Page 13 of Marrying the Silver Fox

And as I lean back against him, I know that I’m not ready for this to be done with yet either. Because when it is, I’m going to have to figure out a way to come to terms with the fact that I enjoyed that way more than I thought I would.

And that this new husband of mine might be more than just a partner on paper. At least if this is anything to go by…

6

NIKOLAI

I watch Andie out of the corner of my eye as we cut through the rain-slicked streets of Moscow and she drinks it all in. I can tell she’s still trying to wrap her head around it, her gaze bleary from the flight.

Or rather, what we got up to on that flight.

We landed around an hour ago, at a private airfield a few miles outside of Moscow, and now we’re headed to my family home on the other side of the city. Which means cutting through the center with its towering, imposing brutalist structures on every street corner, a leftover from when the regime was still commanding full power. In between, newer stores and bars are studded at random, people spilling out of them as they make their way to the underground stations that will carry them beneath the city and back to their respective homes.

I notice a few glancing toward the car, though they know better than to let their gazes linger, given what I’m sure they know already. As much as this country has worked to divest itself of the reputation it once had, as a home for gangsters and criminals, there are those who still remember the time when these streets were ruled by the underground, and that fear has not left them yet.

“It’s so beautiful,” Andie murmurs, as we take a turn onto the street that will lead us to the edge of my family’s estate.

I cock an eyebrow. “You think?”

She glances over at me, as if she’s surprised by my reaction. “You don’t think so?”

“No, I do,” I reply. “But most Americans…this place looks too old-fashioned for them. Too many reminders of the past.”

“No, that’s what I like about it,” she replies. “I mean, I don’t know much about Russian history, but it’s so cool, all the churches and old buildings and stuff like that. It’s way older than anything I’ve seen before…” She gestures out the window, toward the outline of St. Basil’s in the distance, the curling towers reaching up toward the gray sky above.

“I mean, that looks like something out of a fairy tale,” she sighs. “At least, to me.”

I nod, smirking slightly. I’m glad she seems to be taking this in stride, though I can’t imagine that the champagne on the plane did anything to hurt that. I know there’s still so much for her to wrap her head around, but she seems to be doing her best to keep up, and that’s the best I can ask for.

“Nikolai,” she murmurs, drawing my attention back to her once more.

I look to her, frowning at her serious tone. “What is it?”

“Why…why did you do all of this?”

I stare at her for a moment. “Do what?”

“Marry me,” she replies, twirling the oversized ring on her finger. “I—I know that it’s not because you love me. I mean, not that I thought it would be, I just want to know—want to know what I’m getting into here. You know, so I don’t screw it up.”

I eye her for a long moment, wondering just how much I should tell her. A part of me wants to brush her off entirely, tell her that she’s my wife and that’s the only thing that matters, but I doubt she would be willing to let me get away with that. There’s something incisive about her that will not rest until she knows one way or another what’s going on here, and it’s better that she hears it from me rather than trying to parse it out on her own.

“I needed to be married,” I explain. “So that my father would give me the heirship to the family business.”

She screws up her face. “What, like he wanted you to have a wife before he handed that over?”

I nod. She doesn’t seem to have a guess at what that business might be, much to my relief. That part, I will have to share with her later, if at all.

“He expects me to arrive in Russia tonight with a wife,” I explain. “If I didn’t, he would not confirm the passing of the business to me. Hence…” I gesture to her.

Her eyes lower slightly, and I can see her hurriedly calculating everything she has just heard, trying to figure out where it leaves her.

“Am I going to meet your family?” she asks. She looks down at what she’s wearing, as though suddenly nervous that it might not be formal enough.

I shake my head. “Not tonight,” I reply. “They’ll be asleep by now. My father, he needs his rest.”

“Of course,” she replies, and she fiddles with her dress for a moment.

I can tell there is something on her mind, and I lift my chin at her. “What is it?”