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“I want to do things differently from how my father did them,” Nikolai says simply. “My father would have taken your threats and used it as a reason to bury you—or to try,” he adds hastily. “I’d prefer not to bog this discussion down in questions of who the winner would be in an unfortunate conflict between our organizations.”
“So you feel it would be unfortunate.”
“I, unlike my father, believe that bloodshed where peace is possible is always unfortunate.”
“That’s not the reputation that precedes you.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Nikolai Vasilev is a man, so far as I know, who tortures without mercy and has the art of extracting information down to a science. He is brutal and ruthless and bloody. Is that not who is sitting in front of me?”
“All of that was in service to my father,” Nikolai says bluntly. “And I don’t deny that I could still be that same man, if pressed. I have no doubt I may still need those skills in the future. But I prefer to keep them for necessity. My father tortured for pleasure,” he adds. “I never have.”
“Still.” I tap my fingers against the wood. “We have always been enemies, your family and mine. I find it suspicious that you would choose to set all of that aside, generations of enmity, for peace now. Especially when it’s your sister that you have to offer up to broker it.”
“Exactly that.” Nikolai takes another drink of his vodka. “Why would I offer her to you if I didn’t want to make peace? I want my sister safe. So if I felt that you were not honorable, or that peace wasn’t possible between our families, why make the offer at all?” He shrugs. “I wouldn’t unnecessarily put her in danger.”
I sit there for a long moment, watching his face. I like to think I can read others well, and Nikolai is younger than I am. He has fewer years of practice at controlling his expressions, though he’s quite good at it. “I hope you know there is no truth to the rumors,” I say finally. “You know what I’m talking about.”
“Of course.” Nikolai swirls his vodka in his glass. “If I thought that there was, I wouldn’t have offered you Marika. That would be offensive, to her and to our family.”
“Very well.” This is the point, I know, at which a decision has to be made. I’m not at all sure that Marika is who I want to choose for a wife. She’s young and innocent, and what I want, I’m not confident that she can give me. But refusal means war.
In two and a half decades, you haven’t found a woman you wanted to marry. What makes you think you’ll find one now?
Marika is the wise choice. She provides a much-needed alliance, and the source of the heirs that the Kings are beginning to demand I provide. Our organization is not a democracy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be ousted if my leadership is called into question. It has happened before—in Boston, even, quite recently.
“How would you like to do this?” I ask finally. “How should I meet her? In your family home, I assume.”
“We’ll have dinner at our family estate,” Nikolai says calmly. “Three days from now. It will all be arranged then, once you and Marika have met. Our family still keeps to the old traditions,” he adds. “There will be a blood contract.”
“Mine keeps to some of the old ways as well.” I tilt my glass back, finishing my whiskey. “Very well. I’ll come to your home in three days. There will be no violence. A truce, while this matter is decided.”
Nikolai nods, finishing his drink as well. “Agreed,” he says. And then he holds his hand out, and I take it.
A handshake, and he’s gone. I don’t blame him for not wanting to spend more time in my presence than necessary—we’re not friends. But it leaves me in the booth brooding, motioning for one more drink, glad at least that there will be no one approaching me here.
Unless the girl tries to call it off at the last minute—which I can’t imagine she will—the deal is all but done. Marika Vasilev will be my wife, and I will, at long last, have a bride.
I can picture her, barely. I’ve seen her on a few occasions, when I was leaving the Vasilev mansion after heated meetings with her father. I remember her being very beautiful—and also very young, and I feel a little ashamed that that excites me. I remember the sight of a slender blonde moving down a hallway, a quick flash of long silky hair and bright blue eyes, and my cock twitches in my suit trousers.
Considerablyyounger than me. Twenty-three years, likely, if not more.What the hell am I going to talk to her about?I wonder, but my cock is swelling at the thought of what she might look like naked, already skipping ahead to the wedding bed, reminding me that conversation isn’t a necessary part of marriage.
But unfortunately, I personally would like for it to be. I’ve put off matrimony for exactly that reason—because I wanted a wife Iliked. I have no idea if I will like Marika Vasilev.
If you don’t like her, you don’t have to talk to her. You can do what you need to in order to keep her happy and content, and go about your business. This is your world, and it bends to you.
I’ve always said, though, that if I married, I would be faithful to my wife. It’s another reason I’ve put it off so long. Once I say those vows, I intend to keep them. I’ve made sure to keep my word, for better or worse, in every other part of my life. Why would I want it to be different for my marriage?
It had seemed like a hardship in my younger years—giving up the vast bevy of women eager to climb in and out of my bed. Now, it no longer does. In fact, I’dratherhave one who stays, now. But I don’t know if Marika is that woman. If she will be enough for me—or if I will be what she wants and needs in return.
There’s only one way to find out.
I feel restless and irritable by the time I walk into my home. My family mansion, which I’ve always been proud of, feels cavernous as I step inside alone, flicking on a light to flood the wood-floored hall with light. As I walk to the gleaming staircase, I can’t help wondering what my new wife will think of it when I bring her here—the dark green-painted walls, the deep wood wainscoting, the paintings and family portraits hung on the walls. The house is a mixture of the touches the family members who lived here before have put on it, and the work of hired decorators, history and modernity mingled together, and I like it. I always have.
You’re putting too much thought into this,I tell myself as I walk to my suite of rooms, tugging my tie loose and tossing it over a chair with my coat. Marika will like the house because she’s expected to, and she will be happy because it’s her job as my wife to be happy. But I have that small voice in my head reminding me, as I sit down on the edge of the bed and look out of the wide window to the distant lights of the city, that that’s not what I want.
A pliable wife, one who hides her true feelings and placates me, is not what I desire.
And I have no idea what kind of wife Marika will be.
Marika
