“Oh…only sixty-eight percent?” Annika repeated. Struggling to regain her composure, she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, trying to give the impression that she was unfazed by the news. But the truth was that she was deeply touched by the protective gesture. She watched as the pair of blue-green eyes sitting across from her wandered down to her exposed upper thighs. She’d forgotten how short her dress actually was. She sat upright and scooted closer to the table, then repositioned herself in the cushy chair. Talvi had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“You,” he hummed. “You’re squirming as if that excuse for knickers is tickling you in all the right places. You might be more comfortable if you took it off. You could put it in your little handbag for safekeeping.”
“Oh my god, that’s such a trashy move!” she hissed, and took in the splendor that surrounded them once more.
“If the shoe fits…”
Annika shot him a look, but he conveniently avoided it by picking up his menu again.
“If I knew you were taking me to a place like this, I would’ve worn something else.” She finally placed the napkin in her lap, noting that it covered more of her thighs than her dress did. And all the while, Talvi didn’t take his eyes off the menu. It seemed nothing gave him greater joy than to deny her the satisfaction of his undivided attention.
“Nonsense. I like it when you get all tarted up. A little trash, a little sass…”
“Really? You don’t think I look too slutty for a fancy place like this?” she asserted, and tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“Perhaps a bit, and that’s precisely why you wore it—because you know I have a soft spot for wayward women. Although…” he tilted his head and put on a thoughtful smile, “presently there’s nothing soft about that particular spot.”
“You’re terrible,” she grinned back at him.
“I know.”
He waited patiently as two glasses of champagne were set down beside them, and then the evening’s dinner specials were painstakingly recited. Every single word their server spoke promised mouth-watering decadence. With such delicious options available to her, it seemed a crime for Annika to request a salad with dressing on the side.
“My wife has made it very hard for me to focus on the menu,” Talvi said, winking at Annika before turning to their server. “Would you mind asking the chef to choose a vegetarian dish for each of us? As long as there’s no animal flesh in it, I don’t care what you bring out. Eggs and milk are fine. Preferably something that would pair well with the Barbaresco.”
“Very good, sir.”
Annika waited until they were alone before reaching for her champagne flute.
“It’s bad luck to drink without toasting to something,” he said as he raised his own glass up to touch hers. “Why don’t we drink to your success?”
The many definitions of success bounced into Annika’s mind, although she wasn’t thinking about fame or fortune as much as she was thinking about the people she hoped to be sharing it with. She had a nice home and a nice car and an obscene amount of clothes. The contents of her closet weren’t going to remember her birthday or hold her hand when she was old and grey. Her eyes watched the rim of Talvi’s glass as it touched his lips. Then she focused on the glints of light that reflected off the platinum band on his ring finger. Now seemed as good of a time as ever to raise the stakes.
“I see you’re still wearing your wedding ring,” she observed.
A shadow passed across Talvi’s face. It only lasted a second, which was plenty of time for Annika to realize the impact of her remark.
“Yes,” he quietly answered, and glanced over at Tripp and Adams to avoid looking at her. “They tried to remove it when I was incarcerated. Eventually they realized it would require the severing of my finger. Of course,” he added with a bitter edge to his voice, “it took them several hours to arrive at that conclusion. I nearly asked them to take the finger.” He gulped down a robust portion of his drink and then sighed, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, he forced a polite smile onto his face. “I see you’re still wearing your ring. I thought after everything that happened, you might’ve tried to cut it out of your flesh…using anesthetic, naturally.” He rested his left hand on the table and ran his fingertip along the smooth base of his champagne glass. The multitudes of the soft lights above them shimmered and sparkled against his matching platinum band.
“I thought about it,” she admitted in between sips. “I talked to an orthopedic surgeon about my options.”
Talvi raised an eyebrow at her. He was more curious than surprised.
“Did you really? What stopped you from going through with it?”
Feeling slightly shaken, she took a deep breath and set her glass down.
“I wasn’t willing to risk damaging my hand for an elective surgery that might ruin my career…no matter how much I hated looking at my ring. Or, at least, how much I used to hate looking at it.” She pressed her glossy lips into a flat line and swallowed hard. “Then Finn showed up backstage a couple months ago and everything turned upside down. Or maybe it’s right-side-up now. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
Talvi gave an understanding nod and a sympathetic smile.
“Then you’re in luck, because I’ve had plenty of time with nothing to keep me from going mad aside from examining and reexamining every single one of my thoughts. Might I tell you what I happen to think?” He waited until Annika nodded before explaining further. “I think the nature of my work and my personality in general has made it very difficult for me to communicate with you…at least, beyond the boudoir.” He snickered softly to himself. “That seems to be the only place where I excelled with you. I recall you once telling me that I’d make a fantastic sex slave if you were to bring me home. Perhaps things would’ve turned out differently if I’d been your obedient pet, just as you wanted me to be when I first arrived on your doorstep.”
