Page 61 of Blackmailing the Bad Girl

“I don’t belong here,” she murmured.

His brows drew together. “Of course you do. My mother invited you. It’s her party, therefore you belong.”

Nik was dressed more formally than she had ever seen him, in a tuxedo, but with a black T-shirt underneath the jacket. He wore the clothes with a casual ease that made her almost envious. He would never look like he didn’t belong.

His fingers pressed at her waist, urging her farther into the room, and she finally moved, though mainly because someone came up behind her and she was blocking the doorway. Nik snagged them both a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and then led her to the edge of the room, where he stood beside her.

There were so many people.

“Are these all friends of your mother?” She hadn’t spotted Elena yet. Perhaps she was waiting until all her guests arrived to make an entrance.

“That’s Mama’s brother, Volka.” He nodded to where a huge man stood beside a tall woman. He looked like a Russian bear. “He used to terrify me when I was a kid. I thought he was from the Russian Mafia.” He grinned. “He’s actually a schoolteacher from Vladivostok. I’m pretty certain he has no problem with discipline.”

“Is that where your mother comes from?”

“Yes. She has a huge family. They used to descend on us at various intervals during my childhood. She’d send them the tickets. It used to drive my father crazy.”

“He doesn’t get on with them?”

“It’s just way too much of a good thing, I guess. My father likes order, whereas my mother loves chaos.”

“They’ve done well to stay together then.”

“I spent my childhood presuming they would split up. But my mother also loves money, so she stuck it out.”

She studied him. He didn’t sound bitter or even censorious. It was just as though he was stating the way things were. But that was sad, and she also suspected unfair to his mother. Summer had only met her briefly, but she’d come across as too plainspoken to ever live a life that was a lie, even for the sake of vast wealth.

“You don’t think they love each other?”

“Maybe. But they married because my mother was pregnant with me.”

“And you think she did it on purpose?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think my father would have married her otherwise. So maybe.”

“Oh.”

“And over there”—he nodded to a couple of women standing off to their right, with their backs to Summer and Nik, their heads close together in conversation—“are my sisters, Valentine and Alexandra. I’ll introduce you in a little while. After you’ve had some more champagne.”

They were both tall, with long honey-blond hair the exact shade of Nik’s. “Will I need it?”

“Probably. They can be a little overwhelming. They’re twins. Identical.”

“I’ll look forward to meeting them.”

“I’d avoid it, but I’m sure Mother has told them all about you and they’ll…insist.”

They turned around at that point and stared straight at them.

“Damn, we’ve been spotted,” Nik muttered. He grabbed two more glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed her one. “Drink it down fast.”

She took a gulp, and the bubbles went up her nose.

“Not that fast,” he said as she spluttered.

She was giggling as the two women approached. They looked much younger than Nik, maybe in their early twenties but with a gloss of sophistication Summer would never manage. They came to a halt in front of them. Their smiles appeared genuine, but their eyes showed more than a hint of curiosity. And they really were identical. Luckily, they were dressed differently, one in a long red dress, the other in blue.

“Hey, big brother. You going to introduce us?”

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