Trusting A Stranger

Chapter Three

“I do.”

Karina knew she had said the words. She had felt them rising in her throat, felt herself moving her lips to form them while keeping the smile on her face. But even as they came out in her own voice, it seemed as though someone else was saying them, as though this was happening to another person.

For the past few months, her life had taken on an unreal feeling. Her desperate flight to the United States. Sergei’s death. Viktor’s crazy idea. But nothing had seemed less real than this, standing before a minister and marrying a man she didn’t know.

What am I doing? The question echoed over and over in her head with increasing desperation.

Surviving, a hard voice in the back of her mind hissed.

In the wake of her declaration, the minister continued speaking. She barely heard him as she stared up into the eyes of the man before her.

Luke Hubbard.

The man she was marrying.

The hard lines of his face were eased into a softer expression, the corners of his mouth turned upward slightly in the closest thing she’d seen to a smile from him. Anyone else looking at him might see exactly what they were meant to, a man deeply in love, gazing at his bride with tenderness, unable to take his eyes off her.

But she alone stared into his eyes, and in them she saw the truth.

There was no love there, no feeling.

There was nothing at all.

She had no reason to expect otherwise. It was all she’d received from this man from the moment they’d met, and it hadn’t changed the slightest since he’d shocked her by agreeing to Viktor’s proposal. She knew better than anyone else exactly why they were standing here, why they were doing this, and it had nothing to do with love. This was a simple arrangement, nothing else.

But to stand there before God and make promises neither of them believed or intended to keep, seemed wrong, regardless of the reasons.

The law would not understand. Would God?

If this plan failed and Solokov won, she might be able to ask Him soon enough, she thought, barely suppressing a shudder.

“I do,” Luke said, his voice deep and sure, as he continued to peer straight into her eyes.

Karina searched his gaze for any hint of the doubts she was feeling. Of course she found none. There was only the same lack of emotion that sent another chill down her spine.

Then he was reaching for her hand, his fingers long and warm as they lifted her own cold, numb ones and slid the ring Viktor had provided onto the one where it belonged. Her breath hitched in her throat as she tracked the band’s progress until it reached the end of her finger. Seeing it there somehow made it so much more real.

She might have continued staring at it if he hadn’t suddenly released her hand. Viktor pressed the other ring into it. She quickly placed it on the hand Luke held up, doing her best to keep the contact between them as minimal as possible, releasing his fingers as soon as the band was in place.

She swallowed. There. It was done.

She was so consumed with relief that she barely heard what the minister was saying.

“…I now declare you husband and wife.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Karina sent a startled glance at the minister, who beamed at them each in turn. Then he looked to Luke.

“You may kiss your bride.”

Her gaze flew to Luke’s. His smile deepened. And for the first time she saw something else flickering in his steady gaze. Something that sent a jolt through her system and suddenly made her very nervous.

He started to lean forward. She forced herself to relax, to smile, as though she wanted this, the way she was supposed to. Her eyes drifted shut automatically and she felt a twinge of relief push past her nervousness. She’d known this was coming and knew how important it was for it to be convincing. At least she wouldn’t have to look at him, could pretend he was someone else. Not a man with cold eyes who felt nothing for her.

She somehow wasn’t prepared for the instant when his lips met hers. Another jolt shot through her at the connection. Her mouth fell open on its own as his moved against it. The first caress was brief, experimental. The second immediately deepened the kiss, his lips firm and strong and sure. The man knew how to kiss. She recognized that instinctively, even as the fervor, the intensity, of it caught her by surprise in spite of everything.

She felt his arms go around her, pulling her up against his body. He pinned her against him, her breasts tight against the wall of his chest, causing her to gasp. He took advantage of the indrawn breath, plunging his tongue into her mouth in one long, confident stroke. She grabbed the front of his shirt and held on tightly, needing to hold on to something solid, feeling strangely as though she were drowning.

Part of her wondered, as though from far, far away, if it was necessary. Would the onlookers really know if he wasn’t quite so thorough in his ministrations?

The rest could only respond in kind. Behind the closed lids, her eyes rolled back as she let the wave of sensations—his arms, his chest, his lips, his tongue—carry her away, washing away everything she’d lived with for the past few months. There was only this man. This kiss.

Then it was over. She realized it several seconds after it actually happened, after he’d broken the connection between their mouths and started to pull away. The two fistfuls of his shirt she gripped prevented him from stepping back entirely.

Her eyes fluttered open. She found herself peering into his. They no longer seemed cold. Instead, they flared with that strange…something.

“Some things should be left until you’re alone,” she heard Viktor chide, a slightly annoyed note in his voice.

“I think it’s lovely,” the minister’s secretary said.

Karina watched Luke turn to face the minister and his secretary, his smile deepening as he extended his hand to the former.

Still slightly off-balance, she turned to do the same, forcing her mouth to curve upward. They were smiling at her, the expressions on their faces making her feel even more like a liar.

