Royally Romanov

by Teri Wilson

  But she hadn’t. She’d trusted him. She’d believed in him even when it didn’t make sense, and now she had every right to expect him to return the favor.

  He wished he could.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” She reached for her bag, resting beside the cash register on the bookshop’s counter. “Your photograph.”

  “Keep it. Put it in the exhibit. It’s yours,” he said. “So is this.”

  He removed his grandmother’s charm bracelet from his pocket and set it on the counter. He wasn’t entirely sure why he did it, except that Finley had lost her great-grandmother’s locket and the things she’d just told him had left him feeling utterly powerless. He knew he couldn’t fix what had happened to her or make it go way. He couldn’t let her help him anymore, either. Not in good conscience.

  But he could leave her with something. He could leave her with this.

  Wide-eyed, Finley stared at the bracelet.

  By the time she looked up, Maxim was already gone.

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  ELEVEN

  He’d left. He’d dropped his grandmother’s charm bracelet in a little pile of gold, rhinestones, and trinkets, and he’d walked right out the door.

  Finley took a shaky inhale. Her breath grew shallow. A customer walked into the bookstore, causing the bells on the doorknob to ring again. The jarring noise pulled Finley from her trance.

  Thank goodness.

  She had to go after Maxim. She couldn’t let him do this. If he didn’t want her help, so be it. But she couldn’t accept his grandmother’s things any more than Maxim could accept her assistance in trying to sort out his past.

  Truth had been such a precious, elusive thing lately. Since the moment Finley had met Maxim, attempting to grasp the truth had been like struggling to catch air in her hands. Impossible. But things were beginning to come together in ways she never would have expected.

  Finley stared at his grandmother’s bracelet, not wanting to believe what she was seeing.

  You’re imagining things. It’s just an old charm bracelet.

  But it wasn’t just an old charm bracelet any more than Maxim was an ordinary man.

  Finley had been trained to spot items of historical and artistic significance. Years of studying had taught her to look beyond layers of dust and decades of wear and tear, to see the story beneath the surface. And the bracelet’s story was breathtaking, like nothing she’d ever seen before.

  The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her—she’d forgotten she’d asked him to bring the bracelet along tonight. Asking him in the first place had been an act of pure desperation. She’d been grasping at straws.

  Then it no longer seemed important. Not after the things she’d told him, and not after the way he’d looked at her. He’d stood right there in her beloved bookstore, and he’d looked at her as though the lingering pain of what she’d experienced cut him deeper than what he’d been through himself.

  She’d never forget that look as long as she lived. It had stolen the air right out of her lungs. How was it that a man she’d known for less than a week was more affected by what had happened to her than her own boyfriend had been at the time it occurred?

  Because he understands. He knows what it’s like.

  Maxim felt her pain in the same way that she felt his. And when she’d told him her darkest secret, he’d accepted it with a graceful fury that was moving and bittersweet.

  He wanted to protect her. She got that. It irritated her to no end, but she got it. That’s why she hadn’t argued with him. That’s why she’d been willing to return the photograph and let him walk away.

  But then Maxim had told her to keep it. And he’d dropped the bracelet on the counter like it was a piece of costume jewelry anyone could find on a Saturday afternoon at the Les Puces de Montreuil flea market.

  What had he said when he first mentioned his grandmother’s things?

  There’s not much. No more photographs. Just an old charm bracelet . . .

  He had no idea what he’d left behind.

  “Did your man leave already?” Scott sauntered in from one of the shop’s other crowded rooms, looked around and shook his head. “I left you two alone on purpose. I thought maybe you’d seal the deal and leave together. But no.”

  He let out a weary sigh, and Finley somehow resisted the urge to tell him to mind his own business for once.

  “I’ve got to go.” Finley managed to get Gerard’s leash clipped to his collar despite the frantic trembling in her hands. She couldn’t seem to stop shaking, and her heart was beating hard against her rib cage.

  She had to hurry, or she’d never find Maxim. This couldn’t wait until later. She had no idea when he’d be back at his apartment, and she didn’t exactly want to hang around there since someone had tried to break in the day before.

  Where had Maxim gone, anyway? What was the mysterious appointment he’d mentioned?

  This isn’t the time to try and figure it out. Just go after him. Now.

  Scott frowned. “You’re leaving, too? It’s like a revolving door around here all of a sudden.”

  She slung her bag over her shoulder and wrapped Gerard’s leash firmly around one of her wrists. Then she stared at the bracelet for a beat before relenting and fastening it around her other wrist. That seemed safer than dropping into her bag. It was a bracelet, after all.

  “Au revoir.” She waved at Scott, and the charms on the dainty gold chain tinkled like bells.

  They weren’t bells, though. They weren’t even charms. The four trinkets dangling from Finley’s wrist were Peter Carl Fabergé’s lost secrets from the Imperial Romanov Easter eggs.

  The cabochon ruby from the Rosebud egg was there, along with the egg’s other missing surprise, a tiny gold crown studded with diamonds and rubies.

