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Lingerie. More lingerie than I’ve ever owned in my entire life, let alone bought in the same day.
Necessities, schmecessities.
She steps back from the bed and looks at me like she’s waiting for a lecture. Or maybe for me to shield my eyes and do the sign of the cross.
I grab a pink bra with flowers on the strap. “This is cute.”
Mariya stares at me for another second before she finally turns away, picking through the rest of her bags. “You can sit down. If you want. I don’t care.”
Growing up with just a brother, I was never good at talking to girls. But even I know that Mariya might as well have rolled out a red carpet and hired a marching band for me.
She is inviting me to hang out. In her room!
I play it cool and sit on the edge of the bed. “Okay, sure. Why not?”
The answer to that, of course, is that I am now an accomplice in Yakov’s baby sister stocking her closet with a parade of the skimpiest outfits I have ever seen. There is no way he’ll ever let her leave the house in any of these outfits. Definitely not the black minidress with the side panel cutouts and plunging back.
But I smile and nod and tell her how great she looks.
It’s not a lie. Mariya is gorgeous. It’s no wonder, given the unreal gene pool she comes from. Yakov is singlehandedly the most attractive human I’ve ever seen, but his siblings are a close second and third. Being in this house is enough to give a woman a complex.
“Ew. No.” Mariya holds a skimpy blue bikini in the air like it’s a rotten banana peel. “This is so not my color.”
“Why did you buy it?”
She shrugs. “I was in a shopping haze. Everything looks great in the store. Then you get it home and have regrets. This is a regret.”
“I think it’s cute.” If giving everyone you pass a glimpse of your goodies can be called “cute.”
Mariya holds the bikini up to me, eyes narrowed. Then she tosses it to me. “You can have it. This color will look great on you.”
I snort. “This looks more like tangled-up string than clothes. I can’t wear this.”
“Why not? Are you embarrassed of your body?” She looks me up and down and I prepare myself for whatever horrifying thing she’s going to say to me. Then she says, “Because you shouldn’t be.”
I will not base my self-worth on a seventeen-year-old’s compliment. I will not base my self-worth on a seventeen-year-old’s compliment. I will not?—
“Thanks, but I?—”
“Put it on and we can go sit by the pool.” Mariya digs through a bag and pulls out a low-cut fuchsia one-piece. “I need to tan up.”
On one hand, this is my chance to spend time with Mariya. She wants to hang out with me. I could talk to her, maybe help open up a door between Yakov and his sister.
On the other hand, I wear more clothes at the gynecologist than this bikini will cover. I’ll be one sneeze away from my annual pap smear.
Mariya tosses her clothes into the corner and slips into her swimsuit while I’m still staring down at the bundle of fabric in my hand. She plucks a pair of sunglasses from the dresser and walks to the door. “I’ll meet you out there?”
I’m not sure if I’m still falling for peer pressure or I’m really this committed to helping Yakov with his sister, but I find myself nodding. “Sure. I’ll be out in a second.”
“I love it here.” Mariya is stretched out on the wooden lounge chair next to mine, her pale skin already turning pink in the sun. “I thought today was going to be shit, but it has been really good.”
Given the way we started this morning, I thought the same thing. But she’s right—the day is turning out alright.
“So shopping was fun after all, then?”
“No. Well, yeah,” she admits, rolling her eyes. “But I just like it here. The sun and the pool. Plus, I’m not on a plane back to Russia, so that’s a bonus. I was waiting for Yakov to surprise attack me in my sleep and deport me.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” It’s hilarious coming from a woman Yakov has kidnapped not once, but twice.
