The stewardess brought out a tray loaded with eggs, toast, espresso, and a single mimosa in a crystal glass. I tasted the mimosa and looked over at Lucien who was tearing bacon apart with his fingers between sips of his espresso. The cup looked ridiculously tiny in his large hands.
“You don’t want a drink?” I asked.
He glanced up. “I need to be alert. You don’t have to be, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of until we arrive.”
I obeyed, settling back in my seat. The constant tightness in my chest that had plagued me for the last six months was gone. I was wedded and bedded and free of my family at last. Perhaps it was my newfound freedom, but my mind didn’t rebel at the idea of eating so I filled my stomach with eggs and toast. Perhaps I was finally beginning to realize I was rid of my parents once and for all.
The mimosa made me incredibly sleepy and the last thing I remembered was Lucien adjusting my seat so I could lie down. Then warm darkness enveloped me and I slept.
Chapter Eleven
Lucien
I felt a little guilty about giving her a sleeping pill, but it was the easiest way to make sure she stayed ignorant. And ignorance meant safety. Viktor had only shared the location of his house with me and made me sign a binding contract that I wouldn’t disclose it to anyone else. So I put a pill in her mimosa and she slept hard for the next ten hours.
Viktor had sent a car with darkened windows and an eerily silent driver to pick us up at the airport. I found a thick blanket in the backseat and wrapped it around my wife, keeping her close on the drive. The Anatole House rose in the distance as we drove through the dark, snowy, Russian landscape. It was situated at the edge of town, surrounded by a large, manicured lawn and garden and acres of woodland.
I stretched out in the back seat and laid my wife on her back beside me, letting her head rest on my thigh so I could adjust the blanket around her shoulders. Her mouth twitched and she moaned softly in her sleep. Heat stirring in my groin, I watched her breasts rise and fall in gentle movements, my mind awash with images from our wedding night.
The car slowed and I heard the scraping of iron gates drawing back and felt the road change as we pulled up a driveway. Then we came to a halt and the driver came around the side of the car and opened our door, a shock of frozen air hitting my face.
I was aware of the size and opulence of the Anatole house, but seeing it in person gave me pause. It was truly enormous, towering high above like an ivory palace, like something built for a Victorian king. At least four stories high, it had hundreds of windows and two rows of balconies carved with ivory railings. The front entrance was made up of three large glass doors that were hung with silver wreaths. I’d been so wrapped up in my wedding and my consuming desire to kill Romano, I’d forgotten next week was Christmas.
I’d never liked holidays. Usually my father got drunk early in the day and left the house to fuck his mistress while my mother forced a smile and pretended everything was alright. Dinner would be tense, my mother sitting stiffly at one end of the table, probably hoping my father wouldn’t hit her in a drunken rage after Duran and I were sleeping.
I wouldn’t allow that to happen in my home. I might not be wildly in love with her, but Olivia would never know fear or sadness the way my mother had. No, she deserved more than that. I would give her everything, make her a queen over the outfit. And our children would love us, not fear us the way Duran and I had feared our father.
“Mr. Anatole is waiting to welcome you,” the driver said.
I stepped from the car with Olivia in my arms, still wrapped in the blanket. The snow crunched under my feet and my breath hung in the air, the cold so intense it seized my lungs. The lights were on inside, golden and warm, and as I drew near, a housekeeper opened the door and dipped her head as we stepped into the front hallway.
“Lucien.”
Viktor stood at the far end of the hall in a dark gray suit with a glass of brandy in one hand. He moved softly down the long hall, a Bratva king in his glittering castle, and halted before me. His brows moved in a hint of concern as he leaned forward to see who it was I held, wrapped in a blanket, in my arms.
“Your wife is sleeping?”
“I gave her something so she wouldn’t see where we were going,” I said.
“Probably best,” Viktor said. “My housekeeper has your room ready. You may bring her upstairs and then, if you would like, join me for a glass of something in the living room.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
The housekeeper led me upstairs, pushing our bags in a cart. The house was enormous, even larger than mine, and the amount of rooms and doors we passed as we made our way to the second floor was dizzying. We stopped at the far end of the hall and the housekeeper pushed open the door to the last bedroom and stepped aside.
“Komnata Zvezdnogo sveta,” she said softly. “The room of starlight. Mr. Anatole has had it cleaned and prepared for you. He thinks you will enjoy it because of the beautiful view of the garden. And of the sky. You will see when it is the day.”
“Thank you,” I said, carrying Olivia’s limp body over the threshold.
When the housekeeper had unloaded our bags and left us alone, I laid Olivia on the bed and took a moment to look around. There was a lamp on low and it cast a pale light over the vast room. The carpet was deep blue and so thick my shoes sank into it almost an inch and the walls were a pure white. Overhead, the ceiling was a half-dome, with heavy, dark wood beams. It was the far wall, as long as the hallway in my house, that made me understand why this was called the Starlight Room. The entire length was glass and below us stretched the shadowy garden and above us was a sea of stars so thick and bright they seemed unreal.
This was a strange and beautiful world. Not the kind of world brutal men like Viktor and I had any right to occupy. I looked down and saw my wife laid out on the bed, her face relaxed in sleep. This was the perfect place for her—safe, beautiful, and almost magical.
I undressed her gently, tucking her naked beneath the thick comforter, and left the room.
It was strange walking through the dark house. The hallway that cut through the first floor was lined with paintings, all probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The floor was a deep blue rug over polished, dark oak that caught the faint light of the chandeliers hanging overhead. The house was different than what I was used to—there was an older, more cultured feel to it that I liked.
I found Viktor in the enormous living room. A fire burned in the vast fireplace below a large painting of the Russian countryside and several mounted deer heads. There were three couches in a square and to my right was a full bar, the polished wood and dozens of glasses glittering in the low light. Viktor leaned against the bar, his brandy rested in his palm.