Page 14 of A Love Most Brutal (Morelli Family #2)

MARY

After two hours of wedding reception festivities, I thought I might actually start shooting people if I had to receive more kisses on my cheeks from clan members and fake smiles from Maxim’s people.

Willa, sensing my growing agitation from too much attention, rescued my new husband and me and ushered us to the long family table to eat some of the catered meal.

This, at least, was ludicrously delicious.

But the peace only lasted so long before a new batch of people decided I needed to be kissed on both cheeks while trying to enjoy my meal. Then the song and dance of everything else.

Now, all that’s left is eating dessert and dancing before we can make our escape.

That cannot come soon enough.

After our first dance bled into a second surrounded by our families and guests, I lied saying that I had to go to the bathroom and escaped into the back hallway, where I’ve been standing, my back against the wall for the last seven minutes.

The hallway is much quieter, just the sounds of the kitchen staff behind the heavy doors and the live band from the reception hall but dulled enough that I don’t feel so overwhelmed by everything.

I can’t hide out here forever, I know, and I won’t. Just another minute to myself. The ceremony itself was a whirlwind, and my lips remember the searing touch of Maxim’s lips on mine. I’ve suspected that beneath his steady exterior is something less steady. A devouring sort of beast.

Now I know I was right.

I’m steeling myself to go back inside when someone turns the corner, bumping directly into me, then steadying me with a hand on my shoulder. I brush it off without thinking, and when I look to see who I’ve collided with, it’s a man I vaguely recognize.

“Forgive me,” he says, and I squint at him. He’s an Orlov, I know, but I can’t exactly put my thumb on which one.

“Beautiful ceremony, by the way. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I say, and am about to walk past him, effectively ending the conversation when he goes on.

“You know, I was starting to think nobody would be able to put up with that mean cousin of mine. But then came you, the meanest person in Boston.”

Cousin rings a bell, and I remember in an instant who he is: Nikolai Orlov. He’s younger than Maxim, but still older than me—maybe thirty. He’s as tall as Nate, though much shorter than my now husband. Tall-ish. And less broad, almost willowy in comparison to Maxim.

“He’s not so mean once you know him,” I say. I don’t deny my own asserted meanness.

“Yes, well, that’s always been his problem.

He could serve to be meaner.” He winks and smiles like it’s a fun joke for us to share.

He’s calling out weaknesses of my own husband at his very wedding, and to his bride no less.

I tilt my head and step closer, about to put him in his place when his eyes go over my shoulder and his smile widens.

“Marianna,” someone says from behind me, and I know without looking it’s Maxim. No one calls me that but him, for one, and his presence in any room is tangible. His hand settles on my lower back as he stands beside me, and now we are two against his cousin’s snake-like one.

“I was just meeting your cousin,” I say, though my voice lacks the warmth my sister would say it should for an introduction.

“Ah. Nikolai, this is my wife.”

“A pleasure, Marianna .”

“Mary,” Maxim and I correct in unison. I note that even Maxim knows that my full name is for next to no one.

There’s something serious in Maxim’s stare at Nikolai, a warning.

“Well, Mary. I’d love to show you around sometime.”

“I know Boston,” I say. Maxim’s hand slides from my back to my hip, pulling me lightly to his side, which is warm against my bare arm.

“Yes, but the Orlov’s Boston, I think you’ll find, is a touch more exciting than the one you know.”

I don’t dignify this with a response, nor do I shake the hand he holds out for me. I cross my arms over my chest until he drops it back to his side.

Nikolai mutters what I assume to be his congratulations in Russian before excusing himself to return to the festivities.

“So that’s the snake,” I say as soon as it’s just the two of us in the hall. Maxim sighs and his hand on my waist relaxes before falling away from me entirely.

“Nikolai wants nothing more than for me to die an early death without an heir,” Maxim says, his lips set into a strong line.

“And you don’t kill him?” I ask as quietly as I can. A waiter with a tray of glasses emerges from the kitchen door and brushes past us.

