She looks down into her glass for a moment and then she looks up directly at me, her gaze unwavering and full of intensity. “There’s a clause in Babushka’s will. Alex gets everything if he is married by the time she dies. If not, then Babushka’s whole inheritance, everything you see here and quite a lot you don’t, will go into a trust fund to maintain the estate and the rest of the family. So you see: no white wedding, no money, no house for Alex.”
I stare at her blankly. To say she pulled the rug out from under my feet doesn’t describe. It’s more like she pushed me into an abyss. I feel as if I’m falling, screaming silently, arms flailing, grasping for something to hold on to and catching only air. I never saw this coming and I don’t know what or who to believe right now. Is this another lie like the ghosts?”
I never take my eyes off her. “Are there ghosts in my room, Petra?”
She shifts uncomfortably. “I’m sorry about that, okay. We just couldn’t resist. We didn’t mean any real harm. But this is not a lie. If you don’t believe me go and ask Alex. He might lie to you, but you’ll see from his expression if he is. A woman in love will always know when the man she loves is lying to her.”
Could this be true? Is what Alex and I have all a lie? Maybe his plan was to offer me the other half of the casino if I went ahead and married him. Or did he expect me to fall in love with him. He is a powerhouse of raw sexual magnetism and pure male beauty so I can’t imagine many girls who wouldn’t eventually fall for him. The truth is if he had asked me to marry him today I would have said yes. For him, for Babushka, for me …
But it can’t be true. Alex doesn’t need Babushka’s money. That’s self-evident. Then I think of all the eighty and ninety-year old billionaires who still go to work every day rain or shine to earn even more money they will never spend in the little time they have left on earth.
But he loves Babushka. I know that’s real. I have to believe in Alex over Petra. I mean this woman has done a complete one eighty on me today. I don’t like her and I never have.
“You’re not mad at me for telling you, are you?” Petra says, cutting through my thoughts.
“No,” I lie. I need to let her think I’m at least considering her story, or this whole thing could blow up.
“But you do believe me, don’t you?” she insists.
I try to think how I would react if I had always just been Alex’s fiancée and had never known there was more to it. I’m not entirely sure how I would react, but I can’t just tell Petra I believe her story blindly, or she’s going to smell a rat. “Actually, Petra, I don’t believe a word you’ve told me. And I’m telling Alex what you told me.”
To my surprise she looks relieved, which means I must have given her the right answer. She wants me to ask Alex, which would also mean she is telling me the truth or that she just wants me to believe she would be happy.
“I’m so sorry to do this to you. I know you love him and it must hurt a lot, but if you take some time to think about it, perhaps the circumstance of how the two of you met, the quickness of your relationship, there will be clues, and you’ll soon see the truth.”
Little does she know … I take a deep breath. “Now that you’ve administered your poison, you can be on your merry way, and take your wine with you so you can celebrate properly.”
“I know you are angry now, but one day you will thank me,” she says, standing up and taking a step away from me. She doesn’t reach for the wine bottle. “I’ll be in my room if you need to talk to someone.”
I watch her walk away and there is only one thought in my head. You scheming little bitch. She really does hate me with a passion and I can see now why Alex wanted a fake girlfriend here, someone who Petra couldn’t emotionally blackmail. I don’t need to think about this. I believe Alex.
I do need to warn him that Petra really has it out for him though. I stand and start walking towards the house, but I remember he had some important calls to make. I can talk to him after dinner tonight. She can’t do much damage today. She has to give me a bit of time to digest what she’s told me.
I decide to go down to the stables and go out for another ride on Nikita. Anything to keep me away from the evil sister. I’m sure she’ll be using all those tunnels in the house even more now to watch my reaction to her news. Well if she’s watching me now she’ll see me taking Nikita out and looking like I don’t believe a word she has told me.
