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“You’re very articulate on champagne,” I observe.
“And you’re an idiot when you’re sober,” she snaps, prodding her finger into my chest. “You have it all and you can’t see it. Or maybe you just can’t accept it. Do you know what I would give to have what you have?”
I frown. “What do I have?”
She throws up her hands. “It boggles my mind that you and Maksim got to be dons just because you’re men. You’re both dumb as rocks. I should have been the one in charge.”
“I think you need to find a bedroom and sleep for a bit,” I say, trying to pry the champagne flute from her hand.
She holds it out of my reach and gestures towards Paige, who’s busy playing some sort of game with Ilya and a few of the other children.
“She’ll make a good mother,” she observes. “She’s a natural at it. I just hope you don’t make her hate you the way Mom ended up hating Otets.”
I hear Paige’s voice.I will not let you turn me into your mother.
“I will make sure she has everything,” I grit out. “She will be comfortable.”
Nikita sighs and drains her champagne flute, then drops it harmlessly onto the grass at our feet. “That’s the lesson you need to learn, big brother: comfortable and happy are two very different things.”
81
MISHA
Paige looks a little stunned when I break the news to her as the last of the partygoers departs. “We’re going to Prague?”
I nod. “I had Rada pack your bags before the ceremony. We’ll be gone for a week.”
“A week?”
“Is there a reason you’re repeating everything I say?”
“Well… I just didn’t think we would be doing the whole honeymoon thing,” she stammers. “I mean, what purpose does it serve?”
It’s a legitimate question, considering the boundaries I’ve placed around our marriage. But I can’t exactly tell her the truth.
Because the truth is that this wasn’t planned; this is a last minute, knee-jerk reaction.You couldn’t look at me through our entire wedding. Try avoiding it now.
“We must maintain appearances,” I tell her. “Our movements will be followed. Everyone will want to know where we went on our honeymoon.”
“So this is just to make sure people don’t suspect anything is wrong?” She shrugs. “Then we’ll just lie. We’ll hunker down here and then tell people we took a trip.”
“That is a lie that would be easy to unravel. And if I’m caught lying about something as simple as a honeymoon with my new wife, then the rest of the lie falls apart.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” she drawls, her voice thick with emotion rippling beneath the layer of sarcasm. “So be it. A week in Prague. I’ll go change.”
She heads into the closet and closes the sliding doors with a firmclack. This reserved, detached side of her is weirdly unsettling. It makes me want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until the wildcat comes out.
But I decide to go for the subtler approach. The subtler, much more expensive approach.
She emerges a few minutes later wearing a long, flowing maxi dress with a giant slit down the side. I take a moment to appreciate her bared leg before I turn away and lead her downstairs.
When I go towards the gardens, she stops me. “Should I wait for you in the driveway?”
“No. Our ride is in the garden.”
“How can our ride be in the—” She gasps suddenly as she hears the sound of propellers closing in. “Is that a helicopter?”
“It’ll be landing in the east garden right about now,” I tell her. “We’re going to take the helicopter to my jet. From there, we’ll fly to Prague.”
