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3: In Which She Isn't Glad She Came

“Leave,” I whispered, still shell-shocked. “Dammit, please leave, Nikolai.”

He stared at me for a long time before reaching out and gently brushing a lock of my coal-black hair out of my face. “You're seriously embarrassed about that?”

I chewed on my bottom lip and narrowed my eyes up at him, nearly succumbing to his pale blue orbs. “What exactly is that, huh? A little wetness between my legs?” I gave him a fake laugh. “Here’s something you might not know. I was thinking of someone else and he made me wet. Not you.”

Nikolai dropped his arm to his side. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what game you're playing here but you can’t expect me to believe that you’ve been holding a candle for me all these years.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Holding a candle to you?” Once again, he was in my personal space and I had nowhere to turn, nowhere to look but at him. “I have a plan, little cat, that involves fucking any and every single woman coming to this wedding. You were my first stop tonight but certainly not my last.”

I swallowed. “Get. Out. You're disgusting.”

He laughed again. “You don’t really mean that, kotik,” he drawled as he turned on his heel and strode to the fireplace. Before he bent, he called over his shoulder, “Next time, why don’t you wait for me to actually touch you before you come all over me?”

“Get out!”

***

 

I was one minute away from committing patricide. Killing my father had never crossed my mind until today when all I could think about was shooting him and his new best friend in their heads.

Since the snow had more or less thawed and the sun was peeking out from behind a silver cloud, the bridal party was finally allowed to get a tour of the castle grounds. Most of the remaining guests – who were mostly made up of Inga’s and Mikhail’s fellow undergrad students and Inga’s extended family – had arrived and completed our modest group of people strolling through the grounds. There weren’t as many people as I’d expected and Inga had explained that she wanted to make this the smallest, most intimate Ruslavian royal wedding in history. They hadn’t even invited any foreign heads of state.

“Wanna tell me why you’re looking a tad bit homicidal this wonderful morning, O?” Savita chirped in my ear, linking arms with me. Since we were both in parkas, her death-grip was slack.

I directed my “homicidal” look at my best friend. “I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Sue me.”

“I think I will,” she quipped, flashing me a grin, “for not turning that frown upside down.”

“What’s got you so chipper this morning?” I asked, although I had a bad feeling that I didn’t want to know.

Someone laughed at the front of the herd – my dad – and I had to force myself to remember that patricide – well, murder in general – was illegal.

“Ryan did this tongue thing last night that was so good, I swear I saw stars and stripes.”

I knew I wouldn’t want to know, I thought, curling my top lip in disgust. TMI and Sav knew each other well.

“Well, that explains the radiant glow,” I muttered dryly.

“Or it might be the baby.”

I froze and ended up inadvertently jerking Sav back. “You’re pregnant?”