2: In Which She Gets Made

2: In Which She Gets Made

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The North-Eastern European principality of Ruslavia is located somewhere between Russia and Estonia. The major languages are: Ruslavic, Russian, Latvian, German and English. Heavily populated for such a small country, it has been a monarchy since the days of tsars and tsarinas – plus, the Alvonich royal family has always consisted of a bunch of autocratic pricks and PETA-offenders.

OK, the last part wasn’t a Wiki fact; no, it was purely a genuine Devin-Shaw piece of heavily-biased opinion, offered to me once we’d settled into the plush interior of the stark-white limousine that was ferrying us from the Alvonich private landing strip. I’d spent the nine hours in the morning sky from JFK through the star-studded Russian sky to the airport of Sheremetyevo, plus an additional one hour in a private jet into Ruslavia, Googling what I didn’t know about the country – which was a lot. Making no bones that he was here under duress, my father had peered at my phone and loudly aired his disparaging opinion of our hosts for the week.

Glancing nervously at the tinted glass dividing the back seat from the driver’s seat, I shoved my phone back into my pocket. Insulting the Ruslavian royal family would definitely be considered treason, especially since my father and I were going to be VIP guests at a royal wedding taking place in a week’s time.

“PETA-offenders?” I said, raising a questioning brow.

“King Mikhail has been known to wear real animal fur,” he muttered, scowling like a child who’d been personally wronged. “I know it gets cold out here, but imitation fur can be just as…warm.”

Shaking my head and hiding a smile, I couldn’t help but marvel at the man my father was. He never ceased to amaze me. Every year, he had a different cause to believe in and every year, he made me prouder to know him.

“It’s true that Mikhail’s dad is an ass,” I began in a low voice, still paranoid about the nameless driver overhearing our treasonous dialogue, “but Dad, for just this one week, please be on your best behaviour.”

He scowled at me, looking like a big five-year-old, if five-year-olds favoured slacks and golf shirts. “Of course, Cesar Milan,” he said, his face so stoic that I couldn’t help laughing.

“You're absolutely ridiculous. Not even an animal whisperer can tame you.”

My father snorted, turning to look out the window. Now that the sun was slowly inching over the Ruslavian horizon, we were finally able to take in the beautiful, snowy landscape. The foggy, snow-covered expanse stretched for what seemed like miles and miles and naked trees stood sentry along the tar road like bare soldiers. It was easy to see the appeal of places like this. It was so peaceful, so untouched.

Thirty minutes later, the castle came into view at the peak of a hill, overlooking the rest of the capital, and I experienced a mini jolt of déjà vu. Clenching my fists, I pulled myself together. I was no longer that disillusioned, naïve eighteen-year-old who’d thought rebound sex with a prince was the best way to get over a broken heart. Months later, I realised that I hadn’t even loved Kyros and that my alleged heartbreak probably had everything to do with my fantasies of what love was like.

I blame Rory for that, I thought, a wry smile tugging at my lips. After a rocky early childhood, I’d had my head filled with English romanticism and fairytales and flowers when she came along; things she couldn’t possibly have believed in herself – until she fell in love with my father, of course.

“What are you grinning about, gorgeous?”

The man in question’s voice cut through my jetlagged reverie. “Is smiling a crime now?” I stuck my tongue out at him, laughing when he shot me a dark look.

“Just because you're in your twenties, doesn’t mean I’m not opposed to adult corporal punishment.”

“I think that’s just called assault and battery, Dad,” I retorted, rolling my eyes as I plucked my phone out again. The next time I chanced a look out the window, we were at the intricately-detailed iron-wrought gates at the castle entrance.

Sweat prickled at my brow despite the chill and I cursed under my breath. This was ridiculous. After six long years, Nikolai – Prince Nikolai – had probably forgotten all about me and if he hadn’t, he was a sad old man who rarely got pussy. Hell, I hadn’t even told him my name. I was worrying for nothing. All I had to do was get through this week without remembering how I’d slept with the groom’s uncle.

