He’d put on a nice pair of slacks and a blue button down shirt and that was just going to have to do.
His shoes tapped on the marble floors as he made his way to his mother’s favorite parlor. Along the walls were portraits of their family, and he paused in front of the one of his father.
Everyone had always told him that he was the spitting image of Oskar, and Alexei could see it. They had the same eyes, dark brown, almost black, in the same shape, even. They both had the mop of black curls, though Oskar’s had been going grey quite rapidly since he’d turned forty. In the portrait, his father was younger, maybe thirty or so, and he stood straight and proud, head held high, a fur cape over his shoulders as he looked directly at the camera with his usual stern expression.
Alexei smiled more than his father did, which was a big difference, he thought, and where Oskar had been wide and bulky, he had a slimmer frame. When he was younger, Alexei had wanted to be just like his father, but somewhere along the line that had all changed, much to the displeasure of everyone in his family.
“Sorry, Father,” Alexei murmured softly.
“You’re late,” answered a sharp voice from up the hall, and he looked up to see Vera standing there.
“It’s not even five after yet,” he said as he started walking again.
“You’re late, and you’re wearing colors,” Vera sniffed.
Alexei rolled his eyes. “I’m sure Mother will survive. It’s just one color, and it’s not even that bright.” The blue of his shirt was dark enough that it was almost black, after all.
Vera shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you? Everything’s on you now, Alexei. Mother has been through a lot these past few days, and you’re not making this any easier for her.”
“Mother’s been through a lot?” Alexei asked, eyebrow arched in disbelief. “I’m sorry, I was under the impression that we’d all lost someone here and that the aunts were the ones to plan the funeral anyway. But please, tell me more about how she’s suffering.”
“You’re so selfish!” Vera hissed at him. “You only care about being funny and clever and doing whatever you want to do. What about your family?”
“Well, maybe if my family was a bit less confrontational every time I stepped so much as a foot into this place.”
Vera opened her mouth to say something else, but was cut off by their mother’s voice. “Alexei, is that you? You’re late.”
Alexei closed his eyes and dragged in a deep breath. “Sorry, Mother,” he said, not even bothering to explain to her that he’d been at the house for ten minutes already. “I’m here now.” He followed her voice into the parlor.
“You look like a homeless person,” Vera hissed just before they stepped over the threshold, and Alexei gritted his teeth.
The Rose parlor was so named because it was painted a dusky pink color, and all of the furniture had rose motifs. It was one of Alexei’s least favorite places in the entire house, but his mother always received guests there.
Now she was sitting on the sofa looking regal as ever, straight backed and proud in a black dress. She glanced up when Alexei and Vera walked in, and then scowled at her son. “What on Earth possessed you to show up here looking like that?” she demanded.
“I told you I had things to do today, Mother,” Alexei replied. “And you made me come here anyway, so you don’t get to complain about how I look.”
She curled her lip at him, looking upset but then sighed. “Vera, darling, will you tell Milla to bring the drinks in?” she asked her daughter.
Vera nodded and disappeared, and the two remaining Alexandrov’s just sat there in silence for nearly three full minutes before either of them spoke again.
“Alexei,” said his mother, and he looked up.
“Yeah?”
His mother made a face and then drew herself up. “This cannot continue, I hope you know.”
“What? This dinner? Because I definitely agree with that.”
“Alexei,” she said sharply, and his eyes snapped to her. “You cannot do this. You have a responsibility to this family and to yourself. This mess you are making of your life is not fulfilling it.”
He frowned at that, already knowing that wherever this conversation was heading, he wasn’t going to like it. “To this family?” Alexei asked.
“Of course. You are your father’s son. His heir.”
That got a laugh out of him. “I know this might come as a surprise, Mother, but we don’t live in the middle ages. No one has heirs anymore.”
“You know exactly what I mean, Alexei. Your father intended for you to take over the family business, our accounts, to keep things running smoothly in the event that he ever-” She broke off there, letting out a heavy sigh.
And yes, he knew all of that. He’d gone to business school and sat through long, droning conversations with his father to learn about the way the family fortune had been made. How he was one day supposed to keep that going, but it all sounded so dull to him. He’d expected to have at least another ten or fifteen years before he’d have to start caring about all of that, but now that his father was dead…
“Vera,” Alexei said. “Vera should do it. She’s better at any of this stuff than I am. She knows more about it.”
“Vera is not her father’s son,” Veronika said. “She’s not his heir. Your father wanted you to do it, and you will.”
“Way to be sexist, Mother.”
“Stop it,” she snapped. “Just stop it. Is everything a joke to you, Alexei? The continued success of this family, is that a joke? Do you just not care?” Before he could say anything, she was holding up a hand and continuing. “This isn’t a negotiation. You will do your duty to this family. You will stop spending your time with people who are beneath you. You will stop behaving like a child. You will pull yourself together and take on your father’s responsibilities. You will get married, and-”
“Excuse me?” Alexei cut in. “Would you run that last one by me again?”
