4. Alexei

ALEXEI

W ho the fuck let her into my mother’s rooms?

It’s the only thing that I can think. I arrived from Novgorod not half an hour ago. No one was at the front door to greet me, which I found more than a little annoying. I stomped through the house, determined to figure out where everyone was, and that’s when I saw my mother’s door open.

A door that I personally ordered to be shut, and never opened, nearly a decade ago.

When I saw her against the window, her silhouette dark against the brightness of the snow outside, it took me a minute to register that I wasn’t looking at a ghost.

It didn’t take too long.

My mother was tall, willowy. The person standing in the window isn’t. She’s short, with a riot of dark hair that curls around her face and picks up light, forming kind of a halo that I’m stuck on. Her curvy figure makes my fingers itch, and I want nothing more than to reach out and wrap my hands around the lush landscape of her hips, not to mention the dip between her ribs and her ass…

What the hell? Who is she? What is she doing here?

“Who the fuck let you in here?” I snarl at her.

It’s obvious that this is her. The American girl. I know every member of my household, so there’s no one else who could be here.

In my mother’s room.

Looking out the windows that she loved.

The memories of her are so crisp for me here, it’s almost painful to look around the room.

And she just… walked in.

Like she fucking owns the place.

“I… sorry… I didn’t know…” the girl says.

Her voice is nice. Her English is coated in that atrocious American twang that I can’t seem to escape these days, but the softness of her words and the richness of her tone makes something in my chest tighten.

“You didn’t know,” I deadpan.

“No. I mean. How could I possibly have known? I just came in here because I got lost.”

“You got lost,” I repeat.

She huffs. “Well yeah of course I got lost! This house is freaking huge. Elena was showing me the portraits and all of that shit and then I wanted to go back to my room to call my mom and then…” her voice trails off.

I arch an eyebrow. “Do go on.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She gulps.

“You’re him, aren’t you?

The tremble of fear in her voice makes guilt punch into my stomach.

Clearly, someone’s been talking about me.

And they’ve given an accurate description.

“I don’t know who you think I am,” I murmur.

She gulps.

“Alexei.”

I’m going to hell.

The way her pretty red lips part around my name puts my mind into a million dark, depraved places.

The rich tone of her voice makes my name hang in the air between us. She’s waiting on confirmation; I’m just savoring the way my name sounds from her lips.

Well.

If she’s waiting on confirmation, I might as well give it to her.

“Yes,” I murmur.

It’s more of a growl, I guess. I can’t help it. My mind is still stuck on the way she said my name, and a primal part of me wants to know how I get her to say it again.

She’s your wife. You can make her say your name whenever you want.

The thought hits me like a drug.

She’s your wife.

Well.

Not yet.

“Oh,” she says, her lips making the most perfect shape against her pale skin. “I… um… I’m Maggie.”

Maggie.

We stare at each other.

I don’t know what to do now. I hadn’t thought this far ahead, and now that I’m staring at her standing in my mother’s rooms, I simply don’t know what I should do.

She’s blinking at me, her beautiful face still backlit by the winter sky.

Maggie takes a step forward, her feet skimming the carpet of my mother’s bedroom. My eyes follow it, noticing the dark stain near her toes.

Blood.

My mother’s blood.

Just like that, any amiability wipes itself from my memory.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I growl.

Maggie pales. “I…um… like in Russia?”

“Here. In these rooms. Leave,” I snarl at her.

She takes a hesitant step forward.

“Now!”

Maggie’s feet scurry along the carpet. She brushes past me, and I catch the slightest whiff of something tantalizingly floral as she rushes by.

I grab the door and slam it closed, the woodwork around the doorframe shaking as I do.

Chest heaving, I look at her.

Maggie’s eyes are wide. Her face is pale in the dim light of the hall.

She’s afraid.

Of me.

“You can never come to these rooms,” I say, my voice still deep. “Never again. Do you understand?”

“I…”

I don’t wait to hear her response.

I storm down the hallway, leaving my soon-to-be wife behind.

I drink vodka in my study until the light disappears around me.

The staff creep quietly by. I pretend not to notice their hushed whispers in the hallway, or the fact that Elena has been hovering by the doorway for the last hour or so.

I’m Russian. Vodka is practically part of my blood. So the fact that I’ve been consuming it like water all day means I’m not drunk in the slightest.

Elena knocks, and I struggle to my feet.

Well.

Maybe I am slightly buzzed.

I open the door. “What?” I bark.

She bustles in past me, and even in the darkness I can feel her eyes on me. “You smell like you’re a pig,” she says.

“Good to see you too, Elena.”

“Well it would be good to see you if it was not so terrible!” she turns, her hands on her hips.

I glare at her.

“You scared the girl,” Elena says accusingly.

“She was where she shouldn’t have been.”

“She was in her house.”

“It’s not her house yet!” I snap.

Elena raises her eyebrows and turns to snap on a light. The brightness makes me flinch, and she makes a small, disapproving sound. “It will be her house. Or is she free to go back to America?”

I open my mouth.

Shut it.

Elena nods. “That is what I thought.”

“It’s not like that,” I growl at her.

“Oh, it very much is. She’s a nice girl. You’ll see.”

“It doesn’t matter how nice she is, Elena. I am too busy to have a wife, but I need one…”

“For the house. Of course I know.”

I arch my eyebrows at her.

Elena sighs. “You are a good boy, Alexei. You deserve to be happy.”

“I am happy,” I reply. Even as I say them, though, I know that they are a lie. That is surprising to me: I had never thought of myself as happy or unhappy.

I had only thought of myself as successful. Powerful.

But happiness?

It has nothing to do with the way I measure my life.

She pauses, and I can tell she wants to say something.

I know what it is.

But I refuse to listen.

“We’ll draw up the papers tomorrow. Then she will be married to me,” I finally grit out.

Elena’s lips purse.

I turn, hoping she will take my hint.

With a sigh, Elena leaves the room. She pauses in the doorway. “And then will it be fine for her to walk in her own house.”

I look away.

“Not that room, Elena,” I murmur.

With a sigh, she leaves.

As the snow falls, I shut my eyes and let the vodka burn through me.

I do not need a companion, a friend, or a lover.

I need a wife.

Or my legacy will be lost.