Annika began to blush so hard that it was making her sweat.
“I’m sorry for saying that. It was so mean.”
“But it was honest.” He finished the last of his champagne and looked across the small table at her with a sincere and practical expression in his eyes.
“No it wasn’t,” she countered, and sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I had my head up my ass when I said that to you.” Talvi nearly laughed out loud as Annika went on. “I didn’t know you the way I do now. You’d be a horrible sex slave. You like being the one who calls the shots.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a nod of acknowledgment after recovering from her comment about having her head up her ass. “But you don’t know me nearly as well as you believe you do.”
“How can you say that?” she argued playfully. This time Talvi didn’t smile back.
“I said it because I’ve been pretending to be someone else for so long that I scarcely know who I truly am.”
“I know you well enough to know that you’re being melodramatic right now,” she said.
“And I know you well enough to know that you’re being rather short-sighted right now,” he replied. She opened her mouth to object, however, their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of two salads and a bottle of Barbaresco. The lively red wine flowed freely as each additional course was delivered to their table with perfect timing. Somewhere between the chargrilled Sicilian aubergine, the sweet peppers with Corsican ricotta, and the hand-rolled pappardelle topped with slivers of black truffles, Annika found herself extremely relaxed in her present company.
An hour and a half and that bottle of Barbaresco later, the two of them watched as their plates were cleared from the table.
“I’ll never forget the look on James’s face when he came home that day and found his house a complete disaster,” Talvi chuckled. He leaned back in his chair and casually swirled the little bit of wine left in his glass. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that much soot come o
ut of one chimney.”
“You’re the one who let him think it was my fault!” she accused, although her wine-stained lips were smiling. “At least, the mess in the kitchen. He still swears to this day that there’s sugar on the floor, and I mop it every other week.”
“I didn’t know how else to sweeten you up other than pouring that enormous sack of sugar over your head,” Talvi countered. “You were such a sour girl…nothing like the self-assured woman sitting across from me now.”
Annika took another sip of her wine; not because she needed it, but to keep her bottom lip from trembling. When he wasn’t being a total ass, her husband had a knack for being utterly sweet and sincere.
“I was a sour girl,” she admitted, and took a deep breath. “That wasn’t even a year ago but it feels like another lifetime ago. So much has happened since then. I wasn’t ready to be married a year ago. I was too immature and insecure, although I never would’ve admitted it at the time.” Talvi stopped swirling his wine glass and tilted his curious head to one side. “I don’t know why my automatic response was to always expect the worst out of you. Maybe I could always sense deep down that there’s a part of you that I’ll never see or understand. I know there’s things you do and things you’ve done that are too messed up to share with anybody.”
“Your perception was accurate,” he said quietly. “I rarely discuss the details of my work with anyone. And when I do, it’s certainly not with my friends or my family.”
“Except for Yuri,” Annika pointed out. “She told me the real reason why you took her to Cairo—to keep weapons off the black market.”
“I took her there because she’s always been fascinated with Egyptian mythology and we’d never been to the pyramids at Giza,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He cast a sideways glance at Tripp and Adams before adding, “She went so far as to ask me to buy her a camel to bring home, and I really have to tell you, Annika…” He paused long enough to lean forward, and gave her a hard, severe look. He was clearly not happy that Yuri had told Annika about one of his clandestine missions. “That’s where I draw the line, so don’t ask me anything else about camels. Not ever.”
Annika slowly nodded in agreement while trying to remember what she’d been talking about just before she’d nearly blurted out her husband’s classified work history in front of two soldiers.
“You were saying that you thought you were a sour girl…that you weren’t ready to be married,” Talvi reminded her. “I know you’re part samodiva. I should’ve known better than to pressure you into marriage so quickly after meeting you.”
“You didn’t pressure me,” she insisted. “I knew what I was getting into.”
This time Talvi didn’t bother trying to hide his laughter.
“The bloody hell you did! You didn’t have a clue what you were getting yourself into! If you did, you would’ve run screaming in the opposite direction. To make matters worse, I didn’t have the foresight—nor the decency—to give you more than a few days’ notice as to when the ceremony would take place. I understand it’s a bit late for apologies, but I am truly sorry about that.”
“I’m an adult. I could’ve said no at any time. I didn’t think about the consequences until it was too late.” She cleared her throat and scooted her chair closer to him. “Then I was so frustrated with myself that I took it out on you. I assumed the worst of you instead of getting to know you better.” She toyed with her hair while a bittersweet smile spread across her lips. “I’ll never forget the time you told me that you weren’t going to apologize for every pleasure you had before you met me. It makes perfect sense now, but when you first said that to me I was hell-bent on making you regret it.” Talvi was intrigued by her observation, yet remained silent. “And the thing is, if anybody had ever treated me the same way that I treated you for hooking up with people when we were single, I probably would’ve punched them in the face! I don’t understand why I thought it was okay to have that double standard with you about sex-shaming.”