Not that difficult, right?

***

My suite was the size of my apartment and my neighbour’s combined – absolutely unnecessary on the eighteenth-century architect’s part and ostentatious on the twenty-first-century decorator’s one – and so far, I’d only seen the living area. Ivory-coloured walls dotted with what certainly looked like authentic waterworks cocooned the living area-slash-mini library. Seriously, on closer inspection, bookshelf after bookshelf against one wall held thickly-bound tomes in a language I guessed was Ruslavian; extensive poetry collections of Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Edgar Allen Poe and Cummings; and well-thumbed first edition Stephen King’s – a bookworm’s wet dream.

At least I know what I’ll be doing at night, I thought, already unseating Carrie from its perch.

I turned on my heel and set it on the glass coffee table that was flanked by two chocolate-brown wingback chairs directly opposite the TV. It was at least four times the size of mine and hung on the wall like a painting, my travel-worn reflection in the dark glass reminding me that a shower was in order.

Kicking off my ballet flats, I pulled my suitcase through the high archway adjacent to the living room and into the bedroom, once again struck by the excess. The entire room was centred around the humongous four-poster bed. Flimsy netting slinked around all four columns, hanging over the mattress like fog. The duvet was a crimson-and-black affair and the pillows were thick, white marshmallows that practically beckoned to me to test their softness. Antique furniture encircled the bed, worshipping it. Thick, blood-red drapes hung from the panoramic window directly opposite it, offsetting the plush, stark-white carpeting that ran throughout the entire suite.

The bathroom wasn’t any simpler; all stark-white enamel and mottled glass, coal-and-ivory tiling and a Jacuzzi in the centre. My skin ached to sink into a tub of boiling-hot water but maybe a nap would feel better first? I had never been able to sleep on a plane (something about the fear of sleeping and never waking up because the plane had taken a nosedive into the ocean) so I was pretty bushed. Considering that it was daybreak here and nightfall elsewhere, I should’ve forced myself to stay awake to get used to local time but once my head hit those pillows, it was lights out and when I woke up again, it was to the delicious smell of breakfast. Someone had pushed a trolley of cooked food into my room and left it at my bedside. Stomach growling, I uncovered the silver platter, revealing steaming bacon, sausages and toast carefully arranged into a masterpiece.

“Sweet Jesus,” I murmured appreciatively, unbuttoning my jacket and shrugging it off, “they know me already.”

After breakfast and the slowest soak in a tub in history, I felt refreshed enough to…do whatever it was wedding guests were supposed to do upon arrival. Someone had unpacked my entire suitcase while I slept – something I wasn’t completely comfortable with – and when I reappeared from the bathroom, the trolley of empty dishes had been cleared out. Talk about invasion of privacy.

I donned a pair of black pants and pearly-pink cashmere sweater over a vest before stalking off to my dad’s suite. As part of the groom’s party, we were on the east wing of the castle and Dad’s room was a few doors down from mine. I knocked before entering and was highly disappointed to find him fast asleep, still in the clothes he’d worn on the plane. Waking him up was equivalent to being a sadist, as he usually had four hours of sleep – on a good night.

My phone chose the exact moment I was trying to creep out my father’s room to ring. Before Harlem Shake could really start, I pressed the green button.

“Yeah?”

“I’m in your room, O,” Sav’s breathless voice chirped in my ear. “Where the hell are you?”

***

Out on the castle rooftop, protected from the elements by a high, white pavilion, Mikhail was having a mini causal high school reunion before dinner, complete with wine and finger foods.

“So do you really know who you're marrying, Inga?” Ryan asked the blushing bride-to-be, slurring his R’s. He threw an arm around Sav’s neck, careful not to slosh the glass of merlot he had in his hand.

