by Stella Gray
I had no idea what she and Stefan were saying. I was pretty sure she was speaking Ukrainian, but I didn’t understand any of the rapid, guttural phrases. Meanwhile, Stefan seemed fairly fluent. The information both surprised and impressed me. It was pretty hot that he knew multiple languages.
I cleared my throat, unsure if she realized I was standing there.
Immediately, the woman swung around to face me. There was an enormous smile on her gorgeous face.
Before I could really react to her beauty, though, she had pulled me into her arms and was kissing me exactly as she had kissed Stefan, with a kiss on each cheek. To make matters even worse, she smelled just as good as she looked. Like some exotic, expensive perfume made of roses and sex appeal.
I wanted to hate her, but I couldn’t help but smile back. It was the first time someone had really smiled at me since we arrived in Budapest. A real smile, that is, not the perfectly polite, slightly distant smiles I got from the hotel staff.
She was also vaguely familiar and as I stared at her, I realized that I’d seen her in the ads of magazines. She had to be a KZ model.
She started chattering to me, but I had no idea what she was saying.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t speak the language.”
“Oh, of course!” she said, with a laugh and only a slight accent. “Stefan mentioned that you were a, how you to say it, a scholar of languages? I shouldn’t have assumed.”
I nodded. “Linguistics is all about languages, yes. But I’ve mostly studied the roots of words, and their histories. I’d love to speak more languages, but so far I’ve only taken Latin.”
“But that is wonderful,” she said, still smiling warmly. “Stefan has chosen a smart girl.”
I didn’t know how to feel. On one hand, I was extremely embarrassed that Stefan had told this beautiful creature that I was “a scholar of languages” only to have me stare blankly at her when she tried to converse with me. On the other hand, this meant that Stefan had told her about me. And not only that, but he clearly also knew exactly what I was planning on studying.
I shot him a look, but he was back to typing on his phone. Of course.
One step forward. Two steps back.
“You’re Victoria, yes?” the beautiful woman asked me. “I am Oksana.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, still confused as to why she was in our suite so early in the morning. I’d seen Stefan’s schedule—there wasn’t anything about a model meeting at this time.
My confusion must have shown on my face, because Oksana’s smile slipped as she looked between me and Stefan.
“I am here for you,” she told me, a wrinkle appearing between her perfect brows.
I turned to look at Stefan. “I don’t understand.”
“She’s your babysitter for the day,” Stefan told me, a little smirk appearing on his face.
I wanted to smack that smirk off his lips. Or kiss it off. I couldn’t decide between the two at the moment.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I told him.
“I’ll be back late,” he told Oksana, completely ignoring me.
Wait. He wasn’t even coming sightseeing with me? Was that blocked-out section of his itinerary just for me?
But before I could say anything, he was heading out. I wanted to grab him, tug him back into our room, finish what we started last night—but I was barely dressed and in no state to go running after him. Instead, I had to watch him leave, the door slamming behind him.
When I turned back, Oksana was wearing that same big smile on her face, her hands clasped together.
“What should we do today?” she asked. “Stefan to take you wherever you’d like.”
I studied her, the wheels in my head turning. “What is it that you said to Stefan when you first arrived?” I asked. “Pree-vyet?”
“Oh, you’d like to learn Ukrainian? Duzhe dobrey.” She winked at me. “That means ‘very good.’”
“And pree-vyet—is that hello?” I prompted.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
I was confused. That wasn’t the first thing she’d said to me. “Then what does dobrey-dyen mean?”
There was a pause. “That also means hello,” she said. “Just…more formal.”
I understood. She had greeted Stefan with the more familiar form of ‘hello,’ which meant they were informal. Friendly.
I felt a twinge of jealousy. How friendly were they, exactly?
“The rest of it was just me asking how he was,” Oksana said with a wave of her hand. “He told me he was doing well, just very busy.”
I nodded, but I was only half paying attention.
“Why don’t you get dressed?” Oksana said, clapping happily. “I will love to show you my beautiful city.”
It was an offer I would have appreciated the day before, but now I was mostly just annoyed. With Stefan. Again.
“I don’t need a babysitter, you know,” I said, my tone more bitter than I intended.
Oksana’s smile faltered, as if she didn’t quite know how to respond.
“Stefan would like me to spend the day with you,” she finally said. “He’s a good man. He cares very much for you.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” It was hard to believe that Stefan cared about anyone other than himself. But clearly my derision wasn’t acceptable, as Oksana shook her head passionately.
“No, no, no,” she said. “He is a very good man. A very good boss. It is my great joy to give him…how do you say…favors?”
I stared at her, hoping that this was just another example of the language barrier. That when she said ‘favors’ she didn’t mean the carnal kind.
Oksana put her hand on her chest, over her heart. “I owe him a debt,” she said.
This surprised me. What exactly did she owe him? Money? Or something more intangible? How did a man like Stefan, so cold and distant, earn the devotion of someone as beautiful—and seemingly nice—as Oksana? It only made me want to understand Stefan better.
