The Bucket List

18.3 The Will

I should look away. I should look away and cover my ears and pray that whatever's about to transpire will be quick and mercifully quiet, but then Larissa whispers, "Wait."

Kyle's lips trail down her neck. "What?"

"This isn't the right room."

No shit.

My mind is whirring with this new information. Larissa and Kyle. Larissa and Kyle—not Alexei. She's back to her old habits, I think, silently fuming. What is it about that tool that's got her so bent out of shape? Why would she risk the catch of the century, an Ivanov brother, for some lowlife?

It's not a kind thought. Maybe Kyle is funny or brilliant or an exceptionally good guitarist. It's not like I know the guy personally. But I'm not feeling exceedingly generous at the moment.

Larissa pushes his chest. He leans back, exasperated. "What?" he repeats.

"Not here," she complains. To my immense relief, she starts to tow him out of the room, Kyle muttering halfhearted complaints under his breath.

When I'm sure they're gone for good, I escape the claustrophobic confines of the closet and lock myself in the bathroom, confident I'm about to hurl all over the place—one too many margaritas, I tell myself. But the nausea vanishes as quickly as it came, leaving me utterly drained.

I slide to the cool, tiled floor. "What the absolute fuck?" I whisper to myself, beyond more eloquent words.

I should find Nicholai. I should tell him...what? That his brother's girlfriend is cheating on him, the same way she cheated on me? Just the thought of that conversation makes me want to curl up in a ball and sleep for a week.

Besides. I don't want to leave this bathroom, period—not now that I know Larissa and Kyle are somewhere sneaking around out there. Seeing her on Alexei's arm is bad enough. But seeing her with him...

My doom spiral is interrupted by the sound of a door clicking open. "Amara?"

"In here."

I hear his steady footsteps, and then Nicholai joins me on the floor, grunting a little with the effort; I can feel the moment he braces his back against the other side of the bathroom door. I wonder then if he looks anything like I do—haggard, knees curled up to my chest, arm wrapped tightly around my knees.

There's a sound like crumbling plastic. The flick of a lighter. The hiss of breath between teeth.

I crack open the door. A question. An invitation.

Nicholai slips the joint into my waiting fingers. The door closes between us once more.

I blow out a breath, not bothering to hide the smoke. Hotbox a bathroom on a billionaire's yacht wasn't on my bingo card this year—but when in Rome, right?

The telltale clink of metal and sloshing liquid drags a smile across my lips. "Alcoholic."

"Takes one to know one."

"Touché."

No questions about what the hell I'm doing in here or why I'm so quiet or why there's a door between us. I don't think I've ever appreciated him more than I do now.

He drinks. I smoke. And when he proposes a trade, I crack open the door a second time and hold out the joint. Nicholai plucks it from my fingers and slides the flask into my waiting hand.

Again, the door closes.

For several minutes, there's only the sound of Nicholai's breath and the clink of the flask as I down his—whiskey? A pleasant change. I almost feel bad about polishing it off, but the buzzing in my head is driving away the memory of Larissa and Kyle and the sounds she made as he put his hands on her body, so the regret silently fades into the background. No more than a problem for tomorrow.

"My father cut me out of the will."

It takes longer than it should for Nicholai's words to register. When they do, I set the empty flask on the floor and wrap both of my hands around my knees. I'm afraid if I open my mouth—to say sorry or whatever else you're supposed to say when someone tells you they've been essentially ousted from the family fortune—I'll start talking about Larissa, and I don't want to do that, so I don't say anything at all.

Nicholai fills the silence. "Do you remember that day at the coffee shop?"

I do. It was the day you left, I want but do not say.

"I was terribly rude, leaving you there like that." His voice has taken on a slow, hazy quality. "I can't remember if I ever apologized for that moment. But I couldn't stay there. The envelope—the one the barista gave me..."

I close my eyes, trying to picture her face. But everything is a blur at the moment.

"Turns out, it was a copy of an email between my father and his attorney, confirming the request to change the contents of his last will and testament." A long, low breath, intensifying the cloying smell that now dominates the suite. I wonder, vaguely, if anyone is going to come down here and complain. "He cut my brother out of the will, too. Michail." As if I could forget the name. "They got into a huge fight a few months before the car crash. Did I ever tell you that?"

"No," I whisper.

Nicholai pauses. "Michail didn't want anything to do with the family business, so my father wrote him out of the will—wrote him right out of his life. I think that argument was the last they ever spoke."

Is it the booze making him talk like this, I wonder? Or is it the cloud of smoke blanketing his thoughts?

"That's how my father handles business," Nicholai continues, not quite succeeding at nonchalance. "If there's a problem, it's taken care of. People get fired. Sons are disinherited. Secretaries disappear."

The buzzing in my head is becoming unpleasant. I squeeze my eyes tight.

"I tried to look for her. Once. Out of...curiosity. Obligation. I'm not sure."

Silence.

"I never could find her."

I dig my palms into my eyes.

"Amara." Nicholai hesitates. The urge to open the door is stronger now. I want to see his face. I want to understand. "I think I'm losing my mind. I think I'm losing my mind, because I don't think my brother's car crash was an accident."

I bury my head in my arms. Suddenly, I understand too much.

People get fired. Sons are disinherited. Secretaries disappear.

I know what he's saying. But I don't want to know, because I already traveled down this road once before, questioning the disappearance of his last secretary.

Paranoia. That's what this is, I convince myself. Nicholai must not smoke often. It's the marijuana talking. The alternative is inconceivable.

"I understand if this is too much." Nicholai sounds...sad. Sad, and defeated. "If you want out, Amara—take it. Take it and run."

It would be easy to shut down this conversation, to open the door between us, crawl into Nicholai's lap. You're being ridiculous. So easy to set his mind at ease, and mine too. So easy to press myself against him and forget for a few hours or a few days or forever that this conversation ever happened.

Too easy.

Too much.

It is too much. I pull out my phone with shaking hands and shoot off a single text. An SOS. Praying the twins still care enough to answer. Praying they won't have questions I don't know how to answer.

TJ is quick to respond.

We're on the way.

We. Gabby is coming too. Gratitude wells deep inside my chest. I swipe at the tears before they can fall.

"I'll escort you to the loading bay," Nicholai says quietly. He's guessed at my decision. Of course he has.

"I'm sorry." It's all I can say. All I can offer.

All I ever am.