Cindy
I smile my thanks at Boris, who, despite the language barrier, seemed to understand perfectly that I wanted Nikita saddled up just from my hand gestures. He holds the reins for me while I mount her. I’m getting better and better at getting onto her every time I do it, and if I keep riding twice a day for the rest of the break, I might even get to be reasonably graceful at it.
Boris hands me the reins once I’m seated. I thank him and tap my heels into Nikita’s sides and she starts to move. I stroke her neck as we leave the courtyard and head out into the fields. I will not spoil my ride by thinking of the lies Petra told me. I will trust Alex. I take Nikita in the direction Alex and I went this morning. I’d quite like to take a closer look at the orchard.
I’m not confident enough riding yet to gallop when I’m out on my own, but I want to feel like I’m moving, to feel the breeze in my hair. I want to feel free like I did earlier, to feel like I am flying. I settle on the middle ground; a fast canter. It’s not quite as much of an adrenaline rush as a full-on gallop is, but it feels nice and I feel like I’m in control.
We dash across the greenery and I look to each side, taking it all in. Even though I’ve seen it already just this morning, I’m still taken by the beauty of this place. If I stayed here for ten years, I don’t think I would ever reach a point where the natural beauty didn’t awe me. If I saw it every single day, I would still want to take it all in each time I passed through it.
I’m on the outskirts of the orchard, ready to slow Nikita down so we can take a slow, lazy walk through the orchard and I can really appreciate it all when I hear a loud noise. In the still, silent orchard, it sounds like a gun shot. A small squeak of surprise leaves my lips, but my reaction is nothing compared to Nikita’s.
The sound spooks her completely and she rears up, a terrified whine escaping her lips. I cling to the reins for dear life, as I try to soothe Nikita, telling her it’s ok, but there’s no soothing her. She snorts in fear as she comes back down on all fours, but it is only for a split second.
Then she rears up again.
This time, I can’t hold on. I feel the reins jerk through my fingers, and before I know what’s happening, I’m rushing through the air. Not flying, but falling backwards, toppling. I slam to the ground and pain explodes through my body. My shoulder hits something hard, a rock maybe, and my ankle twists beneath me. I feel my head bang against the ground. For a second, I actually see stars, and I think I will pass out, but the moment passes. I take deep breaths. I’m alive. I’m fine. I’m probably just winded.
Nikita bolts over the open fields and I’m left out here alone. Except … I am not alone. Seconds before the noise sounded, I saw a flash of pink through the trees and I was about to head in that direction to check it out, but the noise that sounded like a car backfiring or a gun going off filled the air and I was thrown off Nikita’s back.
It dawns on me that Petra was wearing a pink dress at lunch today.
This only convinces me further that the friendly routine was all an act. She was trying to come between Alex and I. Maybe she saw I didn’t look as shaken by her revelation as she expected me to be. She must have worked out that I didn’t believe her and decided to get her revenge on me in this way. Revenge for what though? I still don’t have any idea what the hell I’ve done to her to make her hate me so much that she’d pull this kind of stunt. If my head had hit the rock my shoulder hit, I could have been killed. Hell, I could have broken my neck.
This has to be more than just some petty jealousy over Alex’s fiancée.
I sit
up gingerly, half afraid Petra will burst out of the trees with a knife or something, ready to finish the job. I hold my breath listening, but the only sounds are the leaves rustling in the breeze and birds chirping. All I can see in every direction is shades of green.
There is no pink anywhere. Petra has gone. She must have made her escape while I was falling to the ground. She didn’t even bother sticking around to see her handy work in action. Well, more fool her because she didn’t get anywhere near the amount of damage I suspect she wanted to. Alex said there were tunnels all over the house and grounds so there could be some kind of tunnel from which she appeared and disappeared. In fact, it would make sense for there to be a tunnel directly to the orchard. In times of trouble you could pop out here and be hidden amongst the trees.