  Beside the crown was another ruby. This one had been cut into the shape of an egg. It hung from the bracelet next to a miniature tiara covered in pavé diamonds. These two treasures were the missing surprises from the Jeweled Hen egg, the first of all the Romanov eggs.

  Finley couldn’t take her eyes off of them. She was so full of adrenaline that she could barely even put one foot in front of the other.

  All told, Maxim’s “old charm bracelet” was probably worth tens of millions of dollars. But it had also belonged to the Grand Duchess Anastasia . . .

  And that made it priceless.

  * * *

  AS IT TURNED OUT, finding Maxim wasn’t the hard part—spotting his brooding figure cutting across the Place du Parvis in front of Notre Dame was rather easy. The difficult part was following him as he disappeared into the Saint-Michel metro station and boarded a train while trying not to be noticed. Especially since Finley had Gerard in tow.

  She probably should have left her dog back at the bookstore. She’d brought him along as habit. Scott wouldn’t have let her leave without him, anyway. As preoccupied as he was with her love life at the moment, he didn’t want her traipsing all over Paris after dark by herself. He was still spooked by what had happened to Maxim. Everyone was.

  Fortunately, the metro was crowded with an abundance of rush-hour commuters who Finley could hide behind. She sandwiched herself among a cluster of sharply dressed businessmen and did her best to blend in as she stared at the back of Maxim’s perfect head and wondered where they were going. Although she supposed technically, he was the one doing the actual going. She was merely stalking.

  Oh, how the tables had turned.

  The train stopped and started enough times for Finley to have to keep switching positions in case Maxim turned around. When they reached the Charles de Gaulle Étoil station, he finally stood. The doors of the train opened, and he disembarked.

  Finley’s heartbeat kicked up a notch as she scooped Gerard into her arms and followed Maxim out of the station and onto Ru
e Daru. She figured she might be less conspicuous without a French bulldog trotting alongside her.

  But as soon as the gilded onion domes of the Cathédrale Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky came into view, she knew precisely where Maxim was headed. She set Gerard on the ground again and hastened her steps. It no longer mattered if Maxim saw her now. Let him try and get rid of her. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  The cathedral was the oldest Russian Orthodox church in Paris, and despite its status as an official historical monument, it was somewhat of a hidden treasure. Rue Daru was narrow enough that it was almost easy to overlook the neo-Byzantine cathedral tucked among the French manoirs. And that would’ve been a shame, because the church was gorgeous.

  The front of the cathedral boasted one of the largest gold-leaf frescoes Finley had ever seen. It shimmered in the lavender twilight, like a Klimt painting come to life.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” she said to Maxim’s back once he was just a few steps from the church’s massive glass doors.

  His slowed to a stop and turned around. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He looked less than thrilled to see her, which Finley tried not to take personally. Tried, and failed. “Tell me you didn’t just follow me, Finley.”

  “I didn’t just follow you here, Maxim.” She offered him her most saccharine smile.

  He let out a massive sigh, and completely ignored Gerard, who was straining at his leash in an attempt to throw himself at Maxim’s feet. “You can’t be here.”

  “Too bad. Here I am. We need to talk about your grandmother’s bracelet.” Finley was hyperaware of the weight of it on her arm. On the train, she’d caught herself staring at the dainty bracelet multiple times, despite every effort not to draw attention to it.

  She kept thinking if she looked at it hard enough, she’d realize she’d mistaken it for something it wasn’t. An old woman wouldn’t walk around for decades with four of history’s most priceless lost treasures dangling from her wrist, would she? She wouldn’t spend her entire life lying to her own family about who she was.

  She might if she were Anastasia.

  “It’ll have to wait for another time. Go home, Finley. I have an appointment. An appointment for which I’m already late.” Maxim’s gaze flitted to the door, where a group of people in robes moved behind the glass.

  “I’m not about to go home after I just followed you halfway across Paris. I know exactly why you’re here.” She aimed a purposeful look at the massive gold onion dome at the tip of the church’s tallest turret.

  So quintessentially Russian.

  Finley had always loved Russia’s affinity for onion domes. Their shape reminded her of smoke from a candle billowing toward the sky.

  Maxim looked at her long and hard. “Do you really?”

  “Of course.” His appointment had something to do with the church’s claim that Anastasia’s DNA results had been falsified. Obviously.

  Maxim’s brow furrowed as he continued studying her like she was a test he’d neglected to prepare for. For a man who was already late for an appointment, he no longer seemed to be in much of a hurry.

  Finley narrowed her gaze at him. “Wait a minute. I know why you’re here, but you don’t, do you? You found the name of the church written on a scrap paper in your apartment or something, but you can’t remember why it’s important.”

  “You’re not as clever as you think you are. There was no scrap of paper lying about.” His lips twitched. If Finley hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought he was on the verge of smiling at her. “It was a voice message that tipped me off.”

  “Aha! I was right.”

  This time he did smile. Finley had the sudden, nonsensical urge to kiss the dimples that flashed on his masculine face. “Not completely right.”

  She shrugged. “Right enough. Shall we go in?”

  His brows rose. “We?”

  “We’ve already established that you need me here. What are we waiting for?” There was no way he’d push her away again. Not now.

