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She takes a dramatic puff just to spite me. “If it’s bad for my lungs, it’s just as bad for yours.”
“I’ll die in a shootout long before my lungs give out on me. You probably won’t be as lucky.”
She snorts. “Dying violently is your version of ‘lucky?’ Remind me not to take you with me to Vegas.”
Chuckling, we pass the cigar back and forth, letting the smoke and tension swirl and simmer around us. Finally, she sighs. “She’s pretty. I’ll give you that.”
“She’s fucking beautiful,” I correct, snatching the cigar out of her hand.
Nikita scrutinizes me. “Is this for real?”
“Which part?”
“You and Little Miss Sunshine in there,” she says. “I thought you married her because you knocked her up.” She squints and leans in, searching my face for signs of lies and half-truths. “You weren’ttryingto knock her up, were you?”
“Of course not,” I scoff. “Do I look like a fool to you?”
Niki leans back and crosses her arms over her chest, still puzzling over me. “I get the marriage. You've always been a slave to the family rulebook,” she remarks. “But what I can’t quite put my finger on is the weird thing between the two of you.”
I keep my face schooled and steely as the cigar smolders between my fingers. “There is no ‘weird thing.’ There’s no ‘thing’ at all.”
My denial brings a smile to her face. “Have you gone and made the ultimate mistake, brother?”
“Nikita…” I warn.
“Have you caughtfeelingsfor the girl?”
“You know me,” I say—which I’m cringingly aware is the worst non-answer I could possibly give.
“Idoknow you.” She nods triumphantly. “I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t marry a woman you didn’t trust. Even if it was a sham of a marriage. Even if the whole damn thing was a mistake or a cover-up or anoopsie-daisie, I-forgot-about-Plan-Bkind of deal.”
I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.
“But I also wonder if your… infatuation with her may have clouded your judgment.”
That flips a switch in me. I go from in denial to on the offensive. “What are you suggesting?”
“She comes from nothing, Misha,” Nikita hisses, leaning back into me. “She has nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“You think I got played…by her.” The words drip with as much indignation as I can muster.
She shrugs. “I mean, the first time you fuck her, she gets pregnant. Pretty damn convenient, don’t you think?”
“When you roll the dice as many times as I have, you’re bound to score eventually.”
She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Ew. I am not here to talk about your sex life. But even you know how many of the women you’ve slept with were only there because of who you are.”
“And I spotted every single one of those opportunists from a mile away.”
“Opportunists come in all different forms, even if you are careful not to come in all kinds of opportunists,” she says primly.
It’s my turn to wrinkle my nose. “Get to the point, Nikita.”
“Fine. My point is this: just because that one in there is convincing, doesn’t mean she’s sincere.”
“Paige is no con artist.”
If Nikita knew about the second bank account Paige opened, she’d be waving that in front of my face right now. I hate that it’s been lurking in the back of my head ever since I found out—mostly because I know that the old Misha, the pre-Paige Misha, would’ve exiled any other woman to fucking Siberia if I found out she was siphoning my money away.
