The Silver Thread (47 page)

“Oh, I’ll bet I know exactly what you wanna give me,” she taunted, draping her long red hair over her shoulder as she sauntered over to him.

“I’ll bet you don’t,” he taunted right back, taking her waist in his hands. Instead of pulling her close and kissing her, he turned her to face the living room. “Why, whatever is that on the coffee table?”

Annika went out to investigate, returning with an exquisite pot of dainty white flowers.

“Sweetie, these are beautiful!” she sighed, breathing in their spicy fragrance. “What are they?”

“They’re dove orchids, my little dove,” he said with a smile. “They only bloom after it rains, and they’re endangered in their native habitat, so you’ll need to take good care of them. These little doves flew in all the way from Panama.”

“I thought I said I didn’t want anything expensive,” she reminded him, smelling the orchids again before setting them on the kitchen table. “Not that I’m complaining. These are gorgeous!”

“Yes, but you opted for something rare, and sometimes those two things cannot be mutually exclusive,” he said with a wink. He reached into the fridge, withdrawing a bottle of champagne and two chilled glasses, taking care not to knock them together. She stood nearby, gazing at him sweetly while he popped the cork and topped off their drinks.

“No champagne screws?” she asked flirtatiously.

“No, love, just champagne,” he replied. “Why don’t you sit down and relax, while I prepare our dinner?”

“No way. I just sat at my mom’s salon for three hours,” she pointed out, taking a sip from her glass. “I’d rather stand right here and watch you work.”

“If it pleases you,” he said, and walked back to the fridge. He gathered an armful of different vegetables, laying them all out on the counter, before taking out a cutting board, a honing steel, and a large kitchen knife.

“What are you making for me, anyway?” she asked as he began to expertly sharpen the knife with the honing steel.

“For the first course, we’ll have artichoke and tomato bisque,” he informed her, testing the sharpness of the blade before giving it a few more passes with the steel. “For the second course, I’ve planned a fennel and mint salad. The main course will be butternut squash and pear ravioli, with rosemary sauce.” He paused to put away the honing steel and wipe the knife with a kitchen towel, then began to chop some carrots. “I wanted to keep the meal light enough so that you’ll have plenty of room for dessert. I’m afraid I have a ridiculous amount of it, but I couldn’t bear to see it wasted.”

“Oh really? What’s for dessert?”

A smirk played on Talvi’s lips, and without stopping his slicing, he replied, “Me.”

Annika felt surge of ravenous hunger bolt through her body, and as hungry as she was for that gourmet dinner, all she could think about was the dessert that awaited afterwards.

“It’s been a long time,” she said, watching him slice up an artichoke with as much effortless ease as when he had first used his straight razor in front of her. No wonder he never cut himself shaving; his blade seemed to be a natural extension of his arm.

“Trust me, I know it’s been a long time,” he agreed, now slicing tomatoes at a furious pace. “It’s been exactly four weeks and two days. That’s seven hundred and twenty hours. Or forty-three thousand and two hundred minutes. Or two million, five hun—”

“Hey, if you’re complaining that it’s been too long since you got laid, you did have an opportunity in London, but
somebody
didn’t seem up for the task,” Annika interrupted, glancing at her orchids.

“Yes, well
I
married a
redhead
, not a brunette,” he said, setting the knife on the cutting board to scoop the vegetables into different dishes. “I had no idea that you changing your hair would have such an effect on me. Please, Annika, don’t ever do that again. And don’t ever cut it too short, either. I meant it when I told the hens at the salon that I felt as though a strange woman had taken your place. I never want to experience that again.”

A tender, melting sensation now wafted over Annika’s heart. Her smile gave way as her bottom lip trembled and her throat swelled. Without warning, there were tears in her eyes.

“What is it, my little dove?” he asked, taking her gently into his arms as he looked down at her inquisitively.

“It’s what you said about my hair,” she said, wiping her eyes as more tears arrived. “You couldn’t even cheat on me with
me.
You really
are
as loyal as the cold is to snow.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that for months. Do you mean to tell me that we could have avoided all this trouble if I had merely purchased a cheap box of hair dye from the drugstore?”

Annika shrugged, sniffing as she smiled halfheartedly.

“Well?” he implored, leaning down close enough for his forehead to touch hers. “Is that truly all that needed to be done, for you to trust your little bumble bee to only take nectar from his favorite flower?” Annika’s weak smile faded, and her face became serious.

