HER RUSSIAN SURRENDER (20 page)

Pavel started to get up and go to Back Up with a bite of his uneaten steak, but his uncle stopped him with, “You will not feed dog, Pavel. She will eat food Anna put in kitchen for her.”

Pavel opened his mouth to argue.

But Nikolai gave him a look, much the same as the one he’d given Back Up, and Pavel wasn’t a fool. He kept his mouth closed and slumped down in his chair.

And then there were two disappointed beings in the room as both Pavel and Back Up sulked under separate dark clouds.

Sam didn’t blame the judge for suddenly remembering an appointment and excusing himself from the awkward gathering twenty minutes into the meal. Isaac was the next to go, claiming he had just begun training for the Indianapolis marathon and wanted to get up early the next morning for a long run. Sam had to admit she was jealous as she watched Nikolai’s assistant go. She wished she could run away from the dinner, too. The dining room was an intimidating mix of crimson damask, oriental carpets, heavy dark furniture, paintings that took up entire walls, and gold-plated everything else. She missed the relative coziness of the state-of-art kitchen and felt uncomfortable in such ostentatious surroundings.

But at least Pavel and Back Up stayed loyal. Unlike the judge and Isaac, neither of them left the dining room until dinner was over and Sam insisted a yawning Pavel go to bed.

And then came a heartwarming moment when Pavel hugged her and said, “We’re a real family now. I’m glad you can be with me forever, Mama.”

“Me too,” Sam said, hugging him back.
Totally worth it
, she thought in that moment.

After they finished hugging, Pavel turned to Nikolai. “Congratulations, Uncle,” he said with a stiff nod.

“Thank you,” Nikolai answered, just as stiffly. He glanced at Pavel and then quickly looked away as if the sight of the boy hurt him somehow.

Perhaps picking up on that, Pavel didn’t linger. He called to Back Up and they were gone a few seconds later.

Sam hadn’t had the energy or the heart to keep up the pretense after that, saying, “Well, I’m super tired. I think I’ll be retiring now.”

He gave her a short nod in that dismissive way of his which grated on her. And she left the room. It was one thing to get dismissed like that when she was basically a squatter, living under his roof for Pavel’s sake, but she was his wife now.

His fake wife,
she reminded herself as she climbed up the stairs to the sanctuary of her room. Their marriage license was only a piece of paper meant to seal a deal. There was no reason to expect him to change his ways just because they’d undergone a Facebook status update. She thought of the talk she gave women who weren’t married to their abusive boyfriends. Her “marriage-won’t-change-him-he’ll-basically-always-be-an-abuser-unless-he-gets-serious-help” talk.

Nikolai Rustanov wasn’t abusive, but he’d never change. He’d never magically one day stop being dismissive or autocratic or… the thought blew through her mind like a sad wind… someone capable of loving her the way Beau loved Josie.

She thought of her earlier phone call with her best friend. No, not everyone could have what Josie had with her husband, Beau: mutual understanding and a deep and abiding love after overcoming their demons. Some people—people like Nikolai and her—had to do the best they could with the demons still riding on their backs.

She divested herself of the evidence of their sham marriage as soon as the small bedroom door closed behind her. Balling up the dress, which she already knew she’d never wear again, and throwing it in the corner.

Now all she had to do was change into her pajamas and hide out in her room for an hour or so until she was sure Nikolai had gone to bed. Then she’d sneak downstairs and unwind with a few episodes of
Veronica Mars
in Nikolai’s entertainment room, which was another perk she could add to agreeing to this marriage of convenience. His state-of-the-art entertainment room had a 72-inch OLED television and barcolounger stadium seats. There was even a fireplace, and she could already see herself making the room nice and toasty while she binged on
Veronica Mars.
Tonight she didn’t want to think about anything but clever girl detectives who always managed to get themselves and their loved ones out of bad situations. That and a glass of wine would be exactly what the doctor ordered… if only she could drink.