“You will get married,” his mother said. “You will cease spending your time and money on these...streetwalkers and floozies, and you will take a wife. A respectable wife, mind you.”
“What does that have to do with me taking over the family business?” Alexei demanded, incredulous.
“It’s a part of being respectable,” Veronika informed him. “Settling down, starting a family. Your father and I were betrothed to each other when were mere teenagers. You will be thirty in less than four years, and it’s high time you got serious about your future.”
Alexei couldn’t do more than stare at his mother for the moment. He knew that this was a conversation that they were going to have to have eventually, but his father had been dead for just over a week and a half, and already things were slipping out of his control. Get married? The rest of it, sure, he’d been expecting it, but getting married?
Did having a wife somehow make him better at business or something? How was that even relevant?
While he was gaping at his mother, Vera walked back in on the heels of Milla, who was carrying a tray of drinks. Vera sipped hers looking smug, and Alexei didn’t even have to ask if she’d known about this.
He picked up the vodka tonic that had been pushed towards him and downed it in one swallow. “No,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“No,” he reiterated. “No. I get that everyone expects me to follow in Father’s footsteps and take over the business and the accounts and all of that. I understand. I always knew that was going to fall to me, but you can’t sit here and tell me when I’m supposed to get married. That’s a personal decision.”
His mother sniffed and sipped her drink. “Do not romanticize this, Alexei. The majority of marriages in our world are business transactions, and yours will probably be no different.”
“Well that’s depressing.”
“Don’t be naive. Love is all well and good. I loved your father quite a bit, but we didn’t marry for love. We married because his father
wanted a share of my father’s business and our marriage sealed that deal.”
And just like that, he’d heard enough. Hearing his future boiled down to being a business transaction made him want to run and never come back to this house again. It wasn’t that he was silly enough to believe that he needed to wait for true love or anything like that, but this was his life they were talking about.
Setting his glass down, he got to his feet. “What a heartwarming story, Mother. Make sure you tell the grandkids that when you get them. ‘It doesn’t matter if no one loves you because one day someone will want your business more than their dignity or the happiness of their child and you can get married.’ Isn’t that sweet.”
“Where are you going, Alexei? Sit down,” his mother demanded.
“Mm, no, I don’t think I will. I’ve had enough, actually, so I’m going to go.”
“Alexei Dmitri Alexandrov, you sit back down right now!”
“I’m a grown man, Mother.”
“And I am still your mother! You have one year, Alexei. One. If you haven’t found a wife or someone you wish to marry in that time, then I will find one for you, and you will have no say in the matter. Your father worked hard every day to make this family great, to build up the business to what it is now, and I will not see you ruin it because you can’t even pretend like you care!”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” Alexei threw over his shoulder as he stormed out of the parlor and down the hall, slamming the massive mahogany front door behind him as he left the house.
Chapter 3: Bad Mornings
“You have got to be kidding me!” Emma said as she looked at her kitchen floor, now littered with the shattered remains of what was once her coffee pot. She had no idea how it had just slipped out of her hand, but it had, and she was not pleased about it.
It was bad enough that she had somehow not heard her alarm go off that morning, making her oversleep by nearly half an hour, but now she wasn’t going to have any coffee on top of that. And she’d either have to risk making herself later by cleaning up this mess or leave it until she got home. And then go buy a new coffee pot.
There was a reason that she hated Mondays and this was it. All the bad things that the Universe wanted to throw at her seemed to wait until Mondays, when she was sleep deprived and cranky.
Of course, she had to get rid of this mood before she got to work.
As a receptionist for Sapphire Gate Publishing, she had to be bright eyed and pleasant when she was sitting behind her desk, or else she’d hear about it from her boss. She didn’t want to say that he was sexist, but he was definitely of the opinion that the women who worked for the company needed to be pretty and polite at all times. Bright smiles, perfect makeup, the works.
So maybe she did want to say he was sexist, but either way the last thing she wanted was a talking to because he didn’t think she was cheerful enough on the job that day.
Making a quick decision, she left the shattered glass on the floor for the moment, hoping that she’d remember it was there and not be surprised and upset all over again when she got off work. Swearing hotly under her breath, she stepped over the glass and grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair it had been slung over and headed for the front door and her car.
Usually she wasn’t like this. Emma Jackson prided herself on being a nice person. She was one of the first people who volunteered to help others when they needed it. She usually had a smile and something nice to say to people when she passed them on the street or in the store or something. She was easy going and level headed most of the time, which made the times when she was angry and upset seem even worse than they usually were.
She didn’t like being a stereotype.
Everyone always said that short people were angrier to compensate for their lack of height, and she hated proving everyone right about that. It wasn’t her fault that she barely cleared five feet, five and three inches when she bothered to wear heels.
