Page 37 of Vows of Blood
She snickered. “Leave as in go to the grocery store or to the airport?”
I sigh. “It’s still a bit of an overreaction.”
“It’s not. Everything that your fathers are working to build will fall apart if you two split up now, and the last thing I think you want is a pack of angry Russians looking all over the state for you. The way I see it, Alexei was doing you a favor.”
I hate that she’s right. As barbaric as that whole thing was, he only did it because of how serious this arrangement actually is and how detrimental it could be to everyone if we did split up. Suddenly, I can relate to my sister’s selfish decision to run.
“Maybe after a few years when the alliance is strong and there’s more trust between our families, you can leave him. I’m sure not even Alexei would object to that.”
A fewyears? I can’t imagine that at all. The thought makes me a little queasy.
“In the meantime,” she says, reaching out and taking my hand, “take some free advice. You and Alexei have to see this through together, so why not make an attempt to get to know one another?”
“Get to know him?” I scoff. “Right. We don’t have anything in common.”
“How exactly would you know that? You’ve only just met him.”
I watch her take another bite of burger as I contemplate that. It’s logical. We didn’t even start off as acquaintances, really. We skipped a lot of steps to get where we are now. “I suppose it is a little silly to expect us to behave like newlyweds when we don’t even really know one another.”
“Exactly. Between you and me, you don’t have to be lovers here. You just have to stay married, which means the least you can do is be friends. Maybe even allies. The way I see it, Isabella, you could use some.”
She is so right. I guess I have been looking at this whole thing all wrong. Alexei and I are stuck in this situation together. We might as well make the best of it.
“Thanks for giving me advice,” I say to her. “By the way, you can call me Izzy. All my friends do. You might as well, too.”
Anya chuckled. “Izzy. I like that.”
The restof the lunch goes fairly normally. We eat and chat and she tells me all about her brother Dmitri, who just came back from being in Europe for several years, and a few other bits of gossip surrounding the Mechnikov family. It’s comforting. It almost feels like when Annie and I used to gossip about our cousins and what they got up to.
I just got back to the penthouse and all I can think about is what she said about ‘getting to know’ Alexei. He’s still not home. Kind of hard to get to know him if he’s going to leave and stay gone for a whole day.
I go into the bedroom and lie down. My mind starts to think back to our honeymoon night. He makes love like a man who is well versed in the female body. Like someone who knows exactly what he’s doing. It makes me wonder how many lovers he’s had. Was he a ladies’ man prior to all this?
Handsome as he is, he’s probably had a line of lovers before this whole thing happened. I touch the comforter, wondering how many of them got it doggy style like I did. How many came in his arms between these sheets before me? The thought almost makes our night feel cheap.
Almost. He was a little rough with me, but also tender. I’ve heard so many horror stories of my friends getting whaled on with their heads hitting the headboard the first time. Alexei, on the other hand, didn’t try to rip me apart with his dick. He considered my pleasure in the equation.
I go to pull my phone out of the pocket of my sundress and it slips out of my hand, knocking into the edge of the nightstand before sliding down and under the bed.Dammit.
I get up and get down on the floor to look for it. It’s wedged between the nightstand leg and part of the bed. I reach for it and grab it, but I catch sight of a boxy shape shoved in the corner. In this light, I can’t really see it, so I turn on the flashlight.
It’s definitely a box. An old shoebox, from what I can see. It’s shoved right next to the nightstand, a place I never would have found just casually looking under the bed.
Probably shouldn’t snoop. Then again, he’s not here and how else am I going to have any clue when it comes to getting to know him?
I reach out and grab the box, bringing it out and into the light. Sitting on the floor with crossed legs, I open it. Inside are a collection of things. Polaroids, letters, a dried red carnation… I look through the photos. It’s Alexei as a teenager. He’s tall and lanky with a mass of blond hair, cut so that it’s falling into his face. He’s fucking adorable. I can picture him riding on askateboard in baggy clothes, his shoulders forward in a goofy stance.
Some of these photos, he’s with other people. One of the constants is a younger boy with long, dark hair and big blue eyes. His brother, Pavel, I bet. There’s also a young girl, thin and pretty with short, blonde curls and a mischievous grin.
There aren’t any names written anywhere, but the way she’s got her arms around Alexei, the way they’re kissing in some pictures… this was a girlfriend. A pretty special one if he’s got a shoebox of memories of her. She’s in every one of these photos.
I find some ones where the two of them are a little older. Maybe in their twenties. Nothing salacious, but they are in their underwear in what looks like a hotel room, laughing. The girl puts her hand up to hide her face in one photo.
It’s then that I see a golden ring sitting at the bottom of the box. Oh.Oh.
This wasn’t just any girl. This was a wife.
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