Page 22 of Crimson

“Oh,” Nadia said. She would have liked to have heard it, but it seemed too presumptuous to ask him to open the case.

She had already surmised that she must be looking at a Markov. His air of confidence and comfort made it all too apparent that she was standing in his house.

So she only nodded when he put out his hand and said, “I’m Nikolai Markov.”

She took his hand, wondering for a moment if she should give him a fake name. But she’d never been any good at lying, especially not on short notice.

“Nadia Turgenev,” she admitted.

“Nadia Lebedev, I hear,” he said, giving her that wicked smile.

She blushed all the deeper. She was probably the color of that egg.

“Yes,” she said quietly.

“Don’t worry,” Nikolai said, “I won’t hold it against you.”

That gave Nadia a little flare of spirit.

“Well, I might hold it against you,” she said, looking up at him. “We’ll see how you behave.”

Nikolai laughed.

He had not let go of her hand. His was so much larger that her fingers had quite disappeared, but Nadia pulled them back, taking another prim step away from him. She might be annoyed with Maxim, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to flirt with a charming stranger in a side room of the party. Even if that’s what Maxim was doing himself at the moment.

“Sorry for crashing your party,” Nadia said. “My fiancé thought we were invited, through his cousin.”

Nikolai laughed again.

“Your fiancé,” he said, softly. “And where is the lucky man?”

“Here, actually,” Maxim said, in a sulky tone. He came hurrying up to Nadia and Nikolai, looking annoyed and red in the face. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he muttered to Nadia.

Only once you got bored with whatever else you were doing,Nadia thought.

But she only smiled and said, “Well, here I am now.”

“Nikolai Markov,” Nikolai said again, shaking Maxim’s hand this time. Nadia noticed he exerted a great deal more pressure than he’d done to her, so much so that Maxim winced and jerked his hand back.

Maxim suffered a little by comparison, standing next to Nikolai. His features, which usually seemed quite handsome, looked softer and puffier next to Nikolai’s lean face. Maxim looked like a boy standing next to a full-grown man.

Maxim seemed to notice the same thing, because he grabbed Nadia by the arm and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Maxim!” Nadia said. “You’re being rude.”

He jerked her arm a little harder, and Nikolai took a swift step forward, grabbing Maxim by the shoulder.

“Let go of her,” Nikolai growled, his voice low and furious.

“What are you talking about?” Maxim scoffed. “This is my fiancée. And I’m taking her home.”

Nikolai did not let go of Maxim’s shoulder. Since Maxim was still pinching Nadia’s arm, they formed a strange train of people, with a stern looking Nikolai at the head and Nadia a very nervous caboose.

Nikolai sniffed the air by Maxim’s face. Maxim drew back, startled and offended.

“You’re too drunk to drive,” Nikolai said.

“I am not!” Maxim said, but his protests were undercut by the way he stumbled when Nikolai released his shoulder from his grip.