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Tonight.
As soon as we’re alone.
After we fill up on food, Sara and I cut the cake—a gorgeous seven-tier creation with sour cream frosting—and then everyone goes back to dancing and picture-taking. The brief introductions Sara performed before the ceremony were clearly not enough for everyone, and I soon find myself surrounded and fielding prying questions from guests whose bravery appears equal to their alcohol consumption.
“How did you two meet again?” Marsha demands, all but swaying on her feet as she downs yet another glass of champagne. “Sara said you’ve been dating on and off for a while…?”
“Yes, exactly,” Joe Levinson chimes in, his jaw set in a pugnacious line. “When and how did you meet? None of us knew Sara was in a relationship.”
I remind myself that the knife strapped to my ankle isn’t for slicing this man’s throat. “We met in a club in Chicago some months ago,” I answer calmly and surreptitiously signal Anton. “Since I traveled a lot for work, we decided to keep our relationship low-key until we were certain it was going somewhere.”
“And you’re from Russia?” Andy, the red-headed nurse, studies me with a confused frown. “As in, the same place as—”
“There you are!” Anton slaps me on the back. “I was looking everywhere for you. The guys need you for a moment.”
“Excuse me,” I tell the guests politely and follow Anton to the spot by the lake where my teammates camped out with an expensive bottle of vodka.
“Thanks for the rescue,” I say when we get out of the earshot of Sara’s friends. “I’m not in the mood to deal with their questions today.”
“You’ll need to eventually,” Anton says, and I shrug, though I know he’s right.
In order to integrate with these people, I’ll have to give them some kind of answers.
“So how does it feel to be a married man again?” Ilya asks, pouring me a shot of vodka.
I knock it back instead of replying, feeling the familiar burn down my throat. I don’t drink much—never have—but it’s tempting today. I want to forget how it felt when I heard Sara’s hesitant voice on the phone, telling me that she needed more time.
“Pour me another one,” I say, holding out the empty shot glass, and Ilya obliges.
I down it again, then hand the glass back to Ilya.
“More?” he asks dryly, and I shake my head.
“I’m good, thanks.”
This will have to do as far as taking the edge off. My self-control is already on thin ice, and I’m not about to risk hurting Sara when I finally get her alone.
I’m not that much of a monster.
“So this is it, huh?” Anton gestures toward the people mingling by the gazebo. “This is what you want?”
“She is what I want.” I sit down on the grass, watching Sara go from group to group, laughing and chatting, doing a great imitation of a happy bride. “She just comes with all this attached.”
“Maybe,” Yan says, reaching for the bottle. Unscrewing the top, he takes a swig straight from the opening. “Or maybe not.”
I give him a sharp look. “An expert on my wife, are you?”
He shrugs and takes another swig. “She may yet surprise you. You think she’s all that different from us? All sweetness and goodness and light? You think any of those people”—he gestures toward the guests with the bottle—“are all sweetness and light?”
I turn my gaze back to Sara instead of answering, and he sighs. “It surprises me that you, of all people, don’t see it. She wants you, right? Loves you, even though she knows all about the kind of man you are?”
I don’t answer that either, and he continues. “Why do you think she’s drawn to you? Because she sees something good in you? Or because she secretly craves the bad?”
Anton snorts. “Oh, please. Not that shit again. Every single time you have vodka—”
“My bet is on the latter,” Yan says as though Anton hadn’t spoken. “She’s more like you than you imagine, and all that shit”—he waves the bottle at the gazebo again—“is what she’s been trained to think will make her happy, not what she wants for real.”
I get up, brushing a few specks of grass off my pants. “There’s more vodka on our table,” I tell Ilya, who’s enviously watching his brother drain the bottle. “You better go get it if you want it. We’re going to be wrapping this up soon.”
As fun as it is to listen to Yan’s drunken ramblings, I’d much rather take my new wife home to bed.
68
Sara
I feel like Peter and I are in a play, each of us acting out our roles. He’s the gracious groom, reserved but exceedingly polite, and I’m the beaming bride, bubbly and excited. Or at least I’m that after three glasses of champagne; they really help with the bubbly-and-excited bit, which in turn helps with avoiding my friends’ overly probing questions.