Sighing, Sam went over to the ludicrous ivory white dresser where she kept her simple clothes, including the IU sweats she’d been wearing as pajamas. Truth was, she’d never been much of a drinker (nothing like seeing how much alcohol could fuel physically abusive marriages to turn you off the stuff), but she did like a glass of wine after a long day. And this had been a very, very long day, she admitted to herself as she opened the bottom right drawer—

Only to find it empty. She looked at the vacant space for a confused, shocked moment. Then with an ominous feeling of dread, she pulled open the drawer beside it, the one that had been filled with her sweaters. That one was empty, too, as were all the drawers in the ridiculous piece of furniture. And as was the walk-in closet—even the shoes she kept lined up underneath her bed for easy access were no longer there.

“What the…” she said out loud.

NIKOLAI ANSWERED HER KNOCK on his door with an expression she would describe as amused, verging on smug. As if he’d been expecting her. Probably because he had.

The jerk
, she thought, as she opened her mouth to demand answers. But the angry words got clogged in her throat when she saw he only had on a pair of boxer briefs. And though she was pissed—really pissed—it was impossible not to admire his strong shoulders and large biceps, the muscles that rippled down his torso, before stopping right above his—

Sam quickly brought her eyes up from the dangerous bulge inside his briefs and forced herself to keep her eyes on his face as opposed to his magnificent body as she asked, “Where’s all my stuff?”

“Hello, Samantha,” he said, giving her wedding dress a once over so sensual, she wondered if he could tell she hadn’t bothered to with a bra when she’d hastily put it back on before coming down the hallway to confront him.

“Don’t call me that,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You do not want me to call you Samantha, and I do not want to call you by boy’s name,” he said, his gaze becoming a lazy perusal. “I will have to simply call you ‘wife.’”

He pulled the door open wider for her, revealing a bedroom dripping in gold

baroque fixtures, dark red furniture, marble floors… and one incredibly large bed.

“Come in, Wife.”

“Where’s my stuff?” she demanded again, refusing to look at the bed.

“In our room, where it belongs,” he answered. “Anna brought your things here during wedding.”

“What?” Sam took a step back in shock.

Nikolai’s hooded gaze suddenly froze over, as if her surprise offended him, and Sam wondered what he’d expected her reaction would be.

“You share my room. That is our agreement,
da
?”

Yes they had agreed to that, she thought, thinking back to their conversation in his office bathroom. But… “I thought you meant after the baby came.”

“You thought wrong,” he said in cold reply. Then he stepped back and opened the door wider. “Come in.”

26

F
orcing the issue of Samantha coming to his bed had seemed like a good idea. At first.

Nikolai was perfectly aware she’d believed she wouldn’t have to come to his room until after the baby was born. But the thought of her sleeping down the hall, so grateful she could spend the next eight months away from him, stuck in his craw with a bitter after taste he could not abide.

No, if she wanted to deny the attraction between them, to pretend what had happened the night their baby was conceived had been a case of him taking advantage of her scared state, then she would have to do so in his bed.

And he’d felt vindicated by the flash of desire he’d seen in her eyes when he’d come to the door in his briefs. However, she’d only allowed him a short moment of restored pride before visibly recoiling when he announced Anna had already moved her things to his room.

Apparently his new wife didn’t agree that he was “The Most Desirable Hockey Player on the Planet” as Bleacher Magazine had named him in the previous year’s “Hottest Players” issue. He opened the door wider anyway. Nikolai didn’t back down on the rare occasion a hockey player bigger than him came his way, and he refused to let his new wife’s reluctance to share his bed deter him.

Sam came into the room, eyeing him like he was a tiger and this was his den.

“Your clothes are in there,” he said, indicating the large antique wardrobe he’d cleared out for her things.

With much huffing and puffing, she pulled out some clothes before disappearing into his bathroom.

Nikolai turned off all the lights except for the lamp on his nightstand and got into bed, settling in for a long wait. Nikolai’s master bath was somewhat of an architectural marvel with its marbled walls, heated floors, and crystal chandelier that perfectly underlit a thirty-foot frescoed ceiling. In his experience, woman who went in to “freshen up” stayed a little longer than expected to gape.

Sam, however, was in and out in under five minutes, reappearing in a pair of unflattering red sweats with Indiana University’s famous logo emblazoned across its bosom-obscuring front.

