48
CORA
You’d think living in an adjoining room with the guy would have us tripping over each other several times per day, but no. Since the night of our not-a-date, he’s been a ghost.
I wake up early in the morning and he’s already gone.
I wait up at night and he stays out even later.
For all I know, he might be a bat sleeping upside down in a tree somewhere. Because he certainly isn’t getting enough sleep in the bedroom next door to mine.
The thought of where exactly Ivan might be sleeping—who he might be sleeping with—has me burying my nose even deeper in the historical romance novel I found tucked away in the lowest, dustiest shelf of the library.
Angst and confusion aside, all this free time to kick back and relax has been nice. It’s been so long since I’ve had time to read a book or contemplate my relationship with a man. Even having a relationship with a man to contemplate, fraudulent and temporary as it may be, was a luxury before all of this.
Now, I’m lousy with time to ruminate on all things Ivan Pushkin.
I try to focus on the text in front of me. On Jessamine trying and failing to climb atop her horse, so the scandalous rake Duke Andrew has to help her. He grabs her waist and she tenses all over. A man in Victorian England has never touched her like this. She’s aflame.
“Relatable,” I groan, slamming the book shut.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s hard to escape thoughts of Ivan when I’m living in his house. Especially when we can’t talk about what happened the other night.
He found me in the shower and proceeded to raise my standards for all future sexual encounters so impossibly high that I might as well not even bother dating anyone else.
I’ve been ruined on all men who are not Ivan Pushkin.
Yet I have no clue if that was a one-off born out of our undeniable chemistry or if he’d like to repeat it again. Right now. And then an hour from now. And many times more in the future, maybe until we both die from overstimulation.
“Oh, God.” I sink down into the velvet lounge chair and cover my burning face. “What is happening to me?”
The only reason I’m here is because someone wants to kill me, but I’m spending ninety-five percent of my energy wondering if Ivan thinks I’m cute.
It’s pathetic.
I’m lying on the chaise, the book flat on my chest and my gaze stuck on the ceiling, when my phone rings.
I jolt out of the chair and fumble for my phone in my back pocket like my life depends on it. But when I see the number, my disappointment is visceral.
I drop back down into the chair and answer. “You shouldn’t be calling.”
“You called me first,” my mother says. “I can only hope it’s because you’re ready to come home.”
I bite back a humorless laugh. “I called because I thought you could talk to me. I thought things could be…” Like they used to be. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
When I called the other night, my mom was stunned. Now, she’s had time to prep for this call. She’s playing her part perfectly. “You know how I’m doing, Cordelia. I do miss you.”
I shiver at my old name. It’s like passing through a ghost. The air around me seems to drop twenty degrees.
“I miss you, too.”
Truth is, I’ve been missing her for years. Way before I left. I’ve missed my mom since the day she got married to my stepfather.
“Then come home,” she pleads. “Call off this engagement or whatever it is with Ivan Pushkin and come home.”
I freeze, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Where did you hear about that?”
“It was on the front page of the society section.”
“You read the newspaper?”
“No, but your grandmother does. She sent me the article.”
Ivan’s entire plan hinges on us going public with our engagement. But I was too busy running from gunfire to really think about what that would mean. About precisely who would see it.
“Does he know?”
I don’t need to specify who. She knows who I mean.
“Not yet.” She sighs. “But I have to—”
“Don’t tell him!” I hate the shakiness in my voice. How quickly the memories come flooding back. Feeling trapped and alone, terrified of what my future looked like. Whether I’d have a future at all.
“Cordelia, I can’t keep this—”
“Don’t tell him,” I repeat. “Mom…please. I’m not ready to come back.”
I’ll never be ready, but maybe, if she thinks there’s a chance, if she thinks there is a possibility I’ll come back… Maybe she’ll keep this secret.
I just need a bit more time to figure out what I’m going to do once my stepfather knows where I am.
Because the moment he finds me, he’ll try to haul me back to his house and marry me off again. If things with Ivan end and I don’t have a job lined up, I might not have another choice.
