Page 23

O livia

T here’s a sign not ten feet from me declaring the grass in this park off limits, but I don’t give a single shit.

This is where I want to eat my picnic and if someone wants to arrest me for it, good luck to them because I am not in the mood to go quietly.

I’ve been here for thirty minutes so far, soaking up the sun and enjoying my charcuterie.

Nobody has challenged me. With Jimmy, Marko, and Vlad standing guard, they wouldn’t dare.

As I’m relishing my third slice of thick-cut garlic sausage, I spot a familiar figure striding along the path toward me.

There’s no need to ask myself how Piotr found me.

I’ve sent him regular updates on my activities throughout the morning, and I’m sure he can track the Range Rover Vlad has been driving us about in.

I can’t help noticing he’s changed his clothes.

At breakfast he wore his signature black pants and black shirt, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. Now he’s in jeans, still black of course, and a white t-shirt.

Dark sunglasses shield his eyes from the glaring brightness.

Damn, he looks hot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him dressed so casually.

I tense as he steps over the short metal fence blocking off the grassy area and comes toward me. Shit. I’ve eaten a ton of strong-smelling food. My breath is going to stink. I hold my hand in front of my mouth and breathe out. Yuck! It’s a good thing I wasn’t planning to kiss him, I suppose.

“Can you not read French?” Piotr asks as he walks up to me.

“I know what interdit means.” I flick my hair back over my shoulder. “But I chose to ignore it.”

He snorts in what I think is amusement as he hovers over me. I don’t get up, even though I feel incredibly small and vulnerable right now.

“What are you doing here?” I ask as he sinks to the ground with irritating grace and stretches his legs out on my picnic blanket.

“Thought I’d give the husband thing a go, since it means so much to you.”

“Don’t do me any favors,” I mutter.

I pick up the wooden knife the deli supplied me with and aggressively smear brie on a beetroot cracker. I pop it in my mouth and experience instant regret. That is not a combination I enjoy. I swallow it anyway because I’m damned if I’m spitting food out in front of Piotr.

“It’s not a favor.” Piotr steals one of my grapes and eats it. “My wife deserves some of my time and I want to give it to her.”

“And that makes you think you deserve to share my lunch?” I ask as he helps himself to some of the incredible ham from the platter.

Having grown up with five brothers, I’m a bit territorial with food and there’s only enough here for one person.

I wasn’t expecting him, and my bodyguards ate cheeseburgers in the car like a bunch of heathens before we hit the deli.

I swear, if Piotr tries to eat my chocolate éclair, I’ll ram this wooden knife through his heart.

He sticks out his bottom lip in a futile attempt to look sad. “You wouldn’t want me to starve.”

“No, that would be a terrible way to die.” I grin as wicked thoughts run through my mind. “I wouldn’t object to you getting run over by a bus, though.”

Piotr sighs. “You’re still angry with me.”

I shake my head. “Not really. It’s just, there’s something about you that makes me want to say mean things.”

“It’s desire. You want me, but don’t know how to express it yet, so you try to provoke me.”

Though he’s hit the nail on the head, I don’t acknowledge it. Instead, I throw my head back and laugh.

“You’re impossible to stay mad at, Mr. Reznov.”

“It’s my boyish charm.” He takes a piece of garlic sausage and eats it. That probably cancels out the effect of my stinky breath, but I’m still not sure I want him to kiss me.

“You don’t possess any charm, boyish or otherwise.”

It’s a lie. Despite his reputation for coldness, Piotr does have endearing qualities. He’s shown me a playful side that few people get to witness. I guess that alone should make me feel special.

“So, what was wrong this morning?” Piotr asks, surprising me. I didn’t think he’d care.

“I was feeling neglected.” That’s as much as I’ll admit. I’m not going to tell him I have hopes he’ll fall in love with me one day. At some point in my life, I want someone to cherish me and since I’m now married to Piotr, it’s going to have to be him.

I’ve always wanted someone to lavish affection on me.

My mother isn’t a terrible parent, but she values her sons more than me.

Antonio, as the oldest, has always been special in her eyes, and Alessandro is her clear favorite.

I come at the bottom of her list. My father never had time for me either.

He was busy ensuring his boys would grow up to be men he could be proud of.

Though he called me his princess and lavished gifts upon me, he never once tucked me in at night or attended one of my dance recitals.

Matteo and Jimmy are the people I’ve been closest to, but my brother has a new wife to focus on and my bodyguard, well, I know one day he’ll get sick of this life and move on. Besides, it’s not the same. As sweet as Jimmy can be sometimes, he doesn’t love me the way someone like Piotr could.

“I’m a busy man,” Piotr says, as if this is news to me. “But I’ll give you as much time as I can.”

Reaching over, he cups my cheek and caresses my face with his thumb. I can’t hold in my surprise. “Huh!”

“What’s that for?” he asks.

“I thought you didn’t like public displays of affection.”

“I don’t dislike them. It’s nice to feel connected sometimes.”

“Physically, you mean?”

“Sure, and on a deeper level, too.”

“You mean emotions? I didn’t know you felt them.” I never thought he was a sociopath, in the strictest sense of the word, but he is known for his ice-cold demeanor.

