Page 29 of Marked (Russian Sinners 1)

I took a deep whiff. “Oh, I missed you so much,” I murmured blissfully to my coffee mug and the girl chuckled.

“I can bring you some more,” she offered.

“Yes, thank you.” I beamed at her gratefully. “Do you have a creamer too?”

“What kind would you like?” She asked with a smile.

“French vanilla if you have it. If not, anything plain please.” I smiled at her again. “Thanks a lot! You just made my day, possibly my whole month.”

She turned around and left in quick stride. I took a sip and closed my eyes savoring the taste I had been missing so much.

When my eyes opened, I found three men staring at me like I was crazy.

“What?” I asked defensively, my eyes met Dimitry’s gaze. “You don’t have a love affair going on with your coffee?”

“Um, no,” Sergei answered smiling. “All my love affairs are with women.”

“You could go weeks without women,” I told him. “But try going weeks without coffee. It is a killer.” I took another sip and loved the warmth I felt as it went down my throat.

“You better be careful, Anastasia,” Nikolai warned me with a twinkle in his eyes. “Your future husband might be jealous of your coffee mug.”

I shrugged my shoulder and replied with a smile. “I’d pick the coffee every time.”

“Did they teach you that at your school of etiquette?” Sergei asked laughing. “Before you got kicked out. Tell us why you got kicked out.”

I felt heat rise up my cheeks. “It’s a long story,” I told him, aware of Dimitry’s eyes watching me carefully. I bit into a piece of toast and hoped it would be the end of the questioning.

“We have time,” Nikolai added. It was weird, his scar made him look scary and tough, but I got a sense he was all that but also very protective.

I exhaled. “Okay, I guess I opened that door,” I told them resigned. “During my last year of high school, my grandfather insisted I become a proper young lady.” I rolled my eyes thinking back to that conversation with him. “He wouldn’t be deterred. All the women in our family attended the etiquette school going back generations,” I imitated my grandfather’s voice. “You could marry a president, and you will need to know how to behave.” I took a deep breath. “Anyhow, I wanted to get a heads up on my college courses and I knew I couldn’t do it with high school classes and this school that was trying to teach me how to be a brainless wife five hours a day.”

I thought back to those days. I challenged my grandfather and father at each corner. The only reason it all ended well was because my uncle was the mediator.

“And?” Sergei urged and I came back to present, meeting his brown eyes.

On instinct my eyes went to Dimitry’s greys. There was something about them that calmed me.

“The headmistress had one rule,” my gaze roamed all three of them. “She even put it in the rule book. You could not fraternize with her son.” Sergei’s mouth spread into a wide smile. “So I fraternized with her son.”

“You got kicked out because of that?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, not,” I told him. “Turned out her son was swinging for the other team. So my fraternizing with him only went as far as a date. I got ice cream out of it.” Nikolai shook his head. “He is really a good guy and we are still in touch. But he helped me and my girlfriends come up with the plan that would surely get us kicked out.”

“Damn princess, how many people did you have in on it?” Sergei asked.

“There were just three of us and the headmistress' son,” I answered. “On the day of the board meeting, we threw quite a wild party and had boys from a nearby college invited. It ended up being bigger than we planned… and wilder. It got out of hand a little bit,” I added with a sheepish smile.

I still remembered the look in my grandfather’s eyes when he came to get me. It was one of exasperation, disappointment, and sadness. I could handle all from him but the sadness.

“Olivia, Scarlett, and I were expelled,” I continued. “We had a chance of returning in six months if we met certain conditions. None of us wanted to go back so we were officially kicked out of the school. My grandfather was quite upset. He’s worried the next generation of our great family wouldn’t be able to attend the damn school.” He was so traditional, sometimes I wondered if he got pulled out of the wrong century. “And God help us all if I marry a president,” I added jokingly.

Despite all, my grandfather had my back. Sometimes I felt bad for those few rebellious years. He could act so overbearing at times and I tried to be understanding. I reminded him of Mom. He’d say I looked so much like her. Although he’d say she was so gentle and kind while I was too wild. She might have been gentle, but she was also incredibly strong. Stronger than Father, Grandfather, Uncle, and me together.

Despite all the torture she’d endured, she would have lived on if they hadn’t killed her. While they almost broke me twice, I hadn’t been through a fraction of what she had. I wondered if our family being so visible in the social circles and power hungry made us more vulnerable. Going back generations, our family enjoyed wealth, power, and status. It created envy and greed.

“Is that your family’s aspiration?” Nikolai’s voice interrupted my thinking. “That you marry a president?”

I blinked my eyes, trying to process the question. Was that their aspiration? Maybe once upon a time, but not anymore. There was no hope I’d ever marry into politics. I avoided them all like a plague. My grandfather was a smart man and realized that early on. My mom had a chance at marrying a man who had had the potential to become president. I believed my grandfather didn’t want Mom to marry my father. He never said it to me, but the few things I’d heard here and there made me believe it. It didn’t really matter because we always stuck together. I even noticed both my uncle and grandfather wanting less and less to do with the power circle.

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