The silence on the other end of the line is deafening.
“Mom…”
“Okay,” she says softly. “I won’t say anything. But I can’t control if he finds out.”
A tiny ray of relief bursts through the gloom hanging over me. “Thank you. I just need—”
“You’ll be home one way or another,” she interrupts. “The sooner you do it, the better off we’ll all be.”
She hangs up before I can say anything. Not that there is anything to say.
I should have known he’d never actually let me go.
I’m so deeply entrenched in my pity party that I don’t hear anyone come into the library. Which is why I shriek the moment Anya starts talking.
“Ivan loved the article.”
I almost flop off the chaise in my panic, but I manage to catch myself on the arm of the chair. “When did you get here?”
“Just now.” She raises her brows. “Are you okay?”
I sit up, hand pressed to my racing heart. “You scared the bejeezus out of me.”
“It’s probably because you’re sitting in this dank old room in the dark. Open some windows. Let the sunshine in.”
Anya walks around me and does just that, throwing back the thick curtains. Sunlight comes streaming in and I feel the urge to hiss like a scalded vampire.
She strokes the windowsill to inspect for dust. “Niles really is remarkably good at his job,” she comments. “No one comes in here and yet it’s still spotless.”
“The Pushkins aren’t big readers?”
She shrugs. “So many enemies to kill, so little time to read.”
“Is that common? The… the killing of—”
“I was joking.” She says it a bit too quickly and waves a hand as if to dismiss the conversation. “What are you doing here, anyway? Niles said you haven’t been downstairs all day.”
“I’ve been relaxing.”
I didn’t realize Niles was paying such close attention to my movements. If he’s telling Anya what I’m up to, it’s probably safe to assume he’s telling Ivan, as well. I don’t know why it bothers me, but I’d rather him not know that I’m just hiding away in the library with a book while he’s out there, doing whatever it is he’s doing.
Anya snorts. “You don’t look relaxed. You almost shot through the roof when I walked in.”
“I’m used to living alone. It’s still new to have other people around.”
My apartment is probably already gathering dust. It’s only been a few days, but it feels longer. Like I’ve gone down the Wonderland rabbit hole and time is passing out of order.
She shifts towards the shelves, running her finger along a row of leatherbound books. “That makes sense. Ivan is still getting used to me popping in unannounced and it’s been years. He says he hates it, but I know he secretly loves the company.”
“He definitely does. It’s obvious the two of you are close.”
She smiles to herself. “Do you have any siblings?”
“No. It’s just me.”
“Are you close with your parents, then?”
I chew on the corner of my lip. “Nuh-uh. My dad left when I was little and my mom got remarried. We aren’t close anymore.”
She winces. “I relate to problematic parents, believe me. But I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. That’s life.”
“Yeah…” She sighs and then seems to come alive again, sitting up tall. “Speaking of parents, would you want your parentals invited to your wedding?”
“Invited to my—My future wedding, you mean? Or are you talking about… Ivan and I aren’t really getting married.”
Or are we? How far is he planning to take this charade? The image of me in a white dress standing in front of Ivan in a tuxedo… I mean, I can barely handle living next door to him. I cannot vow before God. I’ll be smote by divine lightning for my dirty thoughts alone.
Anya shakes her head. “I know, I know. This is all about appearances. If things take a little longer than expected, I’d love to have a guest list ready for Save the Dates. Just to keep up the charade.”
My heart rate eases back to something resembling normal. “I guess that makes sense.”
“So, on the parent front, is that a yes or—”
“No!” I say sharply. “No. Especially if it isn’t real. I’d rather keep them out of this. There’s enough going on without digging up the past.”
Anya leans in close. “You said if.”
“What?”
“If,” she repeats. “‘If it isn’t real.’ Do you think it could be real?”
“What? No. No, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t say it like—I just meant that since this isn’t real, I won’t say anything. One day, when it could be real, with someone else, then maybe—”
“After reading that interview you rewrote, I thought I heard wedding bells.” Anya shrugs, a smug smile pinching her lips tight. “You never know how things might turn out.”
