Page 20 of Marrying the Silver Fox

His gaze skims up and down over my body, and he narrows his eyes, as if he’s searching for any detail that is out of place. “Good,” he replies. “You can wear that tonight.”

“To what, exactly?”

“My father is holding an event. A gathering of some work colleagues. He’d like you to attend.”

I raise my eyebrows. “What kind of work colleagues?”

He eyes me for a long moment, as though trying to parse how much he can say to me without admitting more than he’s willing to. “Does it matter what kind of work he does?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Yes, of course it does,” I reply sharply. “I need to know what kind of people I’m dealing with if I’m not going to make an ass of myself.”

Silence falls between us. My heart picks up the pace in my chest. It feels like we’re circling the matter at hand here, the truth of what all of this leads to. I don’t know what’s waiting on the other side of this conversation for me, but I know I need to find out.

“Nikolai,” I murmur, taking a step toward him, changing my approach, trying to come off as a little less forward. “I’m your wife. I need to know what I have married into. Please…” I reach out to touch his hand, and that, at least, seems to be all it takes to get him to let down his guard.

“My father is Bratva,” he tells me finally.

I frown. I’ve heard mention of the Bratva before, of course, but I don’t know exactly what it means. “Bratva?”

“He’s involved in…an organization that runs through the underground of this country,” he explains. “A large group who deal in things that the government doesn’t see fit to allow them to.”

“Like…like illegal stuff?”

He nods. “The same business I run for him in America,” he goes on.

I swallow hard, a heat creeping up the back of my neck as I try to make sense of it. Okay, so he’s involved in something criminal. I have probably handled a few people like that over the years that I’ve been working as a wedding planner—God knows the wealthy men who came into millions by the time they were in their twenties were not doing things entirely aboveboard. But it’s one thing to leave it unspoken, quite another to hear it out loud from the man I have married.

I straighten up. I’ve dealt with some crazy shit before in my life—dealt with people who are not good by any measure of the term. And I can handle this, I know I can. I have to. I’m in the midst of it now, out here in Russia where nobody knows me, and the only person I have to rely on is Nikolai. I need to keep him on my side, no matter what.

“So these men I’ll be meeting tonight,” I tell him. “What should I expect?”

He looks a little surprised at how well I’m taking this, but he doesn’t hesitate to fill me in on the details. “My father wants to see how you deal with them,” he explains. “If you can be discreet, but not alienate them from our family. It’s a hard line to walk, but he wants to know that you can handle what will come with being the wife of a man like me.”

I nod again. I have to focus on the task at hand here. If I start thinking about the broader implications—what this could tie me to, how it could damage my reputation—I will freak out. The good thing about being in Russia, I suppose, is that nobody from my normal life back in New York will ever hear about anything that happened here. It might not be ideal, but it’s something, and I can become who I need to be in order to get through this in one piece.

“You’ve met the wives of these men before?” I ask.

“I have.”

“And how do they act? The ones who serve their purpose?” I lace the words with a little more of an edge than I intend to. I have never been the traditional type, despite what I do for a job. I’ve never been the woman who believes that girls are all just waiting to put on that white dress and walk down the aisle and become someone’s wife. But I know things are different here.

And I need to be different, if I’m going to be able to make it through.

Nikolai pauses for a second, considering his response. He seems surprised that I’m embracing this so completely, but then, I hardly have a choice in the matter. What am I going to do, insist that he charters that private jet back to the States and leave him to explain to his family why his new wife has taken off out of nowhere? Yeah, I know that’s not going to happen. Roll with the punches—if life has taught me one thing, it’s the importance of doing just that.

“They’re charming without being too open,” he replies. “And they find a way to make people feel comfortable without giving too much away.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that part,” I reply, forcing a slight laugh, trying to break the tension in the air. “I know nothing about your business anyway.”

He chuckles. “I suppose that should be useful.”

I perch on the edge of the bed. If I just approach this like I would any other big social event that I might be a part of—a rehearsal dinner, a society wedding, something like that—I will be able to get through it, I’m sure of that. I have adapted to so many worlds over the course of my life, and this is just one more. I have no idea what it will mean for me to associate myself with this business, but if I have to find out, so be it.

“When does it start?”

“Around eight tonight. Though I’ll be taking dinner with my father before that, if you’d like to join us.”

I hesitate for a moment before I speak again, not sure if I should delve in the direction that I want to right now. But my curiosity has been nagging at me since the moment we arrived here, and I want to know just what kind of family I’m dealing with here.