Page 58 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors

I was an idiot.

That had been a stupid,stupidmove on my part.

Vodka was not my friend.

I flipped the location services switch to green, knowing that I would have only an hour or so before my security team showed up.

After rectifying that, I watched the videos from the previous night, scrutinizing them like the events had happened to some other poor sod, one who did appear not to be drunk off his ass much at all.

Really, high school had beenquitean education. I should thank Le Rosey boarding school for my cast-iron liver and an uncanny ability to act sober while wasted.

I watched a drunk who greatly resembled me marry a beautiful woman with a sarcastic tilt to her mouth, but I saw that drunk’s earnest tone and dead-straight gaze as the priest settled gold crowns on our heads and chanted over usin Russian.

Yes, definitelyin Russian.

My heart was in my throat.

My eyes had been bleary with drink, yes, but my body language had been focused on Lexi like a lens concentrating a laser. My breath had caught in my chest as I’d clutched her fingers, holding the backs of her hands to my chest as my eyes had searched hers, needing a reflection of the yearning slamming through me.

Snatches of memory flirted with recognition, moments of the emotions that had filled my chest, tides of peace and desire that had soothed and captured me.

My neutral mask had been nowhere to be found last night.

My heart hadn’t merely been on my sleeve, but in her hands.

And I couldn’t remember it.

Had it been real? Had the pretense of emotion vaporized in the sunlight?

I couldn’t remember.

The priest recited Lexi’s full name during the ceremony as he joined us in everlasting holy matrimony.

The gray-bearded man had a strong Russian accent when he said her name, so strong that I almost,almostdidn’t parse what her full name actually was.

And thenI did understand.

Lexi was anickname.

Oh, no. Surely, I’d heardwrong.

I looked up at her from where I was sitting.“Whatdid he say yourfullname was?”

“Alexandra.” Her voice did not hold a hint of guile. “Alexandra Byrne.”

“Lexi is short forAlexandra?”

“Yeah. A-lex-andra.Lex-i.I came up with the nickname in high school.”

We were Nicolai and Alexandra Romanov.

I did not believe in fate. I was not superstitious.

And I needed to keep reminding myself of that because if omens did exist, if prophecy did breach time and space,this was very very bad.

The last Nicolai and Alexandra Romanov had ended the reign of the tsars in Russia.

Shivery sensations like electric spiders raced in my spine.