The interview. I almost forgot about that.
“Has Ivan read it?” I ask. “What did he think?”
Anya grins and reaches behind her. I didn’t notice the black box before. Probably because I was too busy screaming bloody murder.
“Niles said this arrived for you a few minutes ago.” Anya shoves the box into my hands and hovers over me. “Go on. Open it.”
Slowly, I peel open the lid. There’s a white piece of cardstock sitting inside. A single word typed in the center: Thanks. When I pick it up, I see what it’s covering.
“Oh wow, that’s—” Anya tips her head to the side, assessing. “That is kind of plain, but still a nice gesture. Ivan has clearly never bought a woman jewelry before.”
I pick up the plain gold band, running my thumb over the polished edge.
No frills. No gaudy gems or diamonds. No over-the-top detailing.
Just a simple gold band. Like the engagement ring I wanted.
The same one I wanted when Mikhail and I were in Kieran’s shop, a lifetime ago. I hoped Kieran wouldn’t recognize me. He sees so many customers that there was no way he’d remember me, right?
Wrong, as it turned out.
“It’s perfect,” I murmur under my breath.
“Really?” Anya inspects it a bit closer and then shrugs. “Then Ivan knows what he’s doing. That’s another good sign.”
I close the lid and tuck the box carefully in my lap. “A good sign for what?”
Anya’s brows shoot up innocently. “What? Oh, nothing. I’m just talking. I do that a lot. You’ll get used to it.”
Ivan was right: when it comes to loving Anya, she really doesn’t give you a choice.
“Anyway,” she chirps, “I’m thinking we need to get you out of the house and do some wedding planning. You need to see and be seen if we want this plan to work.”
I’m beginning to wonder whose plan she’s executing: Ivan’s or her own secret agenda.
“Every time I’ve gone out in public, I’ve been threatened.”
Or absolutely ravished by her brother.
Either way, it’s a bad idea.
“Which is why I’ve booked private appointments, duh! Your dress fitting and cake tasting are going to be exclusive. No one will be allowed in or out without some extensive vetting and there will be security everywhere. No one will touch you.”
“Maybe someone could just come to the house and I could look at dresses here. Then we wouldn’t need all of the guards and security measures.”
She swats away my idea. “There is no way in hell that my brother’s wife is trying on wedding dresses in her walk-in closet. Not gonna happen.”
“Have you seen the closet, though? It’s amazing.”
“It’s still a closet. This has to be extravagant. It’s like royalty getting married,” Anya says. “That’s what you and Ivan represent to people. It’s a way of life that has to be maintained and flaunted.”
I squeeze the box in my lap until my knuckles turn white. “I don’t want to be royalty.”
“We aren’t really royal,” she laughs. “But our family has a lot of responsibilities. Ivan has a lot of responsibilities. We need to exude strength and normalcy right now until this threat is under control.”
I hear the words Anya is saying, but I can’t make sense of them. She’s talking like we’re spies in the midst of some foreign war. Like this is an espionage movie instead of my real life.
I blink at her, mouth hanging open for a moment. “Who are you people?”
Anya’s smile falters. “We’re ungodly rich; that’s who we are. This all comes with the territory.”
Assassins. Executions. Armed guards.
I know rich people. I’ve been rich, no matter how briefly. None of this comes with the territory.
This is mafia stuff.
Maybe that’s what Ivan’s dad was talking about when he mentioned a Bratva. I mean, it fits. Who else aside from career criminals can murder people with no remorse the way I watched Ivan kill that sniper?
It obviously wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone. And given the blood I saw wash down the shower drain two nights ago, it probably wasn’t his last.
Anya jumps up and backs towards the door. “Well, I better go. I have some things to get in order before our cake tasting tonight. Come hungry, okay?”
I nod and wave, a plan of my own taking form.
If no one is going to tell me what is really going on here, I’ll just have to figure it out for myself. And tonight, at a secure location away from the WiFi I’m sure Ivan is having monitored, I’ll be able to do just that.
Answers are long overdue.