“What is it?”
It was the Russian man. I heard his footsteps and then he appeared at Lucien’s elbow, a glass balanced in his fingers. He was broad, a little larger than Lucien, and he wore a fine, tweed vest, a white shirt, and trousers. His face was all angles, high cheekbones, a straight nose that jutted out over a thin mouth. His hair was a dusky brown and his lashes and brows were so light I could barely make them out. The eyes that fell on me were a striking shade of bright blue and they glittered with amusement.
“Who is this?” he said.
“Believe it or not, that is my fiancée,” Lucien said, sighing.
I got to my feet and back up against the railing. “I’m sorry, I came down for some water. I’ll go back.”
“Olivia Barone, isn’t it?” the Russian said.
He stepped gracefully from the doorway and held out his hand, palm up. I hesitated and then laid my fingers in his and he brushed his lips across them.
“Viktor Anatole, godfather of the Bratva,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”
What was the head of the Russian mafia doing in Lucien’s house? I glanced at my husband and a quick shiver went up my spine. It seemed there was more to him than I’d realized.
“A pleasure to meet you,” I echoed nervously.
“You are a lovely woman.”
“Thank you, sir.”
If it had come from anyone else, I would have felt uncomfortable. But Viktor had a strong, almost paternal demeanor that put me at ease. I blushed and couldn’t keep my face from breaking into a small smile.
“Olivia, go upstairs now.”
Lucien’s voice was quiet, almost deadly. I backed up, my throat going dry, and nodded. Without looking back, I scrambled up the stairs and fled down the hall to my room.
Once there, I curled up beneath the thick coverlet and lay with my heart pounding in my ears. Would Lucien finally snap and release some of the anger I just knew was brewing behind his expressionless face? I closed my eyes, dreading whatever would happen when morning came and listened to the distant rumble of voices below me.
I woke at some point in the night to the faint smell of cigarette smoke. Heart pounding, I sat up and looked around. The bathroom light was on, falling across the floor and illuminating the room in a dusky glow. Directly opposite the bed was the chair from the desk and in the chair sat Lucien.
My stomach flipped and I bit down hard on my tongue. He still wore his dark dress shirt and pants, but they were disheveled and a bit of his hair fell over his forehead. There was a lit cigarette hanging from his fingers, the tip glowing cherry red in the dim light. I could make out his eyes, hard and icy cold, beneath lowered brows.
“Curiosity will kill the pussy cat, Olivia,” he drawled, his voice a little slurred. “Or whatever the saying goes.”
Something about hearing the word pussy come out of Lucien’s heartless face roused a dull ache despite the hammering of my heart. I sat up a little further and leaned forward on my knees to peer through the darkness at him. He blinked slowly and his jaw worked.
“Have you been thinking about it?” he said.
He was drunk. A ripple of shock went through me at the realization. Letting go of control was so unlike him that it hadn’t occurred to me it was possible for him to get drunk.
“You’ve been drinking,” I whispered, drawing back against the headboard.
“You are correct.” He pointed at me with the cigarette before looking up at the ceiling and putting it to his lips. His throat was bared to me, broad with a rivulet of sweat running down to the space between his collarbones.
“You should probably go back to your room,” I whispered. Seeing him like this frightened me.
“No,” he said. “And I asked you a question. Have you been thinking about our wedding night?”
My throat went dry. “Yes.”
He cocked his head. “What do you think about?”
“The same things I was before. I wonder how we’re supposed to have sex when we barely know each other.”
He laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Sex is fucking easy. Fucking is easy. It’s everything else that’s goddamn hard.”