Page 27 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)

“I’m in. I’ll do it. We can talk about the terms or whatever, but I accept. Right now.” Before he wised up and changed his mind.

Nico wasn’t drunk anymore. I didn’t have any scruples about taking an entirely sober man up on an offer, however dumb of him it was.

“That’s refreshing. Making a deal usually requires negotiation.” He leaned backward, his stacked-brick abdominals stretching under his skin that I watched with way too much ogling, to a small desk where he snagged a landline phone. “We need a notary public to witness a document signing.”

Squeaks issued from the phone’s receiver as he hung it up.

“How much money are we talking about here?” I asked him.

He steepled his fingers together. “You need to know one more thing. The reason I sought to get married so quickly last night is that there is a Russian mafia boss who wants me to marry his daughter. I can’t be forced to marry her if I’m already married to someone else.”

Arranged weddings? How seventeen-hundreds. “Oh, that’s what you were talking about. I thought you’d knocked someone up.”

“I’ve never met her.”

“You could just tell him no.”

Nicolai ate his breakfast with impeccable manners, precisely forking food into his mouth while he sat ramrod straight in his chair.

Absolutely nothing dripped. “Demyan Volkov wants access to my social and business networks because he wrongly believes a mere familial relation would facilitate that. I believe my uncle has been offered a tidy sum to convince me to go through with it. They got me drunk last night and tried to coerce me.”

“Just say no to booze, buddy,” I suggested.

He scoffed. “It’s impolite to refuse a drink from a Russian. Anyway, already being married to you would take me off the proverbial marriage market and thus solve my problem.”

I tried not to visually molest him and probably failed miserably. “Yeah, you must be quite an eligible bachelor.”

His next remark was mortifying in its offhandedness. “The gossip column of The London Weekly Chat certainly thought so. I was number four on their list of the world’s most eligible bachelors.”

Oh, wow. “In the whole world?”

He smirked. “In the opinion of an absolute rag of a newspaper, which can only be taken at face value.”

Yeah, part of their criteria had probably been his face’s value, with cheekbones and a jawline as sharp as my daddy issues. “So someone saw your listing and thought they’d buy themselves a rich, pretty husband.”

“A rich, connected husband. Now, let us negotiate our settlement. Eat.” He gestured with his fork. “You’ve hardly touched your food.”

The fruit and yogurt on my breakfast plate looked astonishingly healthy after the convenience store cracker-based crap and greasy fast food I’d been surviving on.

Vitamins and fiber might send my system into shock.

“I don’t know what the going rate is for a year of wifing these days. What do you want me to do?”

“We’re at the beginning of the social season. I’ll need platonic companionship at perhaps twenty events over the next few months.”

“Platonic companionship?” He wasn’t even going to try to get me into bed?

I was both insulted and disappointed in everything Jimmy’s church had sermoned at me for the past six years about the carnal instincts of men and my responsibility to be so modest that I wouldn’t arouse their predatory nature.

Nico looked up at me, a strawberry speared on his fork. “Contractually, yes. We must keep it platonic.”

Oh, that was firm.

My soul shriveled.

But yeah, why would a shockingly gorgeous man like Nico, who was ripped and stacked, with a face like fine art, wealthy enough to hang out with royal people at private clubs, why would a man like that even want to sully his dick with a homeless loser nobody like me?

The only reason he’d noticed me yesterday was because he’d been grossly drunk.

My voice caught in my throat, coming out small. “Oh, I see.”

“Lexi?”

I dumped raspberries onto my yogurt and stirred it. The berries mashed into purple-red paste.

His voice was lower. “Lexi, look at me.”

I glanced up to where he was staring at me but went right back to the raspberries drowning in thick yogurt. “Dude, it’s fine.”

“Lexi, eyes on me.”

I, um ? —

Well—

I looked up at him.

His eyes watched me steadily, not a predatory gaze, and his calm expression kind if a little firm. “That’s my girl. I’m compensating you for your time and good will, and that’s all.”

“Yeah, got it. You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“Lack of consummation is grounds for an annulment, and I need an annulment, not merely a divorce.”

My eyes stung like sand was blowing in my face. Neither Nico nor Jimmy nor anyone else would ever want me. I got it. “Yeah, okay. You’re not attracted to me. Message received.”

