Page 11 of Royally Romanov
CHAPTER
THREE
Maxim Romanov? Really?
Maxim wanted to smack himself in the head, but he figured his head had already suffered enough. Still...
He’d pretty much just blurted out that he was a descendent of the Romanovs to a woman who was an expert on that very subject. What had he been thinking?
He hadn’t been, clearly. He was incapable of coherent thought at the moment. It was a miracle he could even stand there and do a passable impersonation of a rational person.
He’d found her.
At last.
He’d somehow stumbled upon the woman who’d been haunting his dreams for weeks, the one whose face he saw every time he closed his eyes.
Just when he’d begun to think she was nothing but a figment of his imagination or some ethereal, exquisite fever dream, she’d walked right into his life. Technically, he’d blindly walked into hers, but the difference hardly mattered when the end result was the same.
She was real. She had a name, and she was lovely.
She was also staring at him as though he’d sprouted another head.
“Romanov,” she echoed. “I see.”
I see.There were a thousand unspoken implications in those two syllables, none of them good.
She saw that he looked like he’d been beaten to a pulp. She saw that he’d waited around to talk to her until after everyone else had gone. Most notably, she saw that he was a crazy person.
“Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “I misspoke. My name is Maxim Laurent.”
That was the name printed on the stacks of mail that had been waiting for him when he’d finally been released from the hospital. It was the name on the French passport he’d found at his grandmother’s apartment, which by all appearances had become his apartment after she’d passed away two years prior. He was Maxim Laurent, plain and simple.
Except amnesia was anything but simple. And since the day he’d opened that mysterious notebook and seen the wordsJe suis Maxim Romanovwritten by his own hand, he’d believed it to be true. Which probably meant she had every reason to look at him as if he were delusional.
Her luminous eyes narrowed. “You misspoke? As in, you forgot your own name for a minute?”
“Oui.” He swallowed and tried his best to concentrate on the few truths he knew about himself rather than the fullness of her lips. Or the bottomless green of her eyes. God, she was gorgeous. The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen... his lost years undoubtedly included. “It happens sometimes.”
“Does it now? Excuse me for saying so, Mr. Laurent, but that’s an unusual problem to have.” She crossed her arms.
Maxim considered himself lucky she didn’t turn on the heel of her black patent stiletto and walk away. “It is, and believe me, it’s not very enjoyable.”
“I can imagine.” Her lips curved into a smile that was a bit too patronizing for his taste.
Say something. Somethingsane, for crying out loud.“Look, I realize how mad it sounds—I promise I do. I’ve suffered a recent head injury, and things are rather fuzzy. I came here tonight hoping you could help me.”
It was the God’s honest truth. He just hadn’t realized the author of the new book on the Romanovs would beher.
Her gaze moved slowly to the bruise above his eyebrow and lingered there. “Why me?”
“Because I think you might be the only one who can.”
She shook her head, and a strand of her fringe got caught in her eyelashes. Maxim balled his hand into a fist to stop himself from reaching for her and sweeping the hair from her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
Join the club.
“I... ah... fell down.” Technically, he had. And it sounded better than saying he’d been attacked and almost bled out on the steps of Notre Dame. She already looked like she wanted to bolt. Leading with his near murder might not be the best idea. “I don’t know what happened to me, exactly. But I think it might have something to do with the Romanovs.”