Inga – a stunning, green-eyed and raven-haired beauty with legs as long as stilts – took a small sip of wine, giving Ryan an amused look. “Are you going to tell me he’s a serial killer?” she asked, her ordinary Boston accent at odds with her exotic name. She gave Mikhail a coy glance. “Because I already know that. He murders food like nobody’s business!”

I laughed. “You should’ve seen him in high school. He won some crazy hotdog-eating competition and nobody could believe that the Helen Huber Prep King Hot Dawg was actually a prince of some faraway country no one’s heard of.”

Mikhail grinned. “Yeah, but you came in second place, didn’t you?”

“Only because you cheated, Mikhail Alvonich!”

Inga’s brows rose at me. “Really? But you're so –”

“Tiny?” I snorted when she nodded. “I love eating just as much as the next person. In fact, if I could get paid to eat food, I’d do it.”

“And what about acting?”

As soon as Sav asked that playful question, I slightly deflated. Bad move because my best friend knew me way too well.

“Ophelia?” Her brown eyes were wide with concern. “You OK?”

I nodded, the rush of wine in my system making that tiny movement torture. “Just a little jetlagged, you know?” I bullshitted.

“Sorry about that,” Mikhail offered, as if he were responsible for time difference and my sleep patterns. That was just the kind of guy he was – nice. Nice but not perfect. There was no such thing as “perfect” and anyone who said different was a coked-up liar.

It was funny, though – I looked at Mikhail and felt nothing but friendship and genuine happiness for him. In hindsight, I had probably put him on a ridiculous pedestal after breaking up with Kyros all those years ago and now I was seeing him for real. He was sweet, funny Mickey, one of my oldest friends, and he was getting married over the weekend to someone he genuinely loved. Inga seemed just as down-to-earth as he was. She was a Boston native born to Russian parents and was studying physiotherapy. Mikhail, who was in medical school, clearly worshipped the ground she walked on.

Now that kind of love, I thought the first moment I saw them together, is the kind that only grows stronger over time.

And with this train of thought, I zoned out and conversation buzzed around me. I was acutely conscious of the fact that I was the only singleton there. Savita had her husband, Ryan, and Mikhail was with his fiancée. Iris, the last member of our old high school “clique”, was nursing a grandmother in Idaho and couldn’t come to the wedding. I was the pathetic one who’d blackmailed her father into being her plus-one and even he had ditched me and was playing pool with a bunch of older guests somewhere in the castle.

Unemployed, single and sexually frustrated. Makes for a good plot.

“What are we talking about?”

The deep, lilting voice came from behind Mikhail and Inga, who were standing opposite me; so of course, I was the first person to see the speaker approaching. If the heat flaming my cheeks wasn’t obvious enough of a reaction, the miniscule squeak of recognition I gave out was a dead giveaway.

“Guys, you remember my uncle, right?” Mikhail was grinning; grinning like Nikolai was God’s gift to mankind and had just blessed us normal mortals with his presence.

If I were a shallow fan-girl, I’d have melted into the ground at the sight of him in a suit. Since I wasn’t a shallow fan-girl, I only slightly defrosted. Men in suits just did it for me. They could be brainless baboons who still thought the world was flat but if they wore Armani well, I’d mentally swoon. That was my one superficial weakness and all six-foot-four muscle of Nikolai Alvonich filled his black suit perfectly. His shoulder-length dark hair was wildly unkempt and a few stray locks fell across his forehead. Uncle and nephew shared the same icy-blue eyes, only Nikolai’s were framed by the sootiest lashes I’d ever seen. They were almost girly, as were his pink, bee-stung lips. Seriously, they made Angelina Jolie’s smackers look emaciated.

And why the hell am I comparing a man’s lips to a woman’s?

Because they were that…inviting. They were even saying, “If we kiss you – on top or below, way below – you will love it. This is what we do, for we are Nikolai’s Lips, an elite kissing machine made up of a billion cells with the sole purpose of bringing pleasure.” Still, all that prettiness was balanced by his hulking frame, the more than masculine jut of his square jaw and his slightly crooked nose; broken, no doubt.