“Of course I do. Anger, lust, hatred, love. I feel them. I just don’t show my hand very often.”

“Okay, I get that, but it’s hard not knowing how you feel about me.”

“I like you, Olivia. I want to possess every part of you. Protecting you from the world and even from yourself is the most important task on my mind.” He steals another grape. “But if you’re asking if I love you, then my answer is no. We’ve only been married for two days.”

“Most people fall in love before they get married.”

“Do they?” Piotr speaks as if the notion is absurd.

I shake my head in disbelief and decide to steer the conversation toward safer waters.

“So, how was your morning?”

“Good. I sent some trusted envoys to help deal with a transport problem and I signed a deal to buy a plot of land in central London.”

“Is there land to buy in central London?” I ask, scowling as Piotr grabs a cube of cheese, his hand perilously close to the paper bag that contains my chocolate éclair.

“Yes, but it’s hard to find and very expensive.”

“I’m sure you got a good deal.”

Piotr flashes a shark-like grin. It’s deeply unsetting.

“After some negotiation, yes.”

“I know little about your business.” I drink some champagne from the half bottle I bought at the deli. Public drinking makes me feel naughty, but to hell with it. This is Paris and the rules are different here. “I know little about you.”

He spreads his arms out like he’s an open book. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for a start, your age.”

“How old do you think I am?”

I am not playing a guessing game with him. “Somewhere on the right side of sixty.”

“I’m twenty-eight.”

“Young to be a Pakhan.”

Piotr shrugs. “Daniil Lenkov was in his early twenties when he formed his own organization. What else do you want to know?”

“When your birthday is.”

“October seventh.”

Does he possess typical Libran qualities? Perhaps. He does have an eye for beauty. He married me, after all.

“Mine is July twenty-sixth.”

“A few weeks away.” Piotr smiles. “You’ll be twenty-one, right?”

“Yes.” I shouldn’t be so pleased he knows how old I’ll be. It’s the bare minimum of information a couple should have about each other. “Where were you born?”

“Moscow, but I left there when I was three. I was raised in New York and London by my grandmother and Uncle Boris. I dropped out of an economics degree at Cambridge after six months to help my uncle win a war against the Irish.”

“You went to Cambridge?”

He quirks an eyebrow in response to my obvious incredulity. “Did you think I was all looks and no brain?”

I roll my eyes. “No, I thought you were all modesty and humility.”

“Those words are not in my vocabulary, nor do I think they’re in yours. You aren’t afraid to flaunt your beauty.”

I’ve been lauded for my physical attributes my entire life, so he’s right that I’m not shy about how I look. My issue is trying to show people I also have a brain. I wonder if there was a touch of judgment in Piotr’s tone just then.

“Are we back to that bullshit about my dress?”

“I was wrong about that. You should wear what makes you happy, within reason.”

Wearing a garbage bag would make me happy if I was standing next to a man who loved me. Ugh! Why am I so needy? Hoping a man will fall for me has only led to trouble in the past. That asshole Dario wanders into my thoughts, but I swiftly kick him out again.

“So, what’s on the agenda for this afternoon?” I assume Piotr dropping by to see me is a mere interlude in his day.

“We can do whatever you want.”

We? He intends to spend the afternoon with me. He was serious about trying to be a husband.

“Uh, well, I was thinking of visiting the Louvre, but the line was insane when we passed by earlier.”

Piotr shakes his head and tuts reproachfully. “Olivia, you were a Volante. You’re now a Reznov. A woman of your status does not wait in line.”

I grimace. “It’s obnoxious to cut the line.” I mean, I’ve done it at clubs and restaurants back home, but it seems rude to do it in a foreign country.

Rolling his eyes, Piotr gets out his phone and lifts it to his ear.

“Sev, are you still in touch with Minette at the Louvre? Yeah. I want a private tour tonight at seven-thirty. Perfect.” He ends the call and puts his phone back in the pocket of his jeans.

“Do you always speak to your friend like he’s a servant?”

Piotr shrugs lazily. “He isn’t some wilting flower, malyskha . He doesn’t care how I talk to him.”

“I’ll bet he does. Even Bratva assholes have feelings.”

“You thought I didn’t.”

“True, but Sev is… uh… he seems like he has a sensitive side.” I spoke to him last night about his art collection. He said the paintings reminded him of some woman I’m pretty sure he’s pining for.

“Does he?” Piotr sounds unconvinced. “Should I send him flowers to apologize for my tone?”

“If anyone needs flowers from you, it’s me.”

“Who needs flowers when I’ve organized a private tour of the Louvre? I assume you heard that while analyzing my tone.”

“Yes, I did, and I’m looking forward to it, so thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So what are we going to do until seven-thirty?”

“Well, first we’re going to split that éclair you’ve been hoping I didn’t notice. Then I’m going to take you back to the apartment, tie you to the bed, and fuck your beautiful ass.”

“Didn’t you say this afternoon was about what I wanted to do?”

“I did,” Piotr concedes. “Do you have a better suggestion?”

I try to come up with something, but my mind draws a blank. As much as I dread the idea of him taking that last piece of me, a part of me really wants to give it to him.

“Nope,” I say resolutely. “There’s nothing I’d rather do.”