This is not real, she almost wanted to tell them. Don’t be happy for us.

But she simply lowered her eyes rather than look at their joyous expressions, letting them take the color filling her cheeks for embarrassment, as she tried to calm her suddenly racing heart and understand exactly why a pretend kiss had felt so amazingly real.

“WE’LL NEED TO FILE paperwork with Immigration to inform them of the marriage,” Luke murmured low so only she and Viktor could hear as the three of them made their way out of the chapel.

“Should we do that today?” Viktor asked.

Luke shook his head. “My concern is that it would look too suspicious, as though the marriage was strictly for the purposes of keeping her in the country. A couple involved in a whirlwind romance wouldn’t be thinking about that on their wedding day. The morning should be fine.”

Viktor made a sound of agreement. Karina listened silently, much as she had for most of the day. Strange how she’d had so little input in her own fate. Ever since this nightmare had begun, it seemed like she’d been caught up in events larger than herself, placing her life in the hands of others. First Sergei, then Viktor. Now a stranger. Even now it seemed as though the men had placed themselves in a way so that they could converse without her, with Viktor closest to the street, Luke in the middle and her trailing along on the other side.

The feeling of helplessness chafed, but she didn’t know what else she could do. It may be her life, but they knew more about these matters than she did.

They were almost to the parking lot next to the building when Karina spotted a black sedan pulling away from the curb on the street up ahead of them. It began to drive down the street in their direction.

She wasn’t certain at first why she noticed it. There was nothing unusual about it. Its make and model were unremarkable. It might have been the strangeness of seeing it there, parked on the street when no other cars were on this quiet stretch of road. It might have been that its windows were a little too dark, tinted to hide its occupants.

Then she realized how slowly it was driving, crawling along on the street far less quickly than it should be.

And she knew exactly what was about to happen, even before she saw the passenger-side window was down.

She opened her mouth to scream, to shout a warning, to do something for once, even as she saw the tiny barrel of a gun emerge from the window.

“No!”

The word was barely out before something large and heavy crashed into her, throwing her down to the ground. The impact knocked the breath from her lungs. A few muffled pops reached her ears. She saw a blur out of the right side of her vision, the side closer to the street, where Viktor was standing.

She whipped her head to look at him.

In time to see him fall to the ground, his face clenched in pain.

For a moment, she could only stare, frozen in disbelief, as past and present blurred, what she was seeing and what she’d only seen in her nightmares blending into one. Viktor’s face faded into another, so similar. Sergei. On the ground. Shot.

And then it was Viktor again. Here. Now. Shot.

She lunged forward, only to find her progress impeded by the heavy weight on top of her, holding her back.

“Don’t be stupid,” a harsh voice said in her ear. Luke.

“I have to help him!” she screamed, struggling to get away.

He tightened his hold in response to her thrashing. “You can’t help him! All you can do is get yourself killed.”

Even as she heard the words, she felt herself being hauled to her feet and pulled backward. They’d reached the parking lot. There were only four cars in it. He dragged her behind the nearest one, blocking them from the street.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, unable to believe what was happening.

“I’m getting you out of here.”

“No! I cannot leave him!”

“My responsibility is to keep anything from happening to you. That’s what this was all about, wasn’t it?”

“Nothing will happen to me! They’re gone!”

“They could double back.”

“They won’t kill me here!”

“Do you know that for a fact? Do you know with absolute certainty that they won’t shoot you, too, just for the hell of it?”

Karina threw her mouth open to say yes. Nothing came out. She couldn’t think, couldn’t begin to form words. She wanted to scream at him again that she didn’t know anything, she hadn’t known anything with absolute certainty since this nightmare had begun and everything had started to seem unreal. Like this.

Luke took advantage of her speechlessness to lift her clear off her feet. As soon as she realized what he was doing, she began to struggle anew.

“Don’t throw away everything he did for you,” Luke said. “Don’t make it worth nothing.”

The angry words made her go still, torn between what he was saying and what she knew to be right. She couldn’t just leave Viktor there, lying on the sidewalk. But what if she was shot? The loss of her own life seemed insignificant compared to what it would mean to Viktor. And this man? If he were shot trying to save her—and she did know they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him—then what had all this been for? What had Sergei and Viktor, and perhaps even this man, died for? She did not need another death on her hands. Someone else dead, because of her.

Then they were at his car. Luke yanked the passenger-side door open without stopping and practically hurled her inside. “Stay here and keep your head down.” Without waiting for a response, he slammed the door shut in her face.

Ducking her head slightly, she never took her eyes off him as he made his way back to Viktor.

She swiped a trembling hand across her face to wipe away the tears she knew had to be there, only to have her fingers come away dry. She stared at them, disturbed by the sight. It made no sense. Her throat was still raw from begging him not to make her leave Viktor. Her heart felt as though it had been ripped from her chest. How could she not be crying?

She remembered sobbing for Sergei when the news of his death had truly hit her, the tears coming before she realized they were there. Yet now she had none.

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