Page 22 of Marrying the Silver Fox

“It’s so kind of you to introduce me to your family friends like this,” I tell him, smiling as sweetly as I can muster against the overwhelming nerves inside of me. “I…I appreciate it.”

“Well, you’re part of the family now,” he replies, and there’s a slight edge to his tone, as though he’s reminding me exactly what my place is in all of this. “Only fair that you are treated like it, hmm? Now, let me introduce you, I’m sure everyone will be interested to get to know you…”

“Yes, I’m certainly curious as to how Nikolai found a wife so beautiful,” one of the men remarks. He looks to be in his seventies or so, with thinning white hair and a warm, twinkling smile. Hard to believe, just looking at him like this, what kind of business he’s involved in. To so much as be standing in this room hints at what he’s capable of, and it drains the blood from my face for a moment to think of it. I pray that the makeup does its job to cover my expression, and I smile back at him.

“You’re too kind.”

“Now, Ilya, no flirting,” Nikolai remarks, but it’s clearly little more than a joke.

“So how exactly did you meet?” Ilya asks, taking a sip of his drink. I notice a ring glinting on his pinky finger, and I wonder what exactly it announces to those who are aware.

“Didn’t you hear?” another voice cuts in, this time laced with sarcasm.

I glance over and see Max making his way toward us. My stomach sinks. There’s something about the way he spoke to me the other day that stuck in my head, as though he can see through us in a way that doesn’t sit right with me. I know he has no reason to view us through that lens, but there’s clearly some resentment between him and his brother, and I’m caught in the middle of it.

“They fell in love when she was planning some wedding,” he replies. “And she decided she just couldn’t wait any longer to get married herself. I suppose my brother was the first one she saw once she’d made her mind up, hmm?” He laughs loudly, but it’s clearly little more than a cover for how he really feels.

I feel Nikolai’s grip on me tighten, as if making it clear to anyone looking that I am well and truly his.

“Well, when I met Nikolai,” I reply, turning to him, putting on my best adoring expression in the hopes of selling what I need to sell. “I was so impressed by how accomplished he was. So many of those men in America, they put such little stock in protecting their family name, and he poured so much care into making certain that his father’s legacy was upheld…I knew he would do the same for our family too.”

Marcus nods proudly. “A fine investment, a man who cares for his family,” he agrees.

“And your sons both certainly do that,” Ilya agrees, being met with a mutter of agreement around the room.

Max lifts his drink to his lips, not taking his eyes off of me. “Maybe you could find me a beautiful American woman to make my wife too, hmm, Andrea?” he asks me pointedly. “I’m sure you have a few of those brides of yours who got left at the altar who are looking for another man to fill the void…” He cocks an eyebrow.

I laugh, plucking a glass of champagne from one of the waiters passing me by.

“I’m not sure there are many American women like her,” Nikolai responds.

“None as beautiful,” Max remarks, letting his gaze linger on me a little longer than a brother-in-law should. “That much, I’m sure of.”

“Max, you’re too kind,” I tell him firmly, keeping the smile on my face, as though it’s all just flattery.

“And besides, what’s wrong with a Russian woman?” one of the other men cuts in jovially. “My wife is of good Russian stock, and she has borne me a whole brood of children.”

The conversation turns to their shared homeland, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Every moment the focus isn’t on me is one I can use to observe the back-and-forth between this group, just how they interact with each other. They seem relatively comfortable, but there is still this edge to the way they speak, as though they’re making certain that nobody gets ahead of them. For every boast one makes, another is quick to cut in with a reminder that they can keep up or even exceed them. Whether it’s wives, children, money, property, there’s nothing that they will not try to outdo each other at.

I laugh at an anecdote one of them—Vadim, that’s the name that I heard the others calling him—about his wife.

“She sounds like quite a woman,” I remark.

“I’m sure the two of you would get on well,” he replies. “You remind me of her, when we first married.”

“Well, I’m sure that’s a compliment,” I reply, and he laughs.

“It certainly is,” he replies. “Though she’s a finer woman now than she was when we met. Like a good wine—she gets better with every passing year, eh?”

Another gale of laughter emerges from the men in the room, and Nikolai chuckles along with them. I wonder, briefly, what he thinks of all this mention of the future, of what comes next.

I know I’m not the one he wanted to marry in the first place, and it’s hard to believe that he will still want to claim me when we’re back in America, when he has convinced his family that he’s a married man. I’m still not entirely sure why he was so insistent upon coming back here with a wife, but judging from the way these men talk, they take their marriages and families with the utmost seriousness—maybe it’s proof that he is capable of keeping up their legacy.

The group splits off into smaller clusters, and Nikolai is drawn into conversation with one of them. I do my best to keep up, but they dip in and out of Russian, which leaves me with little to hang on to. My eyes dart back and forth, attempting to parse what they’re saying just by reaction alone, but soon I find myself well and truly lost.

“Still learning the mother tongue, eh?”

I glance around, and find Max standing beside me again. I tense at once. I can smell the alcohol coming off of him, and I am not ignorant to the fact that he’s been drinking harder than anyone else all evening. Maybe because there’s something he’s trying to forget. Like the fact that his brother is the center of attention this evening, and he’s stuck at the sidelines, trying to keep up.