Her completely legitimate anger had nothing to do with her height, thanks very much.
Or her race for that matter. Her smooth, dark skin had nothing to do with the fact that her quips came quick and barbed when she was in a bad mood. That was just...practice.
Her mother had always told her that she was too cute to be angry, and she resented that as well. Just because she was short didn’t mean she was cute. The dimples and large brown eyes might have had something to do with that, along with the head full of long, dark hair that she usually let spill over her shoulders and halfway down her back in waves.
Her mouth was a perfect bow shape, usually red with the lipstick that she wore to work, and people never looked at her like she was some sexy bombshell of a woman. No, she always got that she was adorable or darling even though she was a twenty four year old woman.
It had been like that all through college, all of her male friends seeming to think that they needed to protect her instead of being interested in her. She was always the little sister or the best friend, and never the one that they were chasing after in bars and clubs. Emma was the wing-woman, the sidekick, the shoulder to cry on. It was partially her fault because she never turned people down when they needed her to be in one of those roles, and it had somehow just stuck.
She was the girl who had gone to prom with her best male friend so that he could sneak off and meet his girlfriend that his mother wouldn’t approve of. She’d spent the rest of the night sitting near the food table, eating meatballs and cookies and drinking punch, wishing that someone would ask her to dance.
That had followed her all the way through adulthood, and it irritated her. Added with the rest of her morning, she really didn’t need anything else to happen to make things worse.
Emma muttered about that to herself as she drove, taking a shortcut to work to try and knock some time off of how late she was going to be.
She knew good and well that her boss wasn’t going to be in yet, so she wasn’t going to get into trouble for her tardiness, but she liked being punctual. It made her feel good about herself. It was just another one of those things that made people think she was reliable, but she didn’t care. The last thing Emma was going to do was change her entire personality just because she didn’t like the way certain aspects of her life were going. That was just silly.
Of course she was having these thoughts while running late on a Monday, because that was just how things went with her it seemed. Still, if the coffee pot and being a little late were the worst things this Monday could throw at her, then Emma supposed it wasn’t the end of the world. The day could easily improve from there, and maybe by the time she got home she’d be in a better mood.
Holding on to that hope, she eased her car to a stop at a red light and sighed, checking her reflection in the mirror. She reached for her purse to put on more lipstick and then jolted forward all of a sudden when something quite literally slammed into the back of her car.
For a moment she didn’t react, reduced to blinking and trying to catch her breath, a bit in shock. In all the years she’d been driving, she’d never been in an accident, and now there was a car pressed quite intimately into the back of hers.
Despite the fact that the light had turned green and they were in the middle of an intersection, the person driving the silver car behind hers was climbing out and waving his hands around angrily.
That spurred her into motion. She wasn’t hurt, more just rattled, but if this jerk was going to cop an attitude with her, then she was going to give him a run for his money. As soon as she stepped out of her car, waving for another car to go around them for crying out loud, she was assaulted by a rapid string of some language that she didn’t speak.
She did catch the words ‘stupid’ and ‘blind’, though, and that just ramped up her anger.
“Excuse me?” Emma snapped, cutting off the man’s rant. “I’m blind? Of the two of us here, which one couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning of a red light? Oh, that’s right. It was you. Those mean stop, for future r
eference, not slam into the back of the car ahead of you.”
“You stopped too quickly,” the man shot back.
“Oh please! I was stopped for a full ten seconds before you plowed into me. Don’t try and make this my fault.”
Emma put her hands on her hips and got a good look at the man in case she had to give his description to the police later. Of course he was taller than she was by a good foot, and he looked like he hadn’t slept or showered in days. Stubble was on his face, and his hair was in unruly dark curls that seemed to be in serious need of a brushing. His eyes were bloodshot as he glared at her, and she was going to have a field day with him if he had been driving drunk this early in the morning.
As if the car wasn’t enough of a giveaway, he was dressed in clothes that looked expensive even though they were wrinkled. Clearly this man had an abundance of money, even if he hadn’t been given any common sense to go along with it.
“This is a Porsche,” the man said, and his slow voice was accented with something that sounded Slavic and did nothing to improve Emma’s mood.
“And this is a Corolla,” she said, jabbing her finger at her own car. “And it, at one point, didn’t have a giant dent in the back of it!”
She was definitely yelling now, and the man winced, taking a step back from her. Good, Emma thought darkly. She wasn’t going to back down from this. Not when he was in the wrong, and she had been doing nothing but minding her own business and obeying the traffic laws.
Honking exploded into the air around them, drivers laying on their horns behind their two cars. The man turned around and made a rude gesture, muttering something under his breath.
Emma let out a slow breath and tried to use her head. They couldn’t just sit there where they were yelling at each other. That wasn’t going to fix anything.
“Hey,” she said, snapping her fingers in his direction. “We need to move.”
Crash into Me: A BWWM Russian Billionaire Romance Page 3
