Page 38 of Secret Husband
She sat up a little straighter, like she was steeling herself to answer questions at a Congressional hearing.
“On a dating app called Eros. Landon Kershaw created it.”
“Theo’s kid, Conor’s twin?”
“That’s right. Brains to burn. It had a lot of surveys about interests, personality traits, personal history. Then it runs some sort of algo-voodoo and hey presto, you have a match. No photos to make it less superficial.”
“How many people did you meet before the magic happened?”
“Three, but once I met Thad, I could tell he was the one. He’s normal, for a start. No ego. Kindhearted, not trying to one-up me all the time.”
“Sounds like you have been dating the wrong people.”
She shrugged. “I had been looking for a certain type, the opposite of my father, and it led me down some strange paths. Poets, volleyball players, agents—God, that was a disaster. Basically, anyone who didn’t seem like a Wall Street huckster.”
“So Vlad is one of these unicorns?”
The slightest lip twitch told me she was amused. “I realized I was focusing on the wrong thing. Not every guy in a suit or who works in finance is going to be a loser. If I’m going to be tarring a group of people with the same brush, I need to be generalizing about athletes. The true enemy.” She grinned. My pulse jumped, and I was taken back to that first time I saw her on that rink. “I realized I needed to be more open to the possibilities and not eliminate an entire subset of men because they happened to understand how the stock market works.”
“So he is a finance person. Like your father.”
She gave me a pained smile. “Not like my father. Hashtag ‘not all finance bros.’ He’s what I needed to get out from under that misapprehension. Landon’s app asked interesting questions and we had an eighty percent match. Thad met most of my requirements.”
A job interview to be her boyfriend. I wondered if I would pass based on questions alone.
“You do not believe in chemistry?”
“No, I don’t. Chemistry masks the reality of what people are truly like.”
I pitied her if she truly believed that. “We had chemistry.”
“Did we?” Said with a saccharine sweetness.
“I thought so. And you obviously agreed because you said yes to marriage.”
My silver-eyed she-wolf growled. “I did not say yes because I was never asked! Marriage under the influence doesn’t count, Alexei. My lawyer says that drunkenness is the same as fraud when it comes to getting hitched and is a perfectly valid reason to get an annulment, especially as we didn’t consummate it.”
“Consummate? What is that?”
“Sex, Nazarov. We didn’t have sex!”
A few people looked over, but Lauren didn’t notice. Her fury was its own forcefield.
“Well, we did. Years ago.”
“Yes, amazing. Against a wall in an alley behind a college bar. A fast fuck with the rats and dumpsters looking on. Five stars, would recommend.”
Was that really how she remembered it? Perhaps I had romanticized it, but she was right. She deserved better.
“I made up for it later.”
Color appeared high on her cheekbones. She was remembering some of our greatest hits between the sheets.
“The point I’m trying to make is that there’s nothing tying us together. All you have to do is sign the application for annulment or divorce or whatever works quickest, and we can get back to our normal lives.”
Yes, normal. For years it was what I craved. Not having to worry about my father’s safety in Russia, whether I was being followed, whether anyone I cared about was in danger. Of course the easiest way to ensure the safety of others was to not get too close. It was the only option back then.
But things were different now. My father was no longer a target for the Russian authorities. I was no longer guilty by association. These days, we had different problems, but they were human ones rather than political. Should I tell her the why? Would it endear her to me, knowing that all those years ago I pushed her away to protect her from forces outside my control?