So even though I felt bitterly jealous over the idea of spending the day with a woman who felt great joy in giving my husband ‘favors,’ I also had a feeling that I would get more information about Stefan from her than from the man himself. Maybe I should just look at this day as a fact-finding mission.
Besides, Oksana was so friendly, surely it wouldn’t be that hard to get information out of her. With that goal in mind, I pushed aside my frustration and discomfort. Quickly, I showered and got dressed, prepared to spend the rest of the day grilling her for details about my extremely private, extremely closed-off husband.
We took advantage of the room service breakfast I had already ordered and then headed out. At first, I was so in awe of the buildings and the charming, old-world vibe of the neighborhoods that I forgot my initial plan and just enjoyed myself as Oksana drove me around the city.
It wasn’t that much different from my first round of sightseeing in Vienna. We drove past castles and museums, all ornate and exquisite. Oksana explained what each one was and gave me any information she could recall about their history or what they were currently used for, and then she showed me Castle Hill, where the famous Buda Castle sat, housing some of the city’s most respected museums, like the National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum.
I wished we had more time and could visit all of the attractions we passed, but Oksana assured me that she was giving me a comprehensive overview of the best Budapest had to offer.
“Besides, we don’t want to be stuck inside on a day like this,” she pointed out.
She wasn’t wrong. The weather was absolutely perfect, warm enough to roll up my sleeves but with enough clouds to offer intermittent shade, and after being cooped up in a hotel the past few days I had to admit it was nice to get out and drive around. We had the windows down and the whole city seemed to greet us as we passed.
After a while, we decided to park the car and began to explore. I was glad I had worn comfortable shoes as we trekked up
and down the city’s narrow, cobblestone streets. We walked past Parliament, where Oksana told me the crown jewels were kept. We passed the cupola that would take visitors up to St. Stephen’s Basilica, a famous cathedral. My favorite, however, was the Fisherman’s Bastion, a castle-like construction of white stone defense walls built by the fisherman’s guild in the Middle Ages. With its turret and crenelated battlements, it looked like something from a fairytale.
“Do you like my city?” Oksana asked as we walked along the Danube. “It is called the Paris of the East, you know.”
I could see why it was called that. I could’ve spent weeks there, just taking everything in.
Instead, as we stopped for lunch, I knew I had to focus on my other type of exploring. Exploring what made Stefan tick.
We sat down at a charming café, where Oksana switched to rapid Hungarian to speak to the staff, who took our menus before I even had a chance to look at them—not that I would have been able to read the names of the dishes anyway.
“I ordered for us,” Oksana said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Not at all. I’m grateful to have you here to show me everything.”
I might have been laying it on a little thick, but she seemed more than happy to receive the praise.
“So…have you been working for KZ Modeling for a long time?” I asked casually as we waited for our food to arrive.
“Yes. A very long time,” she said.
So she was one of KZM’s talents. That made sense. What didn’t make sense was that this extremely beautiful and seemingly in-demand model was spending her day shuttling me around Budapest.
“Do you live here in Budapest?” I asked her.
“Not anymore,” she said, looking down at the table. “I am mostly in New York or Los Angeles. But I was here for work. Very lucky for you, yes?”
I nodded. “Very lucky.”
Even though she was still smiling, I noticed the more questions I asked, the less likely she was to make eye contact. I didn’t like it. She was hiding something.
“Stefan tells me so little about his work,” I said, adding a flippant little laugh at the end of my sentence. “It must be a very glamorous job to spend all day long with models.”
Oksana shrugged. “Stefan is a good man,” she said.
That was one thing she kept saying. Obviously, there was some sort of connection between her and Stefan. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
“He must be a very good boss as well,” I tried.
Oksana nodded vigorously. “Very good,” she said. “He always knows the best clubs and restaurants to go to. Last night we—”
“Last night?” I echoed, incredulous.
She immediately shut her mouth, looking anxious.
I was furious. Had Stefan been with Oksana last night? Is that why he had blown off the dinner I had arranged for us? To be with this model—his mistress?
I narrowed my eyes at her. Who was this woman? She’d been so nice to me all day…was it just out of guilt because she was sleeping with my husband? Or did I have it all wrong?
Before I could figure out how to best confront her, however, our food arrived. I’d never seen a model so happy to eat before. I did my best to eat as well, but I was too upset to enjoy it. We finished lunch in silence. As we were getting ready to go, my phone rang.
It was Stefan.
Annoyingly, my heart gave a little lurch. Even though I was pissed at him, I was still happy that he was calling. Not that I was going to let him know that.
I answered, fully prepared to say that I didn’t appreciate him sending me out sightseeing with one of his mistresses and that I was done being treated this way. But before I even finished saying hello, Stefan’s low, deep voice came over the line.
“Tori, I’m so sorry to tell you this. It’s your father. He’s had a heart attack.”
Tori
Chapter 16
We pulled up in front of the hotel, but I just sat there, paralyzed. I barely remembered leaving the restaurant. The whole thing was a blur.
