Page 50 of Marrying the Silver Fox

“You’re sure?”

“I will be,” I reply gently, looking up at him with a slight smile before I tuck into the breakfast before me. I take a bite of the bacon and close my eyes. “Mmm, that’s so good,” I sigh. “Did you make this?”

“Did my best.”

“You’re not a bad cook,” I remark, grinning. “Marta teach you in Russia?”

“My mother did,” he replies, and suddenly there’s an edge of sadness to his voice that catches me off guard.

I frown at him slightly. He hasn’t mentioned his mother to me, and of course, I didn’t meet her when I was in Russia. Now that I think of it, nobody brought her up to me at all, as though perhaps her memory is a sore spot none of them can stand to press on. A bad divorce? A tragic death? I almost think of asking more, but he has been through enough these last few days as it is.

“Well, she did a wonderful job,” I tell him, and he glances away from me, the two of us falling into silence for a moment as I tuck into my breakfast. I’m pretty sure any food would taste perfect to me right now, but this? This is especially good, I have to admit.

Once I’ve taken a sip of my coffee—I’m pretty sure I am allowed one per day now that I’m pregnant, and I intend to enjoy every little sip—he suddenly speaks, eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that surprises me.

“Why did you ask me to spare him?”

I blink, taking a second to process what he’s asking me. “You mean…you mean Max?”

He nods. “With everything he threatened you with,” he continues, shaking his head, his voice dropping as though he can barely stand to say it out loud. “You…you would have been well within your rights to want to see that fucker dead. But you stopped me. You let him live. Why?”

I pause for a moment, staring down into my coffee. He deserves an explanation. I appreciate that he listened to me without having to know all the ins and outs of what drove my decision, but I guess it’s only fair that he hears some of them now.

“I…I know what it feels like to lose a brother.”

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t take his eyes off of me, as though trying to read what’s going on inside my head. I draw in a deep breath, not even sure how I’m meant to go on. I have hardly spoken to anyone about what happened with Chris, it’s just hitting me now. In the years since his death, I kept it all to myself, throwing myself so deeply into work and putting on that game face of the woman who orchestrated the most beautiful, exciting weddings rather than acknowledging the aching grief that burns through every inch of me when I think of him.

“My brother and I, we didn’t have the best childhood,” I explain. “I was the oldest—my parents, they were addicts. Heroin. I think from the moment I was born, I knew on some level that I wasn’t going to see them live long, happy lives. They just didn’t have it in them to get clean…”

“You didn’t deserve that,” he tells me bluntly, and I shrug, forcing a small smile onto my face.

“I know we didn’t,” I agree. “No child does. But that’s not how it works, never has been. They were stupid with birth control, I guess because they were high all the time, and that meant that they…well, that Chris and I happened, I suppose.” I shake my head.

“But I loved him,” I continue. “I really did. And I would have done anything to keep him safe. We got out of that place—well, one of the many we lived in—when I was about seventeen, Chris was sixteen, and I…” I feel a lump leap into my throat.

Nikolai reaches out to touch my arm, and just the barest caress feels like all I need to coax me forward.

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m just not used to talking about all of this, I keep it to myself.”

“What happened to him?” he asks.

“He became an addict too,” I reply, tears pricking my eyes. “Like our parents. I don’t know if he just had that kind of gene in him or something, that it skipped me and went straight to him, but he got sick the same way they did.” I close my eyes.

“And it was so fast for him,” I go on. “So quick. By the time he was in his early twenties, that was it. I don’t think I could have pulled him out of it if I tried, and God, I really tried, Nikolai. I tried…” I let out a sob, and it surprises me, the well of emotion that suddenly seems to threaten to overwhelm me.

I take a sip of the coffee, trying to gather myself as best I can, and he doesn’t speak, letting me pull myself together. There’s something comforting about the quiet—him not rushing in to tell me that everything is okay, that I shouldn’t blame myself, that I’m not responsible for what happened to my brother, but allowing me to process my emotions at my own pace even when it must seem ridiculous to him.

“That’s why I started the business,” I explain. “Because I wanted to be able to make enough money to get him into rehab. I thought if he could just hold on a bit longer, if I could just work a bit harder, that I would be able to make enough money that he wouldn’t have to be stuck in that mess anymore. Sometimes I feel like…oh, if I had just been there for him a little more, and hadn’t been so caught up in work, I might have been able to be there for him when he—” I stop in my tracks.

The image flashes in my mind—I had to identify Chris’s body when he was brought into the morgue, as I was the only one who could do that, his few friends having long since fallen away as they couldn’t bear to watch him torture himself to death with that awful shit. His face was peaceful, cold, waxy, eyes shut. I touched his shoulder, felt the stark coldness of his skin, and it nearly made me throw up right there on the ground in front of him. Well, what was left of him.

I feel Nikolai’s hand on my cheek, and he draws my gaze to his. I cling to it as the only anchor I have in this wave of emotion, the gentle brush of his thumb against my cheek, as though he doesn’t want me to torture myself any longer.

“You couldn’t have done any more than you did,” he says.

I force a laugh. “How could you know? You weren’t there⁠—”

“Because I know you,” he replies firmly. “At least, that side of you. And I know you’re not the type to just roll over and take whatever is laid in front of you. I know he couldn’t have asked for anyone better as a sister as he was going through all of that mess. I’m certain of that.”