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I swallow and nod. “Of course.”
“We’ll be out in a minute,” he tells his mother. “Maybe serve some wine.”
“Of course. I know. Don’t worry,” she says with a wink. “I’ve got this.”
“Mama,” Ivy coos. She waves to me from the table and points to the coloring book.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell her.
She’s trusting me. Hopeful. She doesn’t know that there are people in the other room that hate me and won’t want anything to do with her. All she knows is that I’m Mama.
Maybe that’s all that matters.
I remember how it felt to stand out there with the gun in my hand, knowing with certainty that I’d hit every damn target I aimed at.
I can do this.
They don’t have a hold on me anymore. The only two people that do are right here in this room with me, and their holds on me are the type I’m not sure I want to ever let go.
“Let’s go,” Aleks says. I walk over to the kitchen table and, after admiring Ivy’s picture, help her out of her chair and take her hand.
“I wish I had time to freshen up.”
His gaze gentles when he looks down at me holding Ivy’s hand. “Come here,” he whispers, leaning over to run his fingers through my hair. “There. Your hair looks gorgeous, all wavy and sexy.” He bends down and kisses my cheek. “And you don’t need makeup. I love that natural flush on your cheeks.” His mouth comes to my ear. “You know who you belong to, Harper Romanov, don’t you? You’re my wife. You belong to no one else.”
I nod. Take a deep breath. Square my shoulders.
The three of us walk into the dining room hand in hand.
My brother hasn’t come, only my parents. My father looks from me to Aleks with a scowl that would’ve made old me cower. I smile at him instead, a vivid reminder that he can’t hold me back anymore.
My mother stares, her mouth slightly parted as she looks from me to Ivy then back again.
“And who is this?” my father asks, his gaze wary as if he suspects.
“So nice to see you again,” Aleks says, extending his hand to my father. He acts as if my father didn’t ask a question at all.
It feels like Aleks’s whole family is here, even though a quick count tells me we’re missing at least two of the Romanovs. It’s a large family, though, so much bigger than what I grew up with.
Polina sits beside her mother. Ekaterina smiles at everyone, though her mouth is tense. Nikko takes a seat across from a hulking, heavily tattooed man with a rugged charm and black leather jacket: Viktor. Beside him sits a man with graying hair and wise eyes, and next to him, a young man with visible bruising on his chin and his arm in a cast – Lev.
“Ollie couldn’t join us, as he’s traveling,” Ekaterina explains. “And my eldest son Mikhail expresses his regrets, but he and his wife just had a baby. He won’t be joining us either. Wine? This is a wedding gift from our friends the Rossis,” she says, and I wonder, is it my imagination or is she testing the waters? My familyhatesthe Rossis.
“Friends with the Rossis,” my father mutters. “No one mentioned that.”
Aleksandr pours my father a glass of wine. “No one asked. Our conversation was brief. Do you not get along?”
“Get along?” my father snaps. I know what he’s like when that vein throbs in his temple. “They’ve overtaken all of Tuscany with their wine. And none of them would take me up on my offer of Harper.”
I stare. I can’t believe he just said that out loud, that he tried to pawn me off on the Rossis and they declined.
A muscle ticks in Aleks’s jaw. Ekaterina stares and Polina’s cheeks flush pink. Recovering, I lift my own wineglass and give Aleks a grin. “Fill ‘er up, husband,” I say loud enough for my parents to hear.Husband. That’s right. HUSBAND.“The truth is, the only reason the Rossis declined was because I was twelve years old at the time, wasn’t I? And they’ve all been married since. Even in Italy, they don’t marrychildren, do they?”
Ekaterina’s expression grows even more incredulous, if that’s possible. “Younger than in America sometimes, but no, they don’t.”
“You wouldn’t have gottenmarriedthat young,” my mother says, her cheeks flushing. “We were only trying to make an arrangement.”
“I’m glad that fell through,” Aleks says. “My win. I’ll have to remind the Rossis about that the next time I visit Boston. Have you met Ivy?”
