles, but he keeps a low profile. No one really has him nailed down.”
“That’s why I asked you to look into it. To nail him down.”
“And I did!” He lounges back, his hands raised in defense. “I tried, at least. He’s just some generic rich guy as far as I can tell.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense.” I growl in frustration. “Cora was at that party under her friend’s name. But why? If her stepdad moves in the same circles—even a tangential circle—she would have been invited, too.”
Yasha shrugs. “Maybe her invite got lost in the mail.”
“Hm.” There’s more, too. “When we were shopping for her ring, Kieran acted like he’d seen her before.”
He feigns shock. “A rich woman in a fancy jewelry shop. How scandalous.”
“He acted like she’d been there before—with someone else,” I grit out. “I think Cora might have been engaged before this.”
He frowns. “Nothing about a previous engagement came up anywhere.”
“You’re running into a lot of dead ends where Cora is concerned.”
“Maybe because there isn’t much to find.”
I shake my head. “Or because there’s something someone doesn’t want you to find.”
“Like what? Cora seems nice. I can’t imagine her having some dark, sordid history.”
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have one. Look into it more. Interview people, follow leads, dig for dirt. Whatever you need to do.”
Yasha sits up and blows out a breath. “Man, I—I know you like this girl, but—”
“I don’t like her,” I snap. “I’m letting her into my house and I need to know who the fuck she is. This isn’t any more personal than that.”
Yasha arches a skeptical brow for a moment before he clears his face. “Okay. Either way, we have bigger shit going on. Don Pushkin called us in for a meeting tonight. He wants to know who tried to assassinate Cora.”
“I’ll deal with my father,” I tell him. “Look more closely into Cora.”
He takes another bite of his sandwich and flops back in the chair. “If you’re sure.”
Hell no, I’m not sure. Since Cora showed up, I haven’t been sure about a fucking thing.
But I shove that uncertainty down and nod. “I’m positive.”