Maxim nods to the big main room, where I return with him.

Though there are more people here, it’s louder, harder to overhear sensitive conversations.

I watch his throat bob in a swallow before he gathers me closer to him.

I’m sure we look more like a happy couple sharing a private moment in the midst of the chaos of their wedding than me demanding why he lets a man live.

“It’s not so simple. His father was my uncle, and he and my father were close. They ran the Orlov empire together.”

“So he was a piece of shit too, then,” I say, and Maxim’s mouth tilts up in a lopsided smirk.

“Yes. The apple doesn’t fall far for Nikolai. He believes not all of my changes were for the benefit of the family.”

“Sounds like Cillian,” I muse, my blood heating at the memory of his betrayal. After so many years playing the part of a member of the family, he was just waiting for his moment to attack.

“I could kill him for you. Wedding present,” I say, and I do mean it. I feel indebted and grateful to Maxim for marrying a volatile woman who has claimed she can never love him, even if he’s just in need of this arrangement as I am.

To our left, a flash goes off, the photographer buzzing around us and the party. Maxim brings his mouth very close to my ear, close enough to feel his breath on my skin.

“He doesn’t work alone. I need to understand the threat fully before I can remove it.”

He drops a featherlight kiss on my cheek then pulls away, that familiar diplomatic smile on his face.

He didn’t mean it as a slight, I am certain, but I feel a burn of embarrassment despite myself. Too hot headed, too impulsive, too quick to react. He’s strategic, where my impulse is to deftly dispose of any problems we might have before the threat can balloon to something bigger.

“I might prefer a watch,” he says. “For a wedding present.”

The flash goes off again as we smile at each other. “To each their own, I guess.”

By the end of the night my face is long past sore from smiling so much and is, instead, numb. When I let my face rest at any point, Willa was behind me, appearing from thin air, to tell me to not look so evil.

I did my best.

I’m not used to having so much attention on me—in fact, it’s most ideal if the attention is on anyone else. Vanessa and Willa, for instance, are incredibly good at being in the spotlight. My father was also very good at this.

I was not. I suppose it’s why they called me Shadow when he was alive.

At least during the ceremony, no one was drunk enough to ask incessant, prying questions about my fast and passionate love affair with Maxim while offering their sincerest congratulations.

I saw through them, though. They are all shocked out of their minds that I could be with someone, that someone would want to marry me .

Whatever. I’m likable. And hot. And frequently pleasant.

I told Maxim a list of shortcomings in December, and he still said “I do” today.

After the ceremony, everyone stood up and Maxim’s side of the crowd yelled something in Russian that made me wish I’d spent literally any time on Duolingo in the last three months.

He has never once made me feel like a child, but after enough pointed comments from nosy busy bodies about my age today, I wonder if he feels like I am.

Like twenty-six isn’t old enough to be a full adult.

My favorite thing of the day, by far, was the cake; chocolate with blackberry jam and little pears cut on top. I don’t know what strings Willa had to pull to get such fresh-tasting fruit in the middle of March, but I would trust her with anything.

I yawn into my fist then roll my shoulders back. Maxim, seeing this, bows his head close to my ear.

“It’s time,” he says. “We’ve done enough.”

I offer one last sweet-ish smile. I can feel a dozen eyes in the room on us, as they’ve been all night, so I lean forward and press my lips against Maxim’s, forcing myself not to overthink it.

It’s just a kiss between a husband and wife who do not love each other. In fact, we hardly know each other.

I am a great kisser. I know this. For some reason, though, kissing Maxim makes me very certain that I’ve never actually kissed someone correctly and we’ve all just been pretending.

Maxim nods at the DJ, giving the signal to wrap it up, and the man does so with ease, cutting off the Black Eyed Peas song early to usher people to where they should start gathering for our send-off in fifteen minutes.

This is our cue, and Maxim follows behind me out of the hall until we’re back in the bridal suite upstairs, now vacant of all the light that poured through the windows earlier.

