Page 68 of Poisoned Roses

All eyes turn to Ellie, who stares at him ashen-faced and Arman grasps her hand gently and whispers, “I’m sorry, malysh.”

She shakes her head in disbelief and her voice trembles. “How?”

“He died of a heart attack.” Titus says with calm assurance and she says nothing, and a strange expression settles on her face. “Like your father.”

She addresses the room and Grace wipes the tears away from her eyes as she nods. “Just like Andrei.”

Ellie turns and smiles at Arman. “Good.”

I may be missing something here. I expected her grief, but she appears almost celebratory.

The mood in the room is calm, despite what happened today, and Valentin grasps his mama’s hand and says gently, “Are you okay, mama?”

“Of course.” She blinks away the tears and stares at the photograph of Andrei Romanov in the frame and a soft smile lights her face and it’s as if the years fall off along with her fears.

“It’s really over.” She addresses no one in particular and Alexei sighs with relief.

“You are the last woman standing, mama.”

I am a little confused, having only been fed snippets of their history, mainly from Ana and Serena who have filled in every detail. I understand Grace is one of a group of people who met in Switzerland decades ago, and she is the last one alive.

She smiles, the relief in her eyes comforting and she catches my gaze and say sweetly, “To the new Mrs. Romanov. The lady of the house and my successor. I wish you every happiness and pray you do a much better job than me of keeping your man.”

Titus reaches for my hand.

“She doesn’t get rid of me that easily and I meant what I declared at the service. I have not given my heart to another.”

“I didn’t know you had a heart.” Mikhail says gruffly, causing a ripple of laughter to echo around the room.

I squeeze his hand because I know it’s in there. Waiting for someone to bring it to life. I will be that woman. The one he has dedicated his life to and together we will sit at the head of this wonderful, complicated, frankly frightening, discombobulated family who I wouldn’t change for the world.

The restof the day is spent coming to terms with what happened, and later we watch the early evening news together.

An image of Denislav Orlov is behind the newsreader, as she says solemnly.

“It is with great sadness that our much loved president, Denislav Orlav was assassinated today. He was hosting the wedding celebration of Titus Romanov to Tatiana Pavlov when a lone gunman infiltrated security and shot him dead. He was taken to hospital, but died instantly.”

There is a huge segment on the president, past photographs, comments from presidents and kings from around the world, all expressing their shock and sadness that such a great ruler was cut down in his prime.

There is much speculation about the person responsible and it’s only when they have finished their obituary to the president does the other news surface.

In a double tragedy, Boris Federov, the man in charge of state security, suffered a heart attack at the same time. Many believe it was brought on by seeing our much loved president gunned down before him. He was a respected member of the government and will be replaced by his second in command, Yuri Voltov.

There is a brief obituary to Boris but then they return to the main news item and Titus grasps my hand and whispers, “I’m anxious to be alone. This is our wedding night, and I made you a promise.”

“A promise?”

I’m confused and he whispers huskily, “To make love to my wife, Tia Romanov.”

My heart flutters and my blood heats as I anticipate an evening of pleasure that has been a long time coming. It’s all I wanted and the entire day was spent anticipating what happens when we are alone, so I nod happily.

“What are we waiting for?”

We make our excuses and I ignore the knowing smirks on the faces of his family and, as we head off to our suite of rooms, we leave our problems behind. Whatever happens next is no longer our concern. We have a life to live, and that begins without the secrets of the past dragging us down.

CHAPTER 39

TITUS

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