Page 66 of Deception

“Everyone is here already!” she sings, opening her arms to the children while she enters, and for a quick second, my heart falls to my feet.

Until Red follows behind her. Brilliant blue eyes flutter to mine with a beaming grin that makes it impossible for me to move while I take her in. The black dress moulds to her body like a glove, wrapping over the full swell of her breasts, leaving only a peek of sun-blushed skin. Her beauty is jaw-dropping as she takes a step towards me and stops when I go to her.

Although her hair is tied into a knot at her nape, soft tendrils frame her face, making her painted lips impossible to resist when we’re close.

“You chose me,” I say, my voice rough with relief and lust as her body presses to mine.

“Yes,” she breathes back. Flattening her hands to my chest, she strokes over the lapels of my dinner jacket with her thumbs. With a lick of her lips, Lucy murmurs, “You’re a man of your word, and I’m a woman of mine. I told you I’m yours, and you said you would keep me…that will never change.”

“Did you say goodbye?”

Tears sparkle in her eyes. Although they’re sad, she’s still holding the quirk of her lips in place as she replies. “Yes.”

“She gave birth to you, but she is your enemy now. She’s one ofthem, and you are one of us. Do you understand what that means?”

Looking around the room, Red edges impossibly closer, a hand trailing up to hook around my neck as she rolls onto her toes.

“I choose you.” Pressing her forehead to my lips, she sighs when I kiss her. Then looking up at me, she adds, “It means that if anyone comes for you, they come for me too. And I will fight beside you no matter who they are.”

“Because you’re mine.”

“Because I’m yours.”

I don’t give her a chance to draw her next breath before I crush my lips to hers. My hands slink around her waist, flattening to the exposed small of her back. Smooth, velvet skin warms my fingertips, the heat permeating through me until I have no choice but to pull away or else I take her away from the party. As tempting as it is, I want them all to see and accept that Lucy is going nowhere. And if they care about the Vassily name and lineage, they will protect her at all costs. As I have.

* * *

Dinner endswith my mother having the last word of the toast. It’s a tradition that my father has simply accepted because, like Lucy, my mother has always fought the status quo.

“Za schast’ye!” She raises her champagne glass before adding, “I za lyubov.”

Turning to face Red as she raises her glass, I brush a short, silky wave behind her ear while toasting, “Happiness and love.”

The smile on her face falters with her hitched breath. I’m not sure whether she’s about to laugh or cry with the way her lips quiver.

“It’s bad luck not to drink the toast,” I tell her, nudging the champagne glass to her lips.

We both take a sip as her free hand slips from the table to my thigh. It’s rare for her to initiate contact between us, not like this. She took me by surprise in the car earlier, and right now she’s doing it again as she leans into me and kisses my cheek. It’s pure affection that makes my entire being go haywire. From the hastening thrum of my pulse to my vibrating insides and knotting stomach.

“So, are you ready for the big day?” Zoya, my cousin’s wife, asks which only invites Mama to discuss all the plans that she and Lucy went through this morning.

The conversation takes a life of its own as Zoya and Mom trade seats with Emin and my father so that they’re closer to Lucy. Not Vanya though—the girl who sat at a stranger’s bedside praying throughout the night shows no interest in joining them. I don’t like it, but I won’t call her out right now. Not in front of everyone so that the attention is on her. It would defeat the purpose of tonight, and so far, it’s going as well as I intended it to.

Not before long, Mama is excusing herself to bed with Vanya glued to her. Perhaps she feels her closeness to our mother is threatened by Lucy and Mama’s obvious liking to her. Whatever it is, she’s going to drop it and move on. I won’t have her making shit difficult, especially when a whisper from her could make things harder between me and our father.

“Time for bed, kiddos,” Zoya calls to the two boys that are still running around, pretending to shoot each other around the furniture with their fingers.

“Oh, come on, Mom!” one kid gripes back at her, stomping his feet to where she’s standing with her daughter sleeping in her arms.

“Something wrong with your feet?” Andrei snaps at him.

“No, Papa.”

“Walk properly, then, and don’t talk back to your mother.” When I laugh, he turns to me and says, “Wait till you have your own. All this shit you’re causing…”

“That’s what always happens—it comes back to bite you on the ass,” my uncle snickers, beckoning the boys closer with his finger. “You’re too big to give your grandfather a kiss?”

“No,” the younger of the two shoots back. “But you say that ladies are always first.”