She shook her head, looking around at the trees. “Even if you got every single person multiple Christmas presents, it still wouldn’t explain those...mountains!”
He swept her off her feet again and headed for one of the carousels where all his brothers were taking their children for a ride.
“I did get everyone more than one present. Including everyone who works here and their families, all the event-planning people preparing our wedding tomorrow, the catering team and the music bands and anyone who had a hand in all this.”
She jumped up in his arms and drowned him in kisses and love and thanks, on behalf of everyone he’d thought of.
Laughing, he stepped on the revolving carousel’s platform and raised her on top of one of the undulating horses. Effortlessly jumping up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her, his hands caressing her were the evidence of their love was growing into a new life.
Putting his lips to her ears so she’d hear him over the lively holiday music and singing and the myriad sounds of joy, he said, “How about you make the rounds telling everyone you’ve already thanked me on their behalf? Now that I think about it, the number of projected thank yous is making me reconsider giving anyone anything.”
She threw her head back on his shoulder, looked up at him, saw the edge of real aversion and anxiety in his lightheartedness and grinned. “No can do.”
His body tensed around her as he scowled. “If you won’t save me, I’ll just courier everyone their stuff.”
She burrowed back deeper into his body, savoring his heat and hardness even through their thermal clothing. “No, you won’t. I’ll make the rounds with you as you give everyone their presents, and you’ll take the gratitude you deserve like a champ.” Before he could protest, she invoked that carte blanche he kept renewing every single day. “I so want to meet everyone who run this impeccable place, who made all the fabulousness of today come to life, who’ll make the undisputable perfection of tomorrow. In short, all those amazing beings who actually live up to your expectations and demands.”
His eyes took that intensely adoring cast she’d gotten addicted to and couldn’t live without. “Anything that pleases you.” Then he mock-shuddered. “Now I must take my anti-thanks medication in preparation.”
She hooted with laughter. “I’ll have a talk with Tonio and Liliana about developing you a vaccine.”
He joined her in laughter, before they both turned to shout and laugh with his brothers and their families. Afterward, they sampled each ride, talked and laughed and played and sang with all their guests, then proceeded to distribute his tons of presents.
And all through, Ivan kept her at his side as if she was as vital to him as his beating heart. As she knew she was. As he was to her. This indescribably incredible, magnanimous man who had unbelievably chosen her to love for the rest of his life.
* * *
At the end of the enchanted day, what everyone said qualified as one of the best days of their lives, excitement and happiness were coursing through Anastasia, making her downright giddy.
But to her consternation, after all the bustle had died down, she felt as if a freezing hand was squeezing her heart.
It was that darkness that had lurked in the back of her mind, that hadn’t been resolved after yesterday’s revelations. That unease that had been coming to her in waves, even among the ocean of rapture of last night and today. It now surged, crested, loomed over her like a tidal wave about to crash.
She’d just entered the bedroom suite with Ivan when it did.
She had no evidence. She just knew. Where that dark unease had come from. And what it signified.
The truth.
What was even worse than her worst nightmares.
She had no idea how she continued interacting with Ivan until he entered the bathroom. Then feeling as if she was walking with her own two feet to the slaughter, she headed toward her parents’ suite.
The moment she entered and found them both sitting there in silence, looking like automatons, the knowledge solidified.
“I felt it, Dad.” Her voice sounded alien in her ears. “When the revelations were being made. Even among the upheaval, I felt it. You know something more about Ivan’s past. You more than know. You had a hand in it.”
Her father looked at her as if he’d sustained multiple stab wounds and was silently bleeding to death.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she rasped. “You’re the one who did this. You’re the one who sent Ivan to hell.”
Her father rose to his feet as if from under rubble, aging before her eyes, looking as if he’d have a stroke.
“It was me.”
The whispered words speared Anastasia in her gut.
Her mother.