The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) by Charlotte O'Shay Page A
Authors: Charlotte O'Shay
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intent and concentrating on just him. It was quite the exhibition of maternal devotion. But, how likely was it that they’d never spent the night apart, that she hadn’t spent the night clubbing and left her son with a sitter overnight? C’mon, he chided himself, just because she was sexually available and she was, he’d seen that look in her eye, he didn’t need to bestow her with any virtues she didn’t possess. Her virtues began and ended with her voluptuous curves, killer legs, and stop sign hair.
When Sabrina shivered, Vlad stood and placed more logs on the fire.
“A T-shirt and jeans won’t cut it,” he said eyeing her bare feet.
The damp chill had seeped into the unheated rooms and unless they were right up near the fireplace, the bite of cold was pervasive.
He went to the front hall closet and found his old graduate school sweatshirt. It dwarfed her, but she put it on without her usual smart comment so she must have been freezing, though she hadn’t said so. He found pillows and blankets and down quilts for them both and took the sofa at a right angle to her.
He turned off his phone in an attempt to conserve some battery for the morning. Outside, the storm bellowed its fury as gale winds buffeted the windows and gave voice to the eerie silence. It was anybody’s guess when power would be restored.
When he looked over, he saw she had already fallen asleep.
****
The wind was a howling wolf, creeping closer; the predatory snarl of it louder with each breath he took. The bitter, freezing air seeped into his bones until he knew he would never be warm again.
But it was the dark that he hated most. The inky blackness was so complete, so absolute; it surrounded them till he knew he couldn’t discover, would never find the way out of this hole. The dark was his undoing, and he prayed for light in any form, the welcome glare of daylight, the pale glow of moonlight, the flickering flame of a candle, a bare electric bulb.
They were in the warehouse near the dock, the only relatively safe place they’d found on their first night out of the orphanage. Pieter had cried piteously for a time, but then he’d collapsed into sleep and Vlad had kept watch.
He hadn’t been Vlad then. He’d been Ivan, the name the wardens of the orphanage had given him because he had been too young to know his own name when he’d been found and brought in. He’d stopped puzzling over the idea that a child would not know his own name long ago. What name had his mother given him? Who knew? Surely not his father’s when apparently his parents had not remained together any longer than it took to create him. Pieter, then Pavel, also had the same mother, Irina, but everyone doubted they’d had the same father. Ivan had been overly big and tall for his age where his brother, though younger by only a year was slight of build, so much more a baby.
Vlad had taken it upon himself to rename them both. In part, it was a protective measure in case they were missed at the orphanage. What a joke. It was a certainty the authorities who ran the institution would quickly conceal their flight if Vlad and his brother were not found.
So he’d named Pieter after the port city they were escaping and for himself he chose Vladimir. To the boy he was, Vladimir seemed a powerful and strong name, not a plain, bread and water name like Ivan. And, most important, it was a name he gave himself, not the one foisted on him without any say from him.
Vladimir and Pieter were the names he gave the Captain of the tanker Grigory when his sailors hauled them out of the hold days later. By then, they were starving. They’d managed to eat what Vlad stole from the galley at night, and by then they were too far out to sea for the Captain to want to wait for the Coast Guard to return them to St. Petersburg.
By the time they reached port in Finland, Vlad convinced the Captain they could be of some use working on the ship and they’d stayed aboard; Vlad saved every
When Sabrina shivered, Vlad stood and placed more logs on the fire.
“A T-shirt and jeans won’t cut it,” he said eyeing her bare feet.
The damp chill had seeped into the unheated rooms and unless they were right up near the fireplace, the bite of cold was pervasive.
He went to the front hall closet and found his old graduate school sweatshirt. It dwarfed her, but she put it on without her usual smart comment so she must have been freezing, though she hadn’t said so. He found pillows and blankets and down quilts for them both and took the sofa at a right angle to her.
He turned off his phone in an attempt to conserve some battery for the morning. Outside, the storm bellowed its fury as gale winds buffeted the windows and gave voice to the eerie silence. It was anybody’s guess when power would be restored.
When he looked over, he saw she had already fallen asleep.
****
The wind was a howling wolf, creeping closer; the predatory snarl of it louder with each breath he took. The bitter, freezing air seeped into his bones until he knew he would never be warm again.
But it was the dark that he hated most. The inky blackness was so complete, so absolute; it surrounded them till he knew he couldn’t discover, would never find the way out of this hole. The dark was his undoing, and he prayed for light in any form, the welcome glare of daylight, the pale glow of moonlight, the flickering flame of a candle, a bare electric bulb.
They were in the warehouse near the dock, the only relatively safe place they’d found on their first night out of the orphanage. Pieter had cried piteously for a time, but then he’d collapsed into sleep and Vlad had kept watch.
He hadn’t been Vlad then. He’d been Ivan, the name the wardens of the orphanage had given him because he had been too young to know his own name when he’d been found and brought in. He’d stopped puzzling over the idea that a child would not know his own name long ago. What name had his mother given him? Who knew? Surely not his father’s when apparently his parents had not remained together any longer than it took to create him. Pieter, then Pavel, also had the same mother, Irina, but everyone doubted they’d had the same father. Ivan had been overly big and tall for his age where his brother, though younger by only a year was slight of build, so much more a baby.
Vlad had taken it upon himself to rename them both. In part, it was a protective measure in case they were missed at the orphanage. What a joke. It was a certainty the authorities who ran the institution would quickly conceal their flight if Vlad and his brother were not found.
So he’d named Pieter after the port city they were escaping and for himself he chose Vladimir. To the boy he was, Vladimir seemed a powerful and strong name, not a plain, bread and water name like Ivan. And, most important, it was a name he gave himself, not the one foisted on him without any say from him.
Vladimir and Pieter were the names he gave the Captain of the tanker Grigory when his sailors hauled them out of the hold days later. By then, they were starving. They’d managed to eat what Vlad stole from the galley at night, and by then they were too far out to sea for the Captain to want to wait for the Coast Guard to return them to St. Petersburg.
By the time they reached port in Finland, Vlad convinced the Captain they could be of some use working on the ship and they’d stayed aboard; Vlad saved every
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