Maxim shrugs off his suit coat and undoes his black tie, leaving him only in his black shirt, now unbuttoned at the collar slightly. The effect is devastating.

Maxim Orlov is exceptionally handsome.

I clear my throat and he looks over at me, still standing in my puffy white gown. I point behind me with my thumb.

“Tiny buttons,” I explain.

Willa or Vanessa would’ve come in to help me out of my dress, but Vanessa is stuck in conversations with some of the old heads, and Willa is resting her heavily swollen ankles. I wouldn’t dare disrupt that, she might go into labor.

This leaves my options to cutting the expensive gown off of my body (Willa would murder me) or ask my newly wedded for help.

Maxim holds his breath as he processes the request. I think he might say no when he nods and closes the distance between us in two strides.

Now standing very close to me, he has to crouch to reach the buttons that start halfway down my back, and I watch his face in the mirror while he works.

He’s focused on his task, his attention entirely on the row of three million buttons as his big fingers work over them.

“Why haven’t you been married before?” I can’t help but ask. “You were engaged, right?”

His hands pause on their work, just the briefest hesitation before they resume.

“When my father was alive, he wanted me to be married. Bothered me incessantly about it. But I didn’t want to subject anyone to him.” His eyes remain fastidiously on my dress, but I watch his fingers work through the reflection. “He was horrible to everyone, and worse to family.”

My eyebrows furrow of their own accord. I am no stranger to vile men, but family has always been the safest of places for me. I forget that this is a privilege.

“He was weak,” I say, then mentally kick myself for overstepping. Any tension I expect from Maxim though isn’t to be found as his shoulders shake with a slight laugh.

“He was,” he agrees, then undoes the last button before pulling down the hidden zipper beneath it.

I immediately let out a huge breath and release my rigid posture. The dress fit my figure perfectly, but had an unyielding bodice.

“After he died, I was engaged to someone named Katerina who decided she wanted to marry someone else,” he says simply.

“She cheated on you?” I shrug the thin sleeves off my shoulders and arms, pulling the gown down my body so I can step out of it completely. Maxim steps away and when I look up to him, he’s averted his gaze from me.

A gentleman.

Belatedly, I realize I should maybe be nervous that he’s seeing me in just my thin white slip. Modesty, though, has never been a strong suit of mine.

“Emotionally, perhaps. I do hope she’s happy.”

“How generous of you.” I step past him for the hanging rack where a deep red dress hangs on a wooden hanger. It’s got short, flouncy sleeves and a very loose skirt.

Willa didn’t let me have a red gown, but agreed that it was appropriate for a send-off. It’s not my usual dark jewel tones, but it feels less foreign than the bright white did.

I step out of my long slip, turning my back to Maxim since he apparently really does not want to see my boobs.

I pull the red dress off the hanger only to find a different, much sexier slip hanging beneath the dress.

It’s white and satin with a built-in lacy bra that has a blood red bow in the middle.

My meddling sisters have planted slutty lingerie to ensure that I seduce my business deal husband?

“Your dad died a long time ago, though. Why’d you wait so long?” I ask after I shimmy into the lingerie and step into the red dress. I step in front of him again, now bare foot and even shorter. “Zip.”

He does as he’s told, his fingers deftly pulling the fabric together and tugging the zipper up. “Are you calling me old?”

“Sure, practically geriatric,” I say, and he laughs.

“Pretty dress,” he says instead of answering the question.

I love the dress, it’s leagues more comfortable than the last one, the cool silk swishing against my thighs, and I look, objectively, very beautiful in it. The gold necklace hanging on my chest compliments the low, cupped neckline.

“It is,” I agree.

A knock on the door stops any more polite conversation we might make, and it’s Nate peeking around the door.

“Hello, happy couple,” he sing-songs as he walks in. “You kids ready?”

I look to Maxim, who looks back at me. He offers a tight-lipped smile and a nod, and I follow suit.