“…and this is Ophelia, the talent.”

I caught the last part of Mikhail’s introduction and flushed. Again.

Nikolai was eyeing me, the kind of intense eyeing that indicates I’ve seen you before but I’m not sure where. Dammit, this is gonna bother me until I remember!

I wasn’t about to help him out.

“It’s nice to meet you, Prince Nikolai,” I began, priding myself on how totally unaffected I sounded. “Mikhail’s talked about you over the years.”

Well, at least, he’d try to – until I changed the subject.

A slow smile spread across Nikolai’s face, making him look years younger. “Good things, I hope,” he said cheerfully, reaching out for my hand. Reluctantly, I gave it to him, annoyed at the way he rubbed at my fingers with the pad of his thumb. How could that turn me on? “You can drop the title, kotik. I’m just Nikolai.” I pulled my hand away as quickly as etiquette would allow.

“Kotik?” I echoed breathlessly. “Is that Ruslavian?”

“No,” Inga said, “it’s Russian for pussycat.”

“Oh. Well, don’t call me that again,” I directed at Nikolai, receiving a bemused look from Mikhail and a barely suppressed grin from the offender in question. “I’m not a feline.”

“Fee, he was only joking,” Sav muttered.

“Yeah. Don’t mind him. He has a different endearment for every woman he meets,” said Mikhail, slinking an arm around his fiancée’s waist. “This is one of his tamer ones.”

“Tamer?” Nikolai chuckled, grabbing a glass and pouring a drink for himself. “What are you implying, Misha?”

“That you usually receive a slap for your attempts at being romantic?” Mikhail released Inga and his eyes glimmered in the familiar way that meant he was about to tell a dirty story. “This one time – and I remember this clearly because it was my nineteenth birthday – we went to a club in Vegas and he picked up some blonde dancer –”

“And an STD, I bet,” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that, O?”

“Nothing, Mikhail. Go on.”

“Right. So he picked her up and took her to his hotel room, told her that from then on, his, um, manhood would be the only one she’d ever, uh, suck.” Mikhail was blushing and all he’d said was a biblical word for c0ck and a word that rhymed with ‘luck’. “He said, ‘Big Tits, I’m going to rescue you from the strip. It’s just no place for someone as talented in the mammary-gland department as you are’.” Mikhail laughed loudly at Nikolai’s sudden discomfort. “Sad to say, Julia was in law school, didn’t take too kindly to her life being labelled sordid or Kolya’s degrading endearment for her, and had a major anger problem. He received a black eye and a raid of his wallet for his romantic efforts.”

Nikolai muttered gruffly, “She was a stripper and a total waste of money.”

“You pay for sex?” I hadn’t meant to say it aloud but now that I had, there was no way to take it back, especially when his piercing blue eyes bore right through me, like he was still trying to place my face.

“I paid for sex. Once. Past tense.”

“Why would someone like you need to pay for it?” That was Savita, ever the blunt one. She had asked the question we were both thinking.

“Hey!” Ryan grumbled, fixing his wife with a green-eyed glare. “I’m right here, wifey.”

“And that’s why I refrained from calling him a fucking stud-muffin,” she retorted in a stage whisper.

I was close enough to hear it and let out a soft laugh.

“Well, what happens in Vegas… Isn’t that what they say?” Nikolai shrugged one shoulder, taking a long swig of wine. “Once upon a time, I was your age. And you, kotik” – he fixed his intense stare on me – “I know you.”

“Excuse me?” Startled, I took a step back from the circle, wondering if he was seriously going to talk about that night in front of his nephew; in front of my friends.

“You're on that TV show,” he proclaimed, snapping his fingers together. “The one about the fucking sexy ghost hunter babes? What’s it called, Hunting Ghosts? No, Chasing. That’s right – Ophelia Shaw.”