Page 96 of Not Part of the Plan
“Perhaps you can be madanddisappointed. Neither of us is innocent.”
“You have Mom’s picture on the mantel.” Niko finally got the words out. “Why?”
“Just because she is gone doesn’t mean she never was. Greta believes in honoring the past. And she does not mind when I remember fondly your mother.”
“Greta sounds like a good woman.” Niko raised his glass to drink.
“So was your mother,” Vadim told him. “And so is Emma.”
“We have excellent taste.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The driver closed the town car’s door after them and Emma snuggled into Niko’s side. “I’m the teensiest bit drunk,” she whispered her confession. “Your stepmother has an incredible tolerance for alcohol.”
Niko smiled at the slur of her words and brushed his lips over her hair.
“Thank you for being there with me,” he told her, watching the lights of Brooklyn neighborhoods pass by his window.
“Thank you for asking me,” she yawned. “Did you and your father talk?”
“We did. It’s a start. He and Greta are coming to the show at the gallery.”
Emma lifted her head, smiled. “Really?”
Niko nodded. “I can’t believe I waited this long.”
Emma snuggled in against his neck. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You both are stubborn, distracted men.”
“Drunk Emma is a little too honest,” Niko teased.
“Sober Emma is honester,” she insisted.
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Emma considered the dull headache she carried with her the next morning worth it. They’d tumbled into bed the night before exhausted from good alcohol and the rebuilding of family. It had been the first time Emma had spent the night with Niko without sex, and she had to admit, falling asleep curled around him somehow took their intimacy to a new level.
She felt a little off-balance as if things had somehow shifted between them last night. But the breakfast Niko had delivered, the easy conversation over coffee and crepes, put her back on mostly even ground. Niko seemed pleased with the way dinner with his family had gone the night before, but he was distracted. And Emma could see he was shifting gears into professional photographer mode. She was just as excited about today as she had been about last night. It was another glimpse into Nikolai Vulkov’s life. And she was honest enough to admit that she wanted more than just glimpses.
Someone had secured the pre-construction fourth floor of a warehouse turning multi-million dollar loft project for the shoot. Three thousand square feet of brick pillars, scarred wood floors, and dingy walls of windows that overlooked the murky Hudson waters and the Manhattan skyline.
It was strange to see such life breathed into the space. There were make-up artists, hair stylists, assistants, magazine reps, the model and her entourage of bored-looking friends whose phones were glued to their hands.
Niko had his head together with the ad agency’s creative director for the campaign and the brand representative from the watch company. Others scurried about adjusting huge filtered lights and draped backdrops. Wardrobe shoved racks of clothing at the model who, pre-makeup, looked to be about fifteen. There was a table laden with dozens of watches in their open cases, their jeweled faces winking under the lights. A man in a security uniform stood guard and frowned fiercely as he paced tight laps around the watches.
Another table along the wall opposite the windows held a catered lunch spread fit for a vegan model and her entourage. Thankfully a tiny sliver of the table held normal foods for normal people.
It was a hive of energy that reminded Emma of Friday nights at the brewery. Everyone had a purpose, a task. Each part of the whole was as essential to accomplishing the common goal as the other.
She liked watching Niko at work like this. He was calm and focused. Listening as the creative director, between texts and emails, pounded home the exact look they were going for. Niko waved Emma over to him and slid his arm around her waist when she joined them.
“Nat, have I ever let you down?” Niko asked, covering the screen of the director’s phone with his other palm.
She slapped his hand away. “No, but you do make me work hard to keep you in line and within budget,” she answered with a dry look over the rims of her glasses.
“Relax. Introduce yourself to my girlfriend and pretend you’re a human for a few minutes while I go talk to Branka.” Niko dropped a kiss on Emma’s cheek and, with a wink, disappeared.
“Girlfriend?” Nat’s eyes goggled, her phone forgotten.