I reach up with my good arm and feel the back of my head. A stinging pain where I touch makes me gasp. I can feel a pretty big bump there but when I bring my hand around in front of my face and check it, there’s no blood. I steel myself to look down at my ankle, hardly daring to see if there’s bone poking out of it.
There is no bone sticking out. I tell myself not to be so dramatic. Sure, it’s a bit painful but it’s not so painful that I couldn’t walk on it. I lean forward, ignoring the pain in my shoulder and I reach down and roll the bottom of my leggings up. There’s a blue bruise forming on the inside of my ankle already. I poke and prod at it, gritting my teeth as pain shoots up my leg. I’m no doctor, but I don’t think anything is broken.
Wow! Looks like I’ve just had one hell of a lucky escape.
I push myself slowly to my feet. By the time I am standing, my weight on my one good leg, I am covered in a film of cold sweat and I feel quite sick. I blink away the tears of shock and self-pity that fill my eyes.
I take a tiny step, testing out my ankle. It hurts like all hell, but it holds. I limp forward a step and then another. The tears run freely down my face now as each limping step jerks my shoulder. It’s going to be a hell of a long walk back to the house, but fucking hell, Petra, you evil bitch, you won’t get rid of me that easy.
Alex
I look up from my laptop at the knock on the library door. “Come in,” I call with a frown.
To my surprise, Boris slides awkwardly into the room. He looks nervous, twisting his hands together, and refusing to look me in the eye.
“What is it, Boris?” I ask immediately.
“Cindy went out on Nikita alone,” he mutters.
I nod, impatient. Has he come here just to let me keep tabs on Cindy or is he worried he shouldn’t have allowed her to.
“Nikita came back a few minutes ago. Alone,” he adds, his eyes sliding away from me again.
He’s still talking, but I’m no longer listening. If Nikita came back alone, it has to mean something has happened to Cindy. She must be hurt. If she’d gotten off Nikita and forgotten to tie her up, Nikita might have wandered a little, but she wouldn’t have come right back to the stables. And certainly not in a manner that made Boris feel the need to come and tell me about it.
Panic rises inside me. Cindy could be unconscious somewhere. She could have broken an arm, a leg … her neck. Jesus! I shove my laptop away, the report I was reading forgotten, and jump to my feet. I streak past Boris. I can hear his feet behind me as he follows at my heels.
We tear through the house and across the gardens to the stables. One look at Nikita confirms that she was spooked. Her eyes are wide, the whites showing around the edges. She’s covered in sweat and panting.
“Take care of Nikita. I’ll go and find Cindy,” I shout over my shoulder to Boris.
He nods his head but he still doesn’t move. Just stands there shifting from foot to foot.
“What is it?” I demand. If he knows something, he needs to tell me what it is.
“I … I’m sorry,” he says. “I should never have allowed Cindy to take Nikita out alone. But she’s usually so gentle and I just thought—”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, cutting him off. “Just keep your phone on you. As soon as I find her I’ll call to bring the truck around.”
He nods and goes towards Nikita.
Without taking the time to saddle Milan, I jump onto his back. Pushing him to his maximum speed, I leave the courtyard and follow the grass that is a little churned up from Nikita’s dash home.
Looks like I’m heading in the same direction we went this morning and I think I know where she was going to. The orchard. She seemed pretty taken with it this morning so it makes sense she would go back there. I really have no idea how far she might have gotten, but she can’t have gone beyond the boundaries of this land. I’ll stay out here all day and all night if I have to, but I will find her.
I picture Cindy clinging to a panicked Nikita, holding on for dear life and then being thrown to the ground. I stop the thought before it can go any further. I don’t need the picture in my mind right now. Cindy will be fine. Nothing could have happened to her now. Not when I just found her.
I feel cold sweat run down my back as I gallop as fast as Milan will take me.
I can see the orchard in the distance and hope that’s as far as Cindy went. She could have gone to the creek again, or she could have gone in any of the other directions. I have no fucking idea which path she might have chosen.