“Not exactly, but it sure helped,” she said quietly as she looked him straight in the eye. “I want to trust you completely, Talvi, but there’s no way in hell that you were working as an investment banker. I wish you would stop treating me like I can’t handle the truth about you, or thinking I’m too stupid to figure out that you were working as a spy.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all, Annika,” he said, blinking his long black lashes slowly. “I think you’re a very clever girl. I never once claimed to be an investment banker. I was telling you the absolute truth when I said that I specialize in mergers and acquisitions for the London Embassy.”

“Then what exactly did you acquire for them, that you sometimes had to leave in the middle of the night and be gone for months at a time?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“This and that,” he said, not even bothering to hide his bold grin.

“Did you ever have to merge with an enemy agent to acquire
this
and
that
?”

“From time to time,” he said, with a twinkle in his blue-green eyes.

“Did you ever kill anybody?”

“Trust me, love, you’re much better off not knowing the depths of my dark side,” he replied in his velvety smooth voice. “One mustn’t go around poking tigers, especially not lovely lady guitar players. You’ll lose those skillful fingers of yours, and I’m ever so fond of the things they can do.” He took her left hand in his and gently kissed each fingertip, dialing up the charm with each touch of his lips.

“Don’t think you can woo your way out of this, Mr. Lewd and Lascivious,” she said, reclaiming her hand so she could press her index finger into his chest. “If you have to wait another forty-three thousand minutes, so be it, but I’m not letting you inside of me until you let me inside of you.” She reached up to tap the side of his head with her finger, unafraid of poking this tiger.

“I recall telling you that some things are best left unsaid, no questions asked.” Talvi’s eyes grew dark with intensity as he spoke. “I don’t want to see any details from your Parisian holiday with my brother. I’ve already considered every possible outcome, and I will tell you, I don’t have many regrets in my life, but that’s one of them. I absolutely abhor that I put you both in that situation. I’m just grateful that you’re both alive. Next year I’ll see to it that Runa stays with you instead, so that I don’t wind up an uncle to my own child. Although who knows? Perhaps I am already? I’d certainly love to see the look on your mum’s face when you try to explain how
that
happened!” He let out a diabolical roar of laughter when Annika’s jaw inevitably dropped.

“How can you laugh about that?” she gasped in revulsion.

“I told you, love, I considered
every
possible outcome,” he reminded her with a maniacal grin, batting his lashes at her. “Either way, we’ll know for certain if you don’t bleed within a fortnight.”

“But we didn’t do it!” Annika screeched. “I’m not remotely pregnant!” She felt her stomach give a feeble flip and she turned her back to him, reaching for her champagne that had been sitting on the counter. “I can’t believe you thought that was funny!”

“Yes, well, I can’t believe I was so bloody stupid to arrange such a situation to begin with,” he said, blushing in shame, but the devilish smile remained on his face as he returned to his slicing and dicing. “If you’re going to have any larvae crawl out of you, I should hope that they would be my own.”

“But I know you don’t want kids, so when you said you’d adore ours, you really had me convinced that we could pull it off. Were you teasing me then, too? I don’t want any right now, but I might want one someday, if they’ll be anything like Stella and Sloan.”

“I meant what I said, love,” he said softly. “In all truth, I was actually scared shitless, but that’s why I told you we would get through it together. I certainly couldn’t do it alone, especially not if we had twins. I suppose a vainglorious part of me wouldn’t mind seeing what sort of progeny we might create, but I don’t wish to explore parenthood when we have so much yet to discover about one other.”

“I know,” she said, taking another sip of champagne before turning to face him again. She reached up and twirled his hair into two little peaks that resembled devil horns. “That’s why you need to let me inside of your mind, so we can start discovering those things. You can’t keep so many secrets from me.”

“Annika, if I let you inside my mind, I can waltz right into yours. Remember what I told you about putting too much sugar in the lemonade? You can’t undo it once you’ve put it in the pitcher. Are you certain you want to risk letting me see what’s in there?”

Annika focused her eyes on his deft hands as the sharp blade made short work of the rosemary, feeling a chill of shame at her behavior in Paris. Even if biology and body chemistry were to blame, she couldn’t separate it from her memories of Finn’s warm hands running up and down her waist in that doorway of the Champs-Élysées. It would definitely be easier to pretend like nothing had happened. But then the unstable foundation of their marriage would keep decaying from below, until it caved in on them like a sinkhole after a flood.

