Page 135 of Ruthless Rustanovs

“WHY didn’t you tell me?!?!” Willa screeched as she gathered Thel in a hug, practically smothering Eve, her nearly one-year-old baby girl, between them.

“I would have mentioned it,” their mother answered Willa airily as she, too, came out of the house. “But I thought it would make a better plot point if you were surprised.

“Is this why you flew us all out here for Christmas?” Sawyer asked, walking straight up to Bair.

“Congratulations, man.”

“Thank you…man,” Bair answered, looking like he didn’t quite know what to do when Sawyer pulled him in for a bro hug.

Thel’s eyes widened. So this was what he’d meant by this being a gift not a threat. He’d not only brought her to meet his family. He’d brought hers to meet his.

Her eyes connected with Bair’s as each of her family members gathered around her to give him a hug. And she had to wonder why he’d gone through the trouble to do this for her. What was his endgame in all of this? Because she knew he had to have one.

“Thank you,” she said to him nonetheless after all the hugging was done. “Bringing my family here is an amazing Christmas gift.”

His shoulders lowered with relief. “Good, you see it was gift. You know that I didn’t…”

“Yeah, I do,” she answered with a careful tilt of her head. “But I’m wondering about the why of all of this. Why you want me to know your family and why you suddenly want to know mine.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, Alexei the Awful came out of the house, filling up the front porch with his obnoxiously huge presence.

“Welcome to Rustanov Acres, Boris and Sirena,” he said, spreading his arms expansively. “I will show you around the original house, which used to be our own home before the rest of the compound was finished.”

Thel had to wonder if Alexei had actually lived in this guest house long, because it was nothing like the cold modern apartment he’d bought for her and Bair in Berlin.

To Thel, walking through the door of his old home felt like stepping into a 70s painting, with colorful retro furniture filling each room.

In fact the only thing that wasn’t brightly colored in the open plan downstairs was the upright piano tucked against the wall.

“You and Boris will have our old bedroom,” Alexei said, escorting them into a large bright room with a huge bed and a hanging retro bubble chair.

“Cute chair,” she couldn’t help but say, liking Alexei’s house, if not the man himself.

“Da, it is,” Alexei agreed, but then he cast his eyes down to her stomach. “Just in case you are as stubborn as my Eva, it goes without saying you are not allowed in chair, da?”

She was too busy nervously eyeing the large bed in the middle of the room to take too much offense at his patronizing directive. “Actually maybe I could sleep on that couch in the study you showed us downstairs. Bair and I aren’t exactly…”

“I will sleep on the couch. You can have room,” Bair said.

“But—”

“How is Ivan,” Bair asked Alexei before she could finish her protest.

“Not so good,” Alexei answered, his face becoming grim as he guided them back down the stairs to the open front room that made up the majority of the downstairs area. “He is in other guest house, even though we have invited him to stay with us. He is very angry. He wants to…”

Alexei started speaking in rapid Russian.

Only to suddenly cut himself off. “Look at me. It is rude to speak Russian in front of someone who does not understand our language.” A knowing smile lifted his lips.

“My wife would be yelling at me about good Texas manners if she had overheard. I apologize, Sirena.”

Thel could only lift her eyebrows. What the hell? The Alexei she remembered only spoke to Bair in English if he had something really insulting to say about her and wanted to make sure she understood.

And who was this wife of his anyway? This Eva who’d not only gotten Alexei to marry her, but also act like he had some damn manners where others were concerned.

Maybe she was a dominatrix? A hypnotist?

Possibly someone who’d been an army general in a past life?

In any case, she had to wonder what kind of harridan would prove a match for Alexei Rustanov—

“Siiiiiistahhhhh!” sang an off-key but super enthusiastic voice behind her, interrupting her musings.

Thel turned and very nearly dropped dead of shock when she found a pregnant black woman waddling toward her screeching “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister)” from the movie version of The Color Purple at the top of her lungs.

If not for the two mixed-raced children trailing behind her, Thel might have asked the poor woman if maybe she needed a ride back to the local psych ward.

But the tall boy standing beside her with an embarrassed grimace looked so much like Alexei, the Russian might as well have spit him out.

And the little girl ran across the room screaming “Daddy! Daddy!” straight into Alexei’s arms.

Alexei the Awful scooped the little girl up just as her mother finished the verse with a warbling “Yoooooou!!!”

“Oh my gosh! Look at us!” she cried, taking Thel by the hands.

“And Nikki’s wife, Sam, is pregnant again, too?

Girl, we are going to have all these Rustanovs waiting on us hand and foot this Christmas!

But look at me, where are my manners? My name is Eva.

I’m the mayor of this fine town, and Alexei’s wife, which I’m hearing means we’re sisters-in-law now.

But even if I’m just now finding out about your existence from my brother-in-law who never once—I tell you not even once— came to visit us here in Texas. ..”

She threw Bair an angry glare before turning back to Thel with a dazzling smile.

“…I am so happy to meet you, Sirena! I just wish I could give you a big ol’ Texas hug, but you know what, girl?

I really don’t think we could manage it with these two big ol’ Rustanov babies we’re carrying.

That’s why I sang the song instead. Word of advice, schedule the C-section now.

Sam’s the only one over thirty I know who’s managed to squeeze one of these suckers out of her hoo-hah, and I’m pretty sure that’s only because she and Pavvy do yoga every single day. Did anybody show you to your room yet?”

“Of course I did this, koteh,” Alexei answered proudly.

But Thel was too busy looking between her and Alexei to nod. “I don’t understand,” she said to Eva quite frankly. “Is he holding you hostage? Blackmailing you?”

Eva tilted her head in confusion, but then burst out laughing. “Oh, you are funny! Boris, I never pegged you as somebody who’d choose a funny girl!”

“I’m not funny,” Thel assured Eva. “I’m seriously asking…” She lowered her voice to whisper, “Do you need help getting out of here with your children? Because I will figure out a way to save you!”

Now Eva threw Alexei a disapproving look. “Lexie…what’s this all about? What did you do to piss her off so bad she thinks I need saving from you?”

“She met me in the between years after you,” Alexei answered soberly. “As you know, I was not so nice for a time.”

“Well, that’s all over now,” Eva assured her, like the true bastard Alexei used to be was just water under the bridge. “Believe me when I tell you Lexie is the best husband a girl could ever wish for, even if his babies are overly big.”

“Ah…” Thel started.

Before she could contradict that declaration, Eva grabbed her by the arm and started leading her to the door. “Now, you and me are going to go over to my house and talk and talk and talk. And before you know it, we’ll be best friends. I can already tell.”

“That’s true,” her mother said from the couch in the front room, where she’d already settled down with a book. Probably stolen from the house’s library.

Thel looked over her shoulder helplessly at Bair as Eva dragged her away, but he remained where he was, as if he was making a concerted effort to let her leave and not follow.

And no, Thel didn’t regret leaving her knife in the car, but for as much talking as they done on the way over here, she still didn’t understand. Why had he brought her here, and how did he expect this whole combined family holiday thing to end?