Page 56 of Mafia Christmas Vows

There will be time enough for us to talk. I have a lifetime, after all, to show Maggie how much she means to me.

As we sink into each other, my doubts are soothed.

Maggie is mine.

And she will be ready to hear that.

Eventually.

Later, when we are tucked into the luxurious bed in my room, a fire crackling at our feet, my doubt returns.

Why did Maggie cut me off?

I am easily distracted, it would seem, but Maggie is not… duplicitous. We have always promised to be honest with each other. It’s one of the foundations of our tentative, if happy, relationship.

So why did she keep my truth from coming out?

I want to wake her, but I know that would not be the best solution. She’s sleeping peacefully at that, and I cannot worry about such matters.

Maggie feels for me as much as I feel for her. I know it.

There’s no other reason why she would treat me so well. We’ve spent the past few weeks wrapped in each other’s arms, a haze of cookies and treats and holiday cheer that’s so thick, now I’m wondering if it was just a fog.

Just something that made me miss the signs of what was really going on with her.

The urge to look at her phone, to see what she’s telling her mother, flashes over me. That would be a violation of her privacy, and I clench my fists instead.

Besides, her mother would not have agreed to come and visit if she was concerned for her daughter’s feelings or safety.

At least, I don’t think she would have.

The doubts compel me to stand. I walk to the window, looking out. The darkness around Orlov House is intense. Aside from the decorative lighting on the walls of the ancient manor house, there is no additional light until you reach the village, and then barely anything until Novgorod, which is a long enough drive that you really can’t see the lights leading that direction.

Most of the time, I find the solitude completely unremarkable.

Today, however, it makes me itch.

Will Maggie be willing to accept this? Will she be able to accept the life that I have to offer her? I am rich. I am powerful.

But she has no need for wealth or power. Maggie has something that many of us spend our whole life trying to find money and power to fill.

She has happiness.

Joy.

She has the ability to make both of those things wherever she goes, because she is not desperately scraping at the wounds of her childhood, trying to glue them together as an adult.

Does she really feel for me as I do for her?

I’m deeply enmeshed in musing when my phone lights up. I tiptoe over to it, grabbing it, and I raise it to my face.

Anatoly: Boss. It’s been about an hour, and there’s no sign of your in-laws.

A chill skates down my spine.

Me: What do the officers say?

Anatoly: They won’t tell me.

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