  His smile faded, and in the depths of his cool blue gaze, Finley saw something dark. Tortured. He didn’t want her here, but he needed her. He knew it, and so did she.

  “Relax, it’s a church. I’ll be fine. I don’t think there’s a bad guy hanging around here for choir practice.” She squared her shoulders and tried her best to project a confidence she didn’t quite feel.

  So far, she and Maxim had only spoken about his family history between themselves. Once they walked through those doors, that would no longer be true. And now Maxim had proof—actual, physical proof—that tied him to Tsar Nicholas’s family. It glittered on Finley’s wrist.

  Things had progressed pretty far past complicated.

  But that didn’t necessarily mean she was putting herself in danger.

  Her gaze flitted to the bruise on Maxim’s temple. She seemed to have forgotten how to swallow all of a sudden.

  “You’re not going to take a dog into a church, are you?” Maxim glanced down at Gerard.

  Gerard let out a timely snort. Finley’s gaze flitted toward the posh apartment buildings on either side of the church. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower twinkled against a violet sky. “This is Paris, remember? Dogs can go anywhere.”

  He gazed down at her, and for a moment, she forgot that the only reason she was standing beside him was because she’d stalked him through three different arrondissements.

  His sapphire eyes grew soft and dark. Like velvet. And suddenly, Finley wasn’t afraid anymore. The strange, sweet pull she’d been fighting for days was back. But now that she’d opened up to him, it was worse.

  They weren’t strangers anymore. They hadn’t been strangers for a while now, but she’d been able to pretend that they were. Now she couldn’t. The wall had come tumbling down, and she wasn’t sure how to put it back in place. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. Not when he looked at her the way he was now.

  She recognized that look. She felt it down to her toes. He wanted to kiss her.

  Maxim’s gaze fell to her lips, and he looked at her mouth like he was a starving man. He swallowed hard, and Finley tried not to stare at the muscles in his strong neck. “Point taken.”

  * * *

  ACCORDING TO THE PLAQUE just inside the door of Cathédrale Saint-Alexandre-Nevsky, the church had been built and consecrated in 1861. Maxim wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d found out Father Kozlov had been around that many years himself.

  The clergyman’s beard was so long that it nearly reached his stomach, and it was as white as snow. He had a thick, serious brow, which, combined with his heavy cassock and black cylindrical hat, gave him a somber demeanor. Somber bordering on terrifying if Maxim was being honest.

  He stood near the altar, watching a group of similarly dressed men sing a succession of Slavic chants. Maxim and Finley had arrived just in time for choir practice, apparently—the reason Father Kozlov was still at the church at such a late hour. How a man who had to be pushing ninety managed to work overtime was a mystery Maxim couldn’t begin to fathom.

  The church secretary approached the priest, said something, and gestured to the spot where Maxim and Finley stood. And Gerard, too, obviously. The Frenchie was focused intently on the music. His ears, which looked comically huge on any given day, were pricked so far forward it seemed as if they’d doubled in size.

  Maxim understood his fascination, though. The chants rang through the massive church, bounced off every elaborately decorated surface, and somehow settled deep inside his chest. He didn’t understand a word of what he was hearing, but it was profoundly moving all the same.

  Get ahold of yourself.

  His emotions were all over the place. He couldn’t believe Finley had followed him here. He wanted to be angry. But he couldn’t manage to muster an ounce of fury where Finley was concerned. Mostly, he was relieved she was standing beside him right
now, given that she claimed to know why he’d be interested in talking to a Russian Orthodox priest.

  She’d yet to shed any light on the subject. There hadn’t been time.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Finley whispered, glancing at him in wide-eyed wonder.

  He was spellbound by those eyes. Every time she looked at him, his chest ached, especially now that he knew her story. Standing beside her and not touching her was nearly impossible. “Beautiful indeed.”

  Walking inside the cathedral had been like entering one of the bejeweled Fabergé eggs Finley had talked about at her lecture. Everything was covered in either deep crimson brocade or luminous gold leaf. Massive ornate chandeliers hung from the ceiling. They held slim tapered candles, lit with actual flames. Maxim would have thought they’d be considered some sort of safety hazard, but since the building had managed to survive nearly one hundred and fifty years thus far, he figured the Orthodox Russians knew what they were doing.

  “Father Kozlov will be right with you.” The church secretary nodded politely, then exited through one of the cathedral’s massive gold arches, heels echoing on the marble floor.

  “Merci beaucoup,” Maxim said in her wake.

  The priest waved a shaky hand at the choir in what looked like a signal to proceed before walking toward Maxim and Finley with a bent, plodding gait.

  Finley angled her head toward Maxim. “How old do you think he is?”

  “He’s got to be close to ninety, oui?”

  As it turned out, Maxim was off by more than a decade.

  Father Kozlov escorted them out of the sanctuary and led them to his expansive office deep within the recesses of the massive cathedral, where a photograph of the priest celebrating his one hundredth birthday at La Coupole hung above his desk.

  “That picture was taken last year,” he said when he noticed them looking at it. “I turn one hundred and one next week.”