Again, I can feel the panic rising, threatening to take over. I never fall apart when things go wrong. I’m cool and level-headed even in the most dire, life and death circumstances so I can’t understand why I am teetering on the edge of paranoia like this. I swallow the nausea and fear down, telling myself I need to be rational. My mind needs to be razor sharp. The last thing Cindy needs is for me to turn into a useless basket case.
As I close the gap between me and the orchard, I see Cindy. She’s coming towards me, and relief like I have never known floods me. She’s ok. She’s ok. God, she’s ok. I can already see that she’s limping heavily, barely daring to put any weight on her right ankle. One of her sleeves has torn away, and it’s hanging down her arm by a single thread or two.
Fuck.
I grip Milan and spur him to go even faster. I can see the relief on her face when I pull up next to her and jump down.
I don’t give her a chance to say anything before I look her up and down and run my hands all over her body. She doesn’t seem to have any serious injuries. I can’t see any blood which I take to be a good sign, and although her ankle is clearly painful, it’s not broken, or she wouldn’t have been able to walk at all. I scoop her up in my arms and bury my face in her neck. “You gave me a such a fucking scare, Cindy.” My voice sounds hoarse with fear.
“I’m fine, Alex,” she says. “I could have walked to the house myself, you know.”
I pull back and look into her white face. She stares back at me. She’s in shock. I lay her down on the grass. “You’ll be fine,” I tell her pulling my phone out. I give Boris my exact location and cut the call.
“It’s mostly just my ankle,” she says calmly. “I banged my head, but it’s fine. My shoulder hurts too, but it’s nothing major, just a bruise or two, I reckon.”
“Yes well, Doctor Ivanov will be the judge of that,” I say.
“I don’t need a doctor. I just need some ice for my ankle,” she says in that same calm voice.
I let it go. She’s getting the doctor whether she likes it or not, but I can’t achieve anything by arguing with her about it out here.
“Oh, shit! Nikita,” Cindy says suddenly. “There was a noise and it spooked her and she bolted. We have to find her, Alex.”
I can’t help but smile. Even after the accident and when she’s clearly in pain, even if she is trying to hide that fact from me, Cindy appears to be more worried about Nikita’s fate than she is about her own.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, frowning.
“Nothing. I just thought it was sweet that you were worried about Nikita. She’s fine. She made it back to the stables. It’s how I knew to come and look for you.”
>
“Oh, of course,” Cindy says. “I didn’t even consider how you knew to come and look for me. How did you know where to find me?”
“I followed Nikita’s hoof marks, but I had a good idea where you might be heading to as well.”
She nods and looks at me. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
I can’t stand to see her like this. Meek and quiet. It’s not her. It’s not her at all. I have to try and make her feel better somehow.
At that moment I see the truck thundering across the plains. Boris is going so fast it looks like it could turn turtle any moment. “Here comes help. If he doesn’t run us over first,” I say.
She gives a snort of laughter which, to my great relief, sounds a bit more like her.
Alex
Boris takes Milan and I carefully put her into the passenger seat then get into the driver’s seat. We don’t talk on the way back. She leans back with her eyes closed and I concentrate on driving as smoothly as possible as not to jar her ankle. When we get back to the house, I drive the truck right through the courtyard and through the grounds to the door. As soon as I stop, Cindy immediately moves to get out of the truck and winces as she turns.
“Just stay there,” I instruct.
I don’t care if she thinks it sounds like an order and gets offended. It is an order and she’s goddamned going to follow it. She could be doing even more damage to her ankle by walking on it. She makes a humph sound, but she stays seated and when I come around to her side, she doesn’t object to taking my hands and letting me help her out of it.
She does object when I pick her up again, but I ignore her protests and carry her in through the conservatory and through the dining room.
“Alex, I’m fine to walk,” she says again.
“And I’m fine to carry you,” I reply.
Nice Day For A White Wedding Page 19