His gaze was so steady that I didn’t even see him blink. “Is that what you think?”

“You were wasted last night when you picked me out of that crowd. Actually, I was standing on a suitcase, sticking up out of the crowd, so you didn’t even pick me out of it. You saw the dress. Really, you proposed to a white dress, not me.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“I was wearing mime make-up. It’s not my best look.”

“Granted, but that’s not what I saw. I saw huge dark eyes that looked right through me.”

“You were literally blind drunk.”

“Dead drunk. I wasn’t blind, and I’m not drunk now.”

I eyed his steady hands and level gaze. “Probably not.”

“I remember a few things from last night. I saw you for the first time on my way into the club, and you stuck in my mind.”

“The white pancake makeup is what does it for you, huh?”

“Maybe it was the vodka talking or maybe the alcohol liberated something primal but know this: You are a beautiful woman with absolutely amazing eyes and a body that has tempted me every moment since I met you. Those curves. If I had one ounce less self-control, I would swing you up in my arms, carry you to that bed, and kiss you until you were pliant to absolutely anything I wanted.”

Wow, I’d just wanted a wink or maybe a little flirting.

I could barely breathe from the air rushing too fast in my chest, and the folds between my legs felt funny. Puffy. “It didn’t seem like you wanted that last night.”

He looked away and flipped his hand in the air, dismissing the previous night.

“I was tired and emotional last night. This year will be torture, married in name only to an absolutely beautiful woman whom I can’t touch, the ultimate forbidden fruit, or else the annulment that I need won’t be possible. ”

My breath fluttered right below my throat, above my vibrating heart.

He finally blinked like he’d been released from a spell and shrugged. “Although I’m not sure how the ecclesiastical court would know we hadn’t had relations, other than our word for it.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I said, shaking my head because my eyes were jittering. The hotel room quivered like we were in an earthquake, and his dizzying words were echoing in my mind. “A doctor could confirm it. I’m a virgin.”

Nico half-stood, banging his knees under the table, rattling the plates and clanging the silverware. “I beg your pardon?”

Oh, now I was embarrassed, and I resumed studying the fruit capsizing into my yogurt even though I was panting and dizzy. “It’s not weird.”

His furtive glance at the rumpled bed made me feel even worse.

Defending my lack of boinking seemed ridiculous. “Look, I had a boyfriend since my sophomore year of high school, but he went away to college and thought we should wait until we got married because his family is religious. So, we just waited. It’s not weird.”

“I didn’t say it was odd,” he said, sitting in his chair again and staring at his breakfast. He crossed his leg away from me and muttered something that ended with, “—interesting.” He looked up. “Do you still have a boyfriend?”

“He’s not in the picture. As a matter of fact, he’s very out of the picture.”

“I should have asked that earlier.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m single. Or I was, until I married you.”

Knocking pounded at the door again. A muffled voice yelled, “Room service! Again!”

“What, did those wankers forget something?” Nico tugged his towel over his knee and shifted in his seat, crossing his legs and showing me some strong thigh that I looked away from. “Would you mind opening the door for them? I don’t seem to be in a state to do so.”

For as energetic as Nico had seemed earlier, he seemed subdued.

“Um, sure? You okay? Is it the hangover, or are you dizzy or something?”

More knocking.

“I’m fine.” His hands were clenched into red-knuckled fists, and his mouth was set in a grim line. “Please, if you would, the door.”

I padded over to the door and let another room service guy wheel yet another cart in.

This one had a small silver machine on it with coffee cups, pods, and a pitcher of cream.

The waiter announced, “Mr. Romanov, we again apologize for our lack of understanding. Here is the espresso machine and heavy cream that you generally prefer, plus the bowl of your preferred apples. If there is anything, absolutely anything, that we can do to make your stay in this unusual circumstance more comfortable, please call housekeeping and we’ll bring it immediately. ”

“Get a notary public up here,” Nicolai snapped without even turning to look at him.

“Yes, sir!” The guy bowed as he backed out of the room.

He bowed again and again, bobbing, like a flapping hinge.

The hotel staff had been attentive bordering on obsequiousness ever since Nico had identified himself on the phone.

I slammed the door and marched back over to Nicolai. “What are you not telling me?”