“It’s rather obvious why you behaved the way you did,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “Life is full of double standards, and sex is loaded with shame…particularly in your culture. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying sex. It’s typically those who aren’t enjoying it who have the problem with it. Back where you come from, they do tend to judge quite harshly on something that is really none of their business.”
“Believe me…I know,” she said, trying to keep her lower lip from trembling. “When Patti Cake found out about me and Finn, she moved out and stopped hanging out with me. She didn’t ever say that was the reason, but I know it was.”
“Is that so?” Talvi asked with a deadly serious expression. With her mouth full of wine Annika could only nod. “Did you tell her the part where I opened the trap door you were standing on and caused you to land on my brother’s knob?” Annika almost spit out her wine. She finally managed to shake her head, and that’s when she saw him grinning ever so softly at her. “Well then, you did yourself a disservice. If Patti’s a true friend, she’ll come around. I suggest you stop tormenting yourself about it. You can’t change the past. All you can do is get on with things.”
“You make it sound so easy.” She sniffed and reached up to wipe away an unexpected tear, and then another. “I can’t compartmentalize things the way you can. I wish I could.”
She reached for her purse and fumbled around blindly, searching for a tissue, but her dark knight had already scooted his chair closer to hers and offered his handkerchief. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes, trying not to smudge her makeup, then downed the rest of her wine.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he asked, leaning closer to her. He moistened his lips as though he wanted to kiss her, which sent tremors through Annika’s chest. Could this be the moment she’d been waiting for? Knowing Talvi, anything was possible. He appeared to be pleading with the utmost sincerity, yet there was an apologetic look on his face. “I don’t always compartmentalize things so easily. If I did, then I wouldn’t have so many concerns about being anything other than friends with you.”
The intimacy of that singular moment was amplified by the soft, warm lighting and the framework of tiny white flowers hovering above them. He had concerns about being anything other than friends? He should’ve had concerns about being anything other than lovers. Annika wasn’t going to leave that city without the one thing she came for—him. She could just imagine the softness of his tongue and the firm grasp his hands were bound to possess when they held her again. Maybe those hands would pin her against a mattress and reach underneath her skirt. Maybe they would press her up against the wall in the shower, or slide up between her thighs in the back seat of their car. Who knew what they would do to her after all that time apart?
Her body grew more aroused with every second that she spent indulging in those fantasies, and she didn’t bother concealing them from him. Talvi’s jaw was clenched and his eyes had narrowed, reflecting the level of his restraint. It was almost too much for her to see him like that. She would’ve kissed him right then and there if he only leaned a bit closer. As if to taunt her, he sat back in his chair, watching her with a rueful and regretful expression.
“I should probably mention that I saw the letter that Finn wrote to the High Court of Korvaaminens,” he said, breaking the erotic spell she’d tried to cast upon him. “He showed it to me when I returned home from Bleakmoor. I read every word of the case he made against me remaining your spouse.” Talvi folded his hands and rested them on his stomach, then looked her straight in the eye. “I have to admit, even I was impressed with how thorough he was…so much so that I honestly believe you’re better off with him than you’ll ever be with me. You’ll be safer. No doubt you’ll be happier as well.”
“How can you say that?” she huffed, more than a little insulted at the idea. “I’m not some shelter dog that needs to be re-homed! I’m your wife! How can you seriously think that’s what any of us really want?”
“Don’t lie to me,” she warned. “You know that’s not true!” He promptly let go of the few strands of hair he was toying with. “Finn only wrote that letter because he was out of his mind after what we went through in Paris! Of course he thought he’d be a better husband than you! And no wonder, what with that whole ‘unbreakable bond’ we’ve got now! Neither of us wanted that, and now we’re stuck with it until we get bonded to someone else! Oh, and not to mention that I deserved to be asked whether or not I even wanted a korvaaminen in the first place!” She lowered her voice, trying not to make a scene. “Tripp told me that you were supposed to have asked me first, but you took that choice away from me! You both did.”
Tripp and Adams both glanced in the direction of Annika and Talvi’s table, although they did nothing to intervene. Evidently sitting in the most romantic restaurant in all of London wasn’t enough to prevent Talvi from getting an elven earful of what Annika had to say. He gave a slight wince before clearing his throat.
“Actually, I’m the one who led Finn to believe that you and I already had an understanding about the matter. I told him that—I told him that you were in favor of it. Or, rather, that you would be.” Annika glared at him, and Talvi was quick to speak up again before she could say anything. “I know it wasn’t my decision to make—believe me, I know.” His eyes were becoming more intense by the second. “And I shall eternally regret taking that choice from you, along with so many other choices that should’ve been yours and yours alone. The point I was trying to make is that Finn’s letter placed a spotlight on a very harsh truth about us, and it’s time we faced it head-on.”
The Darkest of Dreams Page 31