Her Russian Beast: 50 Loving States, New Mexico by Theodora Taylor Page A

understand?”
    She’d nodded, not knowing how else to respond. And later, she’d put in extra effort with her performance in bed, reminding herself that she was here to do a job with Bair. Not make love, but provide the fuck part of the equation that had allowed him to thrive so well in his German Economics program.
    Back then, the conversation had felt like a blip in an otherwise good first year of being Bair Rustanov’s pet. But it wasn’t a blip. Rather a harbinger of things to come. Things that would eventually bring her to the door of her sister’s apartment in Sembach.
    But if her sister could get her to someone with government connections, she could finally get a new passport. One issued under her own name. If this crazy non-plan worked out, she could finally go home.
    She looked out the window again. Still no dark cars. No goons in suits. No Bair Rustanov. She was safe here in Sembach, she assured herself. She was.
    But she couldn’t relax. The Carmina Burana finale was chewing up the inside of her chest, and the heavy wedding ring he’d given her felt like it was burning a hole in the pocket of her Marc Jacobs dress.
    She still didn’t know why he’d done it. Called her into his office a few weeks ago, just a couple of days after the worst visit yet from the brother she’d come to privately refer to as “Alexei the Awful.” But nonetheless, she’d found him there with two men, and the papers all drawn up. One of the men who announced himself as a lawyer presented the papers and told her where to sign.
    The other turned out to be a judge. Which was how she came to find out that this was a marriage ceremony.
    “We will get married now, so there is no misunderstanding,” was the only explanation The Beast gave her.
    The wedding had been conducted like a business meeting with not even a kiss exchanged at the end. Of course no kiss. He never kissed her unless she kissed him first, and she’d been too stunned to initiate one even if she wanted to. Their wedding was the first time “O Fortuna,” Carmina Burana ’s opening and closing song, had popped off like a flare gun’s warning shot inside her chest.
    Just words , she’d told herself even as the beginning lines of Germany’s most famous cantata began its slow rise. Just words, she told herself. Not the real her. She’d never given him any piece of her real self or let that broken Virginia girl make him any promises—
    A door slammed on the floor below and her body seized, her eyes flying back to the hallway window. But the street was clear.
    No dark cars. No hulking men. No sign of him anywhere. Still her stomach remained tight as she listened to the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the stairs.
    But then she saw the most beautiful thing on earth. Willa, the younger sister she hadn’t seen in years. Dark and tall as Nefertiti, her mouth dropped open in shock when she found her long lost sister standing in front of the apartment door.
    “You got a package,” she told her sister, the med student, not knowing what else to say.
    “Thel?” Willa blinked rapidly.
    And Thelxiope—or Thel as she used to be called (because who could pronounce that crazy name?)—knew Willa was still trying to process the presence of the sister who hadn’t so much as emailed her in the last five years. The Thel she’d known had been a much different girl. A sharp-tongued cheerleader who’d barely managed to stay on the squad, because she was constantly catching suspensions for getting in fights. The Thel she’d known had run away from home dressed in shorts and a tank top. No doubt Willa hadn’t been expecting for the trashy sister, who used to save up money for push-up bras, to show up at her door five years later in a Marc Jacobs dress. The C- sister Willa had known, hadn’t even known how to spell Marc Jacobs.
    As it was it took a few times working her mouth before the girl who used to be Thel could answer, “Yeah, it’s me, Willa. Though nobody’s