Page 36 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors (Billionaire Sanctuary: The Heir #1)
Maybe a few times during ski season at school when I’d been racing my friends John and Magnus and Ryan at breakneck speeds down the Alps, and we were cherry-cheeked with the cold and laughter as we roughhoused and stuffed crystalline snow down each other’s collars, racing back to the chalet for hot chocolate.
Maybe.
The SUVs slowed to a stop on the street in front of the Sanctuary club, where I emerged into the desiccating heat of the afternoon sun and held my hand out to Lexi, drawing her through the rear seat and out of the door, steadying her with a grasp on her fingertips.
Ueli and the other security staff twitched every time I lingered to hand her out of the car.
Their job was to make sure each of the principals was safe. Allowing a principal to stand uncovered in public and wait for anything, let alone another principal, was less than optimal in terms of operational security. I already knew I was going to have to battle them over changing the rules.
I couldn’t imagine leaving her alone in the car, turning my back, and walking away.
One of the security staff already had the front door to the club open for us, and we trotted over the much less crowded Las Vegas sidewalk and into the chilly air conditioning of the Billionaire Sanctuary private club.
“So before we met, I kept looking at this place,” Lexi said to me as we broke into the cold air inside the dark lobby. “I stood outside the door, but they wouldn’t let me in.”
“Billionaire Sanctuary is a global network of private clubs,” I told her. “It’s by membership.”
“Oh, like a gym.”
“More like a country club. There’s a vetting process. Keeps things exclusive.”
“Exclusive, huh? Sounds snobby.”
Her boundless skepticism amused my own cynical heart.
“Each club is different.” I searched for euphemisms. “Some of them are quite different.”
She looked up at me and asked a perfectly innocent question. “Like how?”
The answer would not have been so innocent. I didn’t want to coarsen her. “Just different.”
“So they’re not all just like this one?”
“Different décor, different amenities.” Quite different amenities for some. “Most Sanctuary clubs are more like this one, focused on social spaces and residences. They generally have hotel rooms, bars, restaurants, and conference rooms. This one has a rooftop pool and a movie theater.”
“Oh, a pool! I wish I had a bathing suit, then.”
“They have swimsuits at the general store on the second floor. Put a few and anything else you want on my room account.”
She crowded close to my arm. “You don’t have to buy me things.”
I wanted to curl her against my side but didn’t. Too many eyes. “I’m your husband,” I said, trying those words on like a new suit and finding the fit oddly close even before tailoring. “It’s my job.”
“It is not.”
“It is literally my job to provide for you.”
“What is your job?” she asked, her voice perking up with humor.
Ah, whether it was snark or pertness, I liked the fire. “It is not the business of a gentleman to have an occupation.”
She stopped moving as if she had run into a wall built with the bricks of my haughtiness. “Are you serious?”
A chuckle was bubbling up in my chest, her shock an absolute delight. “We don’t work, my sweet. We own.”
She glanced behind us, noting our security detail was within earshot. “And you say things like that right out in the open?”
She had a point. Swaths of my family had been gunned down by communists for owning all of Russia. “We don’t flaunt it quite like we did in the old days.”
Her long perusal was pointed like she’d dragged a sharpened stick from my monthly house-call haircut to the red soles of my Louboutin dress shoes. “Right.”
She was so much fun to needle. I dredged up just a lilt of faux outrage. “I haven’t bought a Fabergé egg in several years. Maybe three.”
Her eyes widened at the corners, and her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding, right?”
The laughter bubbled up. “Oh, my sweet. I don’t own any Fabergé eggs. They’re all in museums or stolen by the Russian mafia and hidden away in their Swiss safe deposit boxes.”
She braced her fists on her hips. “I seriously don’t know when you’re kidding. It looks just like when you say anything else.”
She was seeing my cultivated blankness, which most people didn’t understand when they saw it. They just thought that lack of expression was normal. “Maybe so. As far as the swimsuit is concerned, I can add a clothing allowance into the paperwork if you want guidelines.”
I could hardly wait to see her expression when I highballed that number, too. Playing with her was just too fun.
Lexi strolled at my side, head swiveling as she took in the club’s modern-styled interior.
Time to resume my travelogue. “My admin calls ahead if I’m just dropping by a Sanctuary for social reasons, but I usually reserve one of the residences upstairs when I’m traveling, if there is a private club in the city.
For years, Vegas didn’t have a good one.
Staying private is easier than in hotels for the security sweeps, if only for the staff background checks. Plus, I know the owner.”
And she would, too, later that night at John’s blowout bachelor party where she would meet many of my friends. It would be a test of their loyalty as much as a gantlet for her to run.
“That makes sense, I s’pose,” she said.
“Plus the privacy. I never have to worry about indiscreet photos from the club showing up on the internet.”
“Yeah, you do that all on your own.”
Her voice held mirth, and my mortification about our wedding livestream video’s exposure drifted lower like a falling leaf. If eloping was out of character for me, publicly livestreaming anything was a giant leap beyond that. “True, and the exclusivity keeps out the riffraff.”
“Like me,” Lexi said.
I squeezed her hand. “Never you.”
However, speaking of riffraff, my brother stood at the entrance to the bar. It was the first time I’d seen him since I’d tossed back Volkov’s vodka shots and drunkenly stumbled out of the club and onto the street.
Kostya’s arms were crossed over his chest, and he swayed slightly in the bar’s doorway, the atmosphere of the windowless bar behind him dusky even though it was not yet noon.
His eyes were an alcoholic blue flame. “Nicolai, introduce me to your wife.”