“I’ll be sleeping on top of the blankets,” she informed him as she climbed into his bed. Then she immediately gave him her back.

Nikolai gritted his teeth and turned off the lamp for another first: sleeping, and only sleeping, next to a woman.

But she was here, he told himself as he yanked the covers up over his shoulder. By his side and in his bed, which was where a wife belonged. That was enough for now, he thought, lying awake in the dark long after she’d fallen asleep. It would have to be.

BUT IT WASN’T ENOUGH…

The next morning when Nikolai woke, he found himself in bed alone. His wife’s scent, a mixture of whatever she used in her hair and the perfume she’d spritzed on for the wedding, lingered, filling up his nose. But her side of the bed was now empty.

Dread icicled its way up his chest. He was a naturally early riser and Sam had never gotten up before him. Not once.

He rushed out of the room, not stopping even long enough to throw on a robe. Alarm bells rang loud in his head as he bounded down the hallway and pushed open the door to his wife’s old room. She wasn’t there, and the icicles inside his chest turned sharp, spiking into his heart as he went across the way to Pavel’s room, throwing open his nephew’s door.

Pavel’s room was empty, too.

Nikolai bolted downstairs, needing them to be at breakfast. Hoping to the God he’d never bothered with that they were in the kitchen, eating bowls of cereal.

He stopped short in the kitchen doorway, his heart freezing with horror inside his chest.

Because the only one sitting at the island was his father, Sergei.

His father smiled at him in that predatory way of his. “Nikolai, you finally woke up. I thought you would sleep all day.”

“Where are they?” Nikolai demanded.

“Where is who?” Sergei asked him in Russian. “Only I’m here. Come with me now. I have a job for you.”

“Tell me where they are,” Nikolai growled, stepping forward, only to feel something slick underneath his feet.

He looked down. Blood. A puddle of it, covering his bare feet. For a moment, Nikolai couldn’t speak for the fear clogging up his throat.

But eventually he looked back up at his smirking father. “If you’ve hurt them…”

“You will what?” Sergei asked with an arrogant laugh. “Kill me? You had your chance and now you are powerless to do that to me, boy.”

It was hard to fully process Sergei’s words through his near blinding rage, but Nikolai managed to choke out. “Where are they? Tell me.”

Sergei’s voice suddenly turned dark. “You know where they are, you sniveling boy,” he sneered. “A black grandchild and a black wife for my only son? You knew I wouldn’t allow that. They are exactly where they should be now. At the bottom of river with four shots in each of their bodies.”

His father, who’d taken nearly every other family member who mattered to him had now taken his wife. His nephew. And his unborn child.

“No!” Nikolai roared. Despair tore through his insides and his entire body went cold with the realization he’d never see Pavel or his wife again. Never hold the baby he and his wife had created in his arms.

The next thing Nikolai knew, his hands were around his father’s thick neck “Bastard. Bastard!!”

His father only laughed, as if Nikolai’s choking hands were but a necklace around his muscular throat. “No, there is only one bastard here.”

“Nikolai…”
Samantha’s voice said somewhere in the distance.

Nikolai let go of his father’s neck, his head whipping from side to side. That was his wife’s voice. But how? She was dead!

“Nikolai!”
Her voice again, so close, but he couldn’t see her.

Sergei laughed behind him, a mean, cackling sound. “It is her ghost, boy. I put two bullets into her chest and two more into her kneecaps. The Rustanov way. I was not sloppy this time. And then I did same to fake Rustanov you were trying to make your son.”

“No!” Nikolai yelled, his chest exploding with grief and guilt that he’d let this sadistic demon anywhere near Samantha or Pavel. That he hadn’t able to protect them from Sergei, just like he hadn’t been able to protect his mother and brother.

“Nikolai!”
his wife’s ghost called to him again. She sounded frantic, worried.

More derisive laughter from Sergei as if Nikolai in his despair was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. “You will never have what you want, boy. You will never have a family. You will never be rid of me,” he informed Nikolai.

Then his father slapped him.

But this action only served to confuse Nikolai. Not because it happened, but because the slap wasn’t that bad—almost on the dainty side. Also, Sergei didn’t slap. He backhanded.