The car went over a bump in the road causing Anastasia to stir. My eyes snapped angrily to meet Edmond’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Luckily, Anastasia was wiped. She turned so that she faced me and fell back into a deep sleep.
The car veered up the driveway before pulling to a complete halt. Not wanting to disturb Anastasia, I opened her door and carefully folded her into my arms. I carried her all the way up the stairs but paused when I got to the end of the corridor.
The room I’d had set up especially for her was to the left, mine was directly opposite. I didn’t like the idea of us being so far apart but Heather had advised that she might’ve felt more comfortable if given her own space. While Heather was only my maid, I trusted her opinion on this matter more than my own.
But still, I hesitated at her door.
A mammoth of a second later, and I was forcing myself through the open door of her bedroom.
As much as I wanted her in my room, it wouldn’t have taken her long after she woke up to realize where she was. I didn’t want her to think I had taken advantage of her. If she was going to hate me for anything I wanted it to be for stealing her, not some other imagined wrongdoing. I was the one who stole her, took her away from her family. Of course she was going to hate me right now. I only hoped that in time she’d come to see things my way, maybe even care for me the way that I cared for her. But today wouldn’t be that day.
I made sure to lock the bedroom door behind me. I wouldn’t want her wandering off, running away from me before I even had the chance to convince her to stay.
The click of the lock rang heavy in my ears. I couldn’t help but sigh at having to lock her in, but deep down I knew at the moment it was a necessary evil.
Even if she was going to hate me for it.
It was just something that I had to endure.
And pray, that it wouldn’t last forever.
I fell back into the seat across from my brother with a loud thud. The hard leather barely moved under my weight. I would never understand why Finch chose those chairs. Maybe their uncomfortable nature was exactly what my brother had in mind. I could only imagine the scum that must come through here, of course, my brother wouldn’t want to chance that his enemies would be comfortable.
“How did it go?” he asked. His hand still scrolling across the paper laid out on the desk in front of him, hand gripping his pen as if it were a poised weapon.
“It could’ve gone better,” I admitted reluctantly. We had a rocky start but that didn’t mean that I should give up. My brothers had warned me about exactly this, I was to expect resistance.
“My brother, the man of many words.” His pen finally dropped, head raising to take me in as he leaned back in his chair.
“Things can always go better, Nikolai. Just don’t forget that this is a lot for her to take in. She may have been on your mind for years but you haven’t been on hers. This will all be very new to her.” With my teeth clenched I nodded my head, but the truth was, I was impatient. I’d waited for her for years, I didn’t want to wait any longer.
When I came to my brother all those years ago asking for his advice, I had a simple crush.
I’d seen a pretty thing that I wanted to own. Now...it was different, I knew her. Anastasia wasn’t just a pretty revenge piece now. I had spent hours, days, weeks, years getting to know her. I had watched her, studied her - and fallen in love with her.
It was only natural for me to seek my brother’s advice because that’s what I’d always done. Out of all of my brothers, for as long as I could remember, I was closest with Finch. Not just in age although maybe that had unknowingly helped our bond.
There was never a time that we were apart. We shared everything, helped each other with everything. I would protect him from the neighborhood bullies on the playground, and he would spend hours teaching me how to speak, without a stutter.
“So, when will we all get to meet her?” My brother's hands clapped together as his demeanor suddenly changed - lightened. We’d always been as thick as thieves, I could understand his piqued curiosity.
I had a stutter when I was younger. I had been so embarrassed by it that I would rather not talk at all. Finch taught me that it was okay to take my time, and then he spent hours practicing my trigger words with me. Over and over.
It got easier to deal with, little by little and then it went away altogether.
“You know you’re always welcome at the house, it’s your home as well,” I emphasized like I always did when it came to the family property.
My house just so happened to be the one we grew up in. When our parents died they left each of us a different avenue of their fortune. I got the house. I didn’t have particularly fond memories of the place but there was no way I could ever get rid of it.
It had been passed down through the family for years. It was basically an heirloom.
Except, you couldn’t stuff this one in a closet and forget about it for years to come.
So, after a lot of thought and renovations, I swallowed my tongue and moved in. I had always felt a small amount of guilt that I got it over my brothers. Zedd and Drex hadn’t ever given it a second thought. I think they had similar feelings about the house.
But Finch? There’d been animosity there.
Maybe he felt he deserved it because he was the official head of the family. But, despite how much I didn’t want it. A childish side of me didn’t want Finch to have it more.
I gave him my position.
I wouldn’t give him my inheritance as well.
Besides, with the renovations, I began to come around. It would prove itself useful as a family home. I had a feeling Anastasia would make that long-wished-for dream disappear into thin air if she ever found out about it.
But I still held out hope.
“I just don’t think forcing my family on her right now would be such a good idea. I mean, I don’t want to scare her even more.”
When I’d run to Finch for help five years ago, he’d laughed at my notion of love at first sight. He hadn’t thought I was serious. I remembered the night as if it were seared into my brain, it was the night I visited her father - her sixteenth birthday. Finch said to give it time, that it was just a crush and that it would go away over time.
It had started to really sink in a few days later, when I couldn’t stop thinking about her I knew I had to have her.
I would describe myself as a very focused person, goal orientated. Other people had different names for it, I’d heard them all my life but my brother would insist I wasn’t to listen.
It’s just how I was, for as long as I could remember. But, in all my days, I’d never had a woman capture my eye like her before. Anastasia had stolen something from deep inside my soul that first night, I’d spent years trying to figure out what - and years working on a plan of how to get it back.
“Or it could have the opposite effect? If anyone could put her at ease it would be Zedd. Just think about it, a relaxed fun night to show her that she’s not in this alone. Anyway, I know you haven’t come around just to brag about bagging your missus. You know I can always tell when something’s up. So, tell me, why are you really here, Nikolai?” He suddenly got real with me. His stare gaining a pensive quality, his hands folding across his lap. “The last time you dropped by my office unannounced was after you first found Anastasia. Now, forgive me if I’m wrong but, you now have Anastasia. So what is it you want?”