Page 29 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)

“You’ll be inside my security sphere, so your daily life will be very different than it is now.”

“Wow.”

“The events we attend will be balls, state dinners with presidents and prime ministers and other royals, and the social season, especially in London. Let’s see, what’s in June?” he mused, head tilted, perusing the ceiling.

Dang, that was cute. Staring at the way he turned his handsome face into the glowing sunlight and the creases in his brow as he pondered creation would be a great way to spend a whole long day.

“Ascot. Wimbledon. Various grand prix,” he said. “The polo finals are next week. We’ll be in the royal enclosures for those.”

All the historical romance books I’d ever read threw scenes of bowing and curtsying and waltzing at me. Ball scenes from The Ridgertons started playing in a fast-forward loop behind my forehead. “Oh, wow.”

“For nearly a year, you’ll have to behave differently than I imagine you’re used to. You’ll have to dress differently, I assume. You’ll be driven to events and have security living with you, twenty-four, seven.”

The logistics staggered me. “I don’t have the right kind of clothes for all that. I don’t have the money for airline tickets to go to these things or to stay in hotels. I’ve never even been on an airplane.”

Nico’s shoulders and his gaze softened. Even his voice was more gentle. “Oh, Lexi.”

Defiance rose up my spine, straightening me. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me. I’m okay. I’m always okay.”

“Lexi, you’ll live with me, in my apartments and homes.”

Apartments and homes? Plural?

“You’ll travel with me, on my planes. You’ll have private showings for designer clothes, which will be tailored for you, and I’ll buy them. And afterwards, you’ll have a settlement, to ease your way back into your more usual life.”

The reality of how Nico’s life— his normal life, anyway—was so different than mine bubbled to the surface. “I don’t know if I can pull that off.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“No, seriously. I?—”

Wait a damned minute.

I was an actress. I’d been acting in school plays and community theater since I was nine. My high school theater teacher had helped me get a scholarship to college so I could study acting, even though I hadn’t managed to go to college because I was engaged to Jimmy.

And Jimmy’s family hadn’t liked that I wanted to act.

With Jimmy’s family’s weird insistence on my conforming to their church’s standards, Jimmy had taken acting and theater and the arts away from me, and I wanted it back.

To quote Shakespeare, and I was pretty sure the quote was from Shakespeare, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and jumped in with both feet. “I’ll do it. I can do it. I’ll pretend to be whatever you want me to for a year. I can act.”

Being hungry and homeless was my other alternative, so yeah, I jumped at the opportunity of having a bed and enough food for a year and some money to help myself get settled.

Maybe, if I played my cards right, he might give me enough money to where I could enroll in college and take out loans for the rest. I just needed a little bit to get me started.

And then again, oh my living God again, someone pounded on the dang door, yelling, “Notary public you asked for, sir!”

Nico glanced at his lap, then stood and went over to open the door. “Come in. The document is around here somewhere.”

I jumped up and grabbed the marriage license from the night before off the nightstand. “Okay! Here we go!”

The woman had brought black ink pens with her.

Nicolai and I produced ID. She glanced at mine and then read Nicolai’s translation document carefully, comparing it to his license, even checking on her phone what an official Swedish driver’s license looked like.

The pink hologram background probably should have convinced her it was genuine, but whatever.

The marriage license had already been signed by the priest and the witness before the ceremony because Nico had insisted on it, and a notary seal had imprinted the paper over those two signatures.

Nicolai carefully signed the document and passed the heavy paper to me.

Here it was.

I was signing a marriage license, a week later than I’d planned and to someone else entirely different than Jimmy Johnson, but okay.

I set the pen to the paper and tried not to shake as I signed the license, the ballpoint scratching on the thick paper as the black ink bled out, and I legally bound myself to Nicolai Petrovich Romanov, whom I’d met yesterday.

I must be out of my mind.

Being modest, helpful, and sweet had gotten me dumped at the altar, so what the heck, really? I might as well try anything else.

Reckless and crazy, here I come.

Because, really, this was a pretend marriage to a guy who wasn’t even going to touch me. He sure as heck wasn’t after my money because I didn’t have any.

Seriously, if he wasn’t the tsar or whatever waffling he’d been doing about how he wasn’t, and if he was a con artist trying to con me, he was in for a real sad surprise.

When I said I had nothing to lose, I meant my car needed gas, and I didn’t have the money for half a tank.

Why wouldn’t I do it?

Nothing mattered.

The notary public crushed the paper with her round seal, congratulated us with wariness in her brown eyes, and left the room with the license to deposit it, closing the door behind herself.

“That’s it,” Nicolai said.

“That’s it,” I agreed, wondering if it was too late to call her back and rip up the paper or something.

“Seems anticlimactic,” he mused.

“Yeah, the wedding ceremony yesterday was better.”

He sighed, hanging his head. “I do wish I could remember it.”

I wished he could, too. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so guilty.

Nico’s dark eyebrows dipped a little. “That’s over with. Come, let’s finish breakfast.” He herded me toward the table without even touching me. “For the settlement to stay with me for a year, how much do you think would be appropriate?”

“Um—” I squeaked.

Holy malony, I hadn’t even negotiated my own salary when I’d worked at Johnson Construction LLC. Jimmy’s dad had told me a number, and I’d signed the contract and gone to work. “Ten—thousand? Dollars?”

He crinkled his eyes again and looked like the strawberry he’d stabbed with his fork was rotten. “Ten thousand? Are you serious?”

Oh, Jesus. I was blowing it. “Five?”

Nico sipped his coffee and then rested his arms on the table, interlacing his fingers.

His fingernails—a thing you don’t notice until they’re right there on a small table in front of you—were clean and trimmed, and his cuticles were in better shape than mine ever were.

His round biceps contracted as he leaned on his elbows because he was still naked but for a towel. “Ask for more.”

“I don’t want to offend you.”

“Ask, for more.”

“Fifteen—thousand?”

The quietness in his posture wasn’t the wind-up before an attack. After living with some of my mom’s ex-boyfriends as a kid, I knew what that looked like.

No, his stillness and lowered shoulders spoke of sadness, like when you’re trying not to scare a skinny, dirty kitten. “Start at twenty million.”

“Dollars?” I yelled a little. I hadn’t meant to yell.

“I’ll talk you down to fifteen, if that will make you feel better. I’m a very good negotiator.”

“I don’t think you are. You could have gotten out of this for five grand.”

Nicolai Petrovich Romanov, the almost-tsar, laughed.

His laugh was easy, and his eyes crinkled as he smiled into it, obviously making fun of me. “Maybe you’re a very good negotiator.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to buy a used car,” I scoffed at him. “They will see you coming a mile away and slap the glittery price tags on the cars’ windshields.”

He nodded. “Probably so. I’ll have my lawyers draw up a discreet contract for twenty-five million dollars for a settlement.”

“Twenty- five? You said you were talking me down to fifteen!”

“And you said I was a terrible negotiator. I guess you’re right.”

“This is weird, Nico. Now I’m beginning to think you’re fooling with me and have an ulterior motive. Maybe you’re not really the sort-of tsar.”

His laugh dwindled, and he checked his phone again. “Sadly, no. What happens next will convince you that I am exactly who I say I am.”

“What do you mean?—”

Multiple fists pounded on the hotel room door like they were beating a spider to death. “Mr. Romanov? Nicolai? Are you in there? Open this door!”

Nico sighed. “And that is my security team. Welcome to my world.”