“Tori?”
I glanced up at Oksana. “I don’t know what to do.”
She gently unbuckled my seatbelt for me and helped me out of the car. I was only vaguely aware of her as we walked across the lobby and into the elevator.
Stefan’s words still echoed in my ear. Your father…he’s had a heart attack.
The words sounded so malevolent. And Stefan hadn’t had any further information to give me yet. How bad was it? Was my dad dying right now?
He wasn’t a young man, but he’d always been good about his health. He exercised, he ate mostly healthy meals (when he wasn’t working through his lunches), and besides the high levels of stress inherent to his job, he took care of himself. A heart attack just…seemed impossible.
The door to our suite was open when we reached it. Hotel staff were moving around quickly, carrying things and speaking quietly to each other in rapid Hungarian. When I stepped inside, everyone stopped for a moment, their expressions frozen in sympathy.
I walked by them, my entire body numb.
Stefan was directing the staff but he, too, paused when he saw me. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t the gentleness in his eyes.
“Did they call again?” I asked. “Tell me what’s going on. Is he—?”
“He’s alive. He’s still unstable, but they think he’s going to be okay. They’re keeping him in the hospital for monitoring over the next few days, just until he stabilizes.”
All the air went out of my lungs. I sank onto the couch with relief, my legs gone to jelly. He was alive. He was going to be okay. I could have used a stiff drink, but it was obvious with the frenzy of activity in the room that Stefan was getting my things packed and ready to go.
“When am I flying back to Chicago?” I asked, hoping it was as soon as possible.
“We’re scheduled to take off in an hour,” he said.
“We?”
He looked at me, his expression softening just a little.
“I’m not letting you go through this alone,” he said. “We’ll leave for the airport as soon as this is done.” He gestured at the packing going on around us.
I was shocked. The last thing I had expected was for Stefan to cut his business trip short to fly back to Illinois with me. This was a marriage in name only, after all.
“Thank you,” I managed. I was still numb.
It wasn’t until we were in the elevator that I realized Oksana was gone. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say goodbye.
Even though I didn’t completely trust her and I was still unsure about the nature of her relationship with Stefan, she had been kind to me. The thought of flying back to the United States with my husband—who was probably going to be working on his phone or laptop the whole time as I fretted about my father—was nearly unbearable.
I only felt worse when we arrived at the airport and I discovered that we weren’t the only people on the private jet this time: Our return flight was full of KZ models.
If I could have parachuted out of the hatch, I would have. With all the drinking, loud music, and high spirits, it was obvious that the models thought of the jet as more of their own personal party bus than a method of conveyance. Everyone was having a good time except for me. What a perfect ending to the honeymoon from hell.
I sat there, overwhelmed with worry for my father and, thanks to the women currently whooping it up, anger toward Stefan. To think, I had been grateful that he had dropped everything to come home with me. It seemed like he was just using the journey as an excuse to wine and dine his agency’s most beautiful models as we headed back to the States.
It would have been better if he’d just stayed in Budapest and let me come home on my own. I would have gladly taken flying coach, in a middle seat, right by the bathroom, over watching a bunch of gorgeous women drink champagne and flirt with my husband.
In fact, I’d never seen Stefan so animated and char
ismatic—except for the first time I met him. When he had turned on the charm in order to get me to agree to the arranged marriage. I should have known it was a ruse. Nobody is that dreamy in real life. As he teased and joked with the models, I could tell they were eating it up.
No wonder someone like Oksana was so enamored with him. It was hard not to be when he was like this. Even when he was being an asshole, I still found him charming and irresistible. Like now, for example. I had a hard time looking away as he smiled and refilled champagne glasses. The whole thing was surreal.
My chest felt tight. I didn’t even bother to excuse myself. I unbuckled my seatbelt and headed to the back of the plane, where there was a private bedroom. Thankfully it was empty.
Curling up on the bed, I closed my eyes and let out a sob. The weight of everything I’d been through that day was crashing down around me as I thought about my father, weak and scared in his hospital bed, and Michelle, who was probably at his side, and how much I wanted to be there with them right now.
This flight couldn’t go fast enough.
Just as I thought I had finally run out of tears, I heard the door open. Immediately, I rolled onto my side and raised my hands to cover my face. Whoever had stumbled into the bedroom didn’t need to know I was back here, crying by myself.
I waited for them to leave, but when I heard the door close, it was followed by the sound of footsteps coming toward the bed. And then I smelled Stefan’s familiar cologne.
I didn’t understand what he was doing until the bed shifted under his weight. I felt him lie down behind me, his arms coming around to spoon me. He was warm and strong, his body strong and reassuring as it pressed up against mine.
Unable to help myself, I let out another shuddering sob. It felt so good to be held, and when I turned in Stefan’s arms, he looked into my eyes and gently pulled the hair out of my face.
“It will be okay,” he said. “We’ll be there soon.”
As I let the tears flow, he stroked my hair and my back, his voice soft and gentle, assuring me that everything was going to be fine.
