Page 53 of Sold to the Russian
“It’s simple.”
“Coming from a dignified chef.”
Fedya poured the batter and demonstrated the wrist movement before flipping. “Just like that. Now you try.”
Maeve tried—attempted. She flipped the first one too early, and it folded in half, streaks of batter racing down the pan. The second one flew sideways onto the stove. The third burned to a crisp.
“I’m done,” she declared, frustration evident in her tone as she moved away from the stove. She glared at it like it personally offended her. “I’m not good at it. I keep wasting the damn thing.”
Fedya pulled her back and stepped behind her, his hands covering hers on the spatula. “Try again. It’s perfectly normal to get it wrong the first time.”
“I already tried three times,” she gritted.
“Now try it the fourth time.” He kissed her neck. “Come on.”
With a deep breath, she flipped the blini, and this time it landed—just barely—on the pan correctly.
She turned around to look at him, her hands on her waist. She was beaming like the sun. “I did that.”
He couldn’t stop himself from grinning at her face. “You did.”
She looked so genuinely happy, so alive over the success of a blini that he wanted to keep that smile on her face forever.
He liked making her happy. He liked teaching her things, learning her habits and moods. He liked the way her eyes litup when she succeeded, the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention.
He loved it so much it terrified him.
Chapter 20 - Maeve
Maeve hadn’t realized how much she truly hatedThe Grottountil she was sitting inside it again. She hated the nauseating smell of it, the thick tobacco smoke, sweat and sex, and more sweat. She hated the disturbing smell of the leather booths, old whiskey, and even more fucking cigar. It made her stomach twist and turn, flip over and back, to the extent where she had to swallow down the bitter taste of bile that surfaced at the back of her throat.
Her father had organized a meeting with Fedya—Jonathan Riley—despite knowing exactly who Fedya was, and her. Why? She didn’t know, but it left a sick feeling in her gut, especially since Fedya wasn’t aware that his identity wasn’t a secret to her father.
Fedya had received the call from Cormac on his burner phone two days ago. She had been sitting right next to him when he received the call from her father, who sounded a bit too eager to see his son-in-law and daughter after a month of joining them together.
Refusing the invitation was out of the question, so here they were, sitting side by side on a small couch in a secluded booth in the bar. Her father could easily arrange this meeting in one of the rooms in The Grotto, but he constantly lived for an audience, which is why they were seated in front of three men she never thought she’d see again—Liam, Donnacha, and Cillian, her father’s right-hand men—while waiting for her father to show up.
Beside her, Fedya was the picture-perfect image of calm. His face—now disguised as Jonathan Riley—reminded her of the first night she saw him from where she was standingwith Margot. She remembered the stone-cold gaze he had that reminded her of her father. After Fedya had received that call from Cormac two days ago, she had remembered the man he killed to win her father’s favor and asked him about it. Luca—as Fedya said his name was—turned out to be one of his men that he’d sent to put a close eye on her father’s movements. Fedya had said the night Luca had survived was the night he began believing that luck truly did exist.
Maeve glanced at Fedya briefly, taking in the bald man she swore to hate on the first day. She hated how easily he disappeared behind his perfect disguise. She hated that the three men watching them right now and possibly everyone else in this stupid bar knew exactly who he was. She hated that he was unaware that he was only fooling himself, but worst of all, she hated that she hadn’t told him anything yet.
“It’s never not a pleasure to see you, little Maeve,” Liam, her father’s second-in-command, said, smiling with teeth as he always did.
He twirled a glass of rum in his hands, the amber liquid sloshing against the glass walls. She never understood why, but of all her father’s followers, she hated him the most. Maybe it was because of the way he started looking at her for too long right after she turned eighteen, or the way he had tried to corner her once when she snuck intoThe Grottoto see Margot. She hated him so much.
“I must say, marriage looks delicious on you,” he added, dragging his tongue over his teeth. His eyes latched onto her breasts, and Maeve wanted to sink her nails into his face and rip the smile off his mouth.
“Thank you, Liam,” she returned his smile, feeling Fedya’s hand on her thigh. “I can’t say I’ve missed you.”
The sound of his boisterous laughter bounced off the walls of the club, and for the nth time since they’d walked in, Maeve’s eyes darted upward, searching for any sign of Margot. She was sure her father would have kept his promise to keep Margot alive, but with every uncertain second that ticked away without seeing her, her stomach twisted even further.
Liam winked at her. “Could never forget about that pretty mouth.”
Fedya’s smile was a contrast to the way his muscles had turned to stone. “We’re family now, Liam,” he said in a natural American accent, his grin widening. “I suppose pulling out a gun on you in front of everyone wouldn’t be such a threat.”
Liam cocked a brow, relaxing in his seat. “Oh—”
“I’d watch the manner with which you speak to a married woman if I were you,” Fedya added. Maeve’s fingers slid over his on her thigh unconsciously. “I’m not afraid to blow your brains out for speaking to or looking at my wife like that.”
