Page 47 of Arranged for the Russian Pakhan

She isn’t much of a texter, my wife, or so I’ve found over the past two months of marriage. So, I’m unsurprised when she doesn’t reply, leaving me on Read instead. In fact, I pretty much resign myself to finding out when she comes home whether she’s down to play this game with me or not.

I’m taken aback when I get a response after all.

Darya: If you didn’t want a difficult woman on your hands, you probably should’ve coerced a different woman into marriage

Darya: Maybe my brother, Leonid

Despite myself, a grin sprawls across my face. And I enjoy not having to wonder, for the first time in days, whether Darya is thinking what I am: about that day I gathered everyone—her people and mine, albeit her corner was a larger body count—in St. Trinity’s church. About the chaos, and how it’s led us here.

Me: You aren’t funny

Those may be the words I text Darya, but I hope she’ll know what I truly mean. Her reply assures me she does.

Darya: Lie to me and tell me you aren’t laughing

She knows me, too, now.

What are the chances it’ll be enough this once?

***

She’s pleased by my approach. I can tell as soon as she gets to the manor, walking in through the door with a sparkle in her eyes that’s been dim for days. And if I wasn’t suspicious of her awareness of this distance grating on me before, I am now.

“Should I surprise you?” Darya asks in lieu of a greeting.

She doesn’t mention my idling in the foyer as soon as I hear her car pull up. With how expressive her face is, though, she doesn’t need to. She looks too entertained for someone who’s been putting me through hell.

I have half a mind to throw her over my shoulder and carry her to the bedroom until that impish little smirk twisting her pretty mouth turns swollen beneath the scrape of her own teeth.

My expression must relay as much, given how she takes a pointed step back from me in the foyer.

“That face doesn’t look like it wants to make anything worth my while,” she says, more conversational than accusatory. Her gigantic purse slips down her shoulder, hanging off the crook of her arm.

I stare at her. “What does it look like?”

“Like you want to sl—”

My body turns with the fury of a tornado when footsteps approach, ready to chew out whoever thinks it is fit to interrupt the head of the fucking house and his wife. As swiftly as that fury builds, it gutters out. It’s hard to stay hard up about anything or anyone when stared down by one’s uncle.

“Why are you idling in the foyer?” he asks, eyeing me like I’ve got two heads. I don’t voice aloud how I do, and the one preparing to lead the charge in this moment is the one located within my trousers.

With a terse smile, I say, “Just greeting my wife. Home from a hard day of work.”

Boris chortles like I’ve told a good joke. On the contrary, I was being sincere. Despite my irascibility at the present moment, I’m lingering here because I did want to see her the first chance I could, even if that meant not delaying the sight of her for the time it took her to walk from the driveway to the other side of the manor, where our bedroom resides. My mouth purses into a thin, hard line.

“Right. When you’re done herding your woman—” I shoot Darya an apologetic glance at the archaic phrasing that’ll be right to chap her ass. “—let’s sit down to dinner.”

I’m not one to succumb to an explosive temper. In my opinion, anyone who typically loses their shit like that makes a fool of themselves, often publicly. But I still feel it slither through my belly like a snake, baring its fangs at being ordered about. Throwing a tantrum about it still feels extremely childish.

I have to keep in mind that Uncle Boris has been evading sitting down for meals since the wedding, something Darya hasn’t missed. He hasn’t stopped being present as my advisor for a minute, but he’s made his displeasure with this union known without any words at all.

I’ve already explained to her, during one of our evenings in the library, that my uncle had never been on board with the alliance to begin with. Maybe it wasn’t smart to have divulged that Uncle Boris was a proponent of making an example of Viktor as well, because it has tainted her opinion of him to an irredeemable extent. I’d known the damage was done the moment horror had contorted her features alongside the realization of what “making an example” implied.

My mouth opens to navigate the situation with a calm mindset.

Darya gets there first. “Actually, Anton and I were about to go out. I’m going to get dressed.” She doesn’t pretend she didn’t hear him, nor does she attempt to reason with him. Her every word is a statement, up front and unadorned.

Boris’ voice lashes. “Don’t be ridiculous. You eat at home with the family. All of us.”