“I guess that’s a risk I’m willing to take, though it sounds like you’re the one who’s more afraid to take that same risk,” she said, putting on a brave face. “If we’re going to have an honest, trusting relationship, we’ve got to start building it somewhere. It ought to be right here.” She tapped the side of his head again.

Talvi set down the knife, and wiped his hands on the kitchen towel. He took a generous drink from his champagne flute and took her face in his hands, touching his forehead to hers with a reluctant, yet knowing sigh. He closed his eyes as though he was regretting what he was about to do. When he lifted his lids, the harrowing stare he assaulted her with pierced her soul. Overwhelmed by his intensity, she felt like she was falling into a black abyss, the dwelling of the devil himself. Her stomach turned, her skin felt clammy, and her pulse quickened with adrenaline. But as frightened as she was about opening herself to him in this moment, she was more afraid to look away. Instead, she let her mind wander into his, taking in the scope of his dark side.

A vision came into view that appeared to be in the not so distant past. He was tip-toeing barefoot down one of the dark hallways of his home, where he slipped into a room near the end of it and closed the door without a sound. Annika recognized the neat and tidy room, with countless displays of butterfly collections on the walls. A tall Japanese screen stood in the corner with silk undergarments thrown over it, and not far from that, Yuri lay in her bed. She was reading a book by candlelight, with her hairbrush resting beside her. Her brown eyes looked up from her book and she smiled as her brother climbed under the covers with her. The gentle smile morphed into a sneer of disdain when he touched his cold feet against her bare leg. Her expression softened, however, the moment he picked up the brush and began to run it gently through her hair again and again, until she had fallen asleep in his arms. This scenario repeated a few times, until one night when Talvi slipped into Yuri’s room and found her already asleep. This time a letter was held in her limp hand instead of a book, and when he leaned down to read it, he saw that it was from Konstantin. His eyes burned like blue flames, encircled in green wheels of fire; green with envy, and wet with tears.

Another scene came into view of him donning an old fashioned suit, playing the part of a piano instructor. He was sitting on the bench of a grand piano beside a well-dressed and bejeweled young woman that may very well have been the Spanish princess. Annika could see him take one of her pale hands off the ivory keys and turn it up so that he could kiss her palm, then her wrist, then her inner elbow. He looked up at her seductively and said, “I could probably just ask you who’s on the guest list at your father’s private meetings, but I would much rather have you sing them to me.” He reached around her waist, sliding closer to her as he continued to whisper sweet nothings into her ear, while the other hand reached under her beautiful gown, prodding her for information, no doubt.

In the last vision, he was dressed in his black suede traveling outfit and had pulled a robust, older man in a three piece suit into a bathtub.

“I’m not telling you anything!” the man insisted, as Talvi pulled him close, with his back against his chest, exactly as he had held Annika in her bedroom before tying her up. Using the same knife that he had taken to Finn, he softly ran the tip of the blade over the man’s mouth, leaving not so much as a scratch.

“I’m fairly certain I can persuade you to spill your guts,” he crooned into the man’s ear, standing outside of the tub. “It would be better for us both if you just tell me where the plans are.”

“I’m not saying a word, you fiend!” the man growled at him.

“Very well,” Talvi sighed, and unfastened the man’s necktie, rolling it up and stuffing it into his mouth. “Have it your way.”

In a heartbeat, he sank his knife into the bottom of the man’s belly, and yanked upward through his vest so violently that his entrails spilled out of his abdomen and into the bathtub. Talvi stood there patiently throughout the muffled screams, watching the gush of bloody intestines splash all over the walls and white porcelain. He let the body slide out of his arms and carefully wiped the blade on the man’s lapel before walking to the sink. Then he rinsed his knife under the faucet, washed his hands, and returned his knife to the sheath inside his boot. He casually dabbed at the red spatter on his face, and fussed with his hair in front of the mirror at some length until he was satisfied with his appearance. Then he walked back to the tub and rifled through the man’s pockets, until he pulled out a piece of paper from inside the man’s jacket. He unfolded it, looked it over carefully, then took out his lighter and set it on fire in the sink, letting it burn to a crisp before slipping out of the window and disappearing into the night.