“We are now approaching Zvaria, and will be landing in ten minutes. Please fasten your seat belts.”
The pilot’s announcement pulled her out of her feverish musings. But before she could head for the door, it opened. And she found herself face-to-face with Leonid.
Before her next heartbeat, he smiled, but it was detached, impersonal.
“Good, you’re awake.” Before she could respond, he opened the door wider. “Let’s join the twins and share this historic event of landing in the Zoryan capital for the first time together.”
As she approached him, he receded to let her pass. She tried to meet his eyes, read in them his response to what had happened between them, where he thought they’d go from there.
But he turned his gaze away in what seemed like a natural move as he invited her to lead the way.
Heart thudding to the rhythm of uncertainty and mortification, she walked ahead, her thoughts tangling.
Did he have too much on his mind, with the resolution of their situation and his looming responsibilities? Or was he just regretting what had happened?
Trying to project the ease she’d perfected for the girls’ sake, she pinned a brittle smile on her face as they joined the others. As usual, Eva and Zoya demanded his attention, and hers to a lesser degree, leaving no room to focus on anything but them until they landed.
By the time they did, she’d decided she wouldn’t torment herself with conjectures, that she’d let Leonid tell her what he thought and wanted when he had time for her alone again.
The moment she stepped out of the jet behind Leonid, who was carrying the girls, frosty air flayed her face and filled her lungs, so crisp and clean it made her gasp. The winter-wonderland vista beyond what was clearly another private airfield, with the imposing Carpathian Mountains in the distance, was so different from anywhere she’d ever lived, or even visited, that it reinforced again that she was a world away from her normal life in every sense.
She didn’t have time to marvel at the awe-inspiring surroundings, or to linger over the realization that this rugged land must be responsible in part for Leonid’s uncompromising distinctiveness. Her attention was drawn instead to the multitude of reporters and photographers who came literally out of left field to gather around the bottom of the stairs.
Her every hair stood on end as Leonid, who’d secured both girls in one arm, reached for her with the other one, posing for their first-ever family picture.
Then, as they resumed descending the stairs, the girls clung to him, burying their faces in his chest, eyeing the dozens of strangers calling out a cacophony of questions. Feeling his heat and power surrounding her, she found herself instinctively seeking his protection, too, dimly realizing what a sight they must make. The proud lion king, literally, with his pride of clinging females.
Leonid paused at the last step of the stairs and addressed the crowd. “Thank you for coming to meet my family, but you will understand that after the long flight, my only priority is their comfort. Each of you will get invitations to the press conference I will hold to answer all your questions as soon as my family is settled in their new home.”
The reporters still tried to get him to say more, their voices rising with dozens of queries.
Leonid chose to answer one. “I do believe my daughters, Eva and Zoya, represent new life for our kingdom. They are literally that for me.”
Brooking no further interruptions, he strode ahead and even the most dogged reporters parted before him as if unable to stand being in the path of his power.
Within minutes, they were seated inside a gleaming black stretch limo with the Zoryan flag flapping at the front.
She sat beside Leonid with the girls in their car seats facing them and Despina beside them. Leonid focused almost exclusively on the girls all the way to the palace, pointing out landmarks on the way and explaining their significance and history, with the girls appearing to take absolute interest in everything he brought to their attention and gleefully repeating the words he emphasized. Kassandra just kept telling herself to stick to her decision not to analyze his behavior, to stop thinking altogether.
Then they entered the palace complex grounds and all thought became impossible as she plunged ever deeper into the unreality of it all.
She’d been to the world’s grandest palaces, as a tourist. Entering this place as a future resident, if things went according to Leonid’s plan, was something else altogether. With the massive grounds populated by only those who worked there, it felt totally different from all the other palaces that had been crawling with visitors.
“This place was first laid out on the orders of Esfir the First, Zorya’s founder and first queen.” Her gaze swung to Leonid, and he gestured to her to look back at their surroundings as he continued narrating its history. “Her name, the Russian variant of Esther, also means star. This complex of palaces and gardens are sometimes referred to as the Zoryan Versailles. The central palace ensemble had been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since the fall of the Soviet union and its return to the Zoryan state.”
As she took in the information, he pointed toward another landmark. “The dominant natural feature is this sixteen-meter-high bluff lying less than a hundred meters from the shore of the Sea of Azov, which is part of the Black Sea. The Lower Gardens, or Nizhny Sad, encompassing over a square kilometer, are confined between this bluff and the shore. The majority of the complex’s fountains are there, as are several small palaces and outbuildings. Atop the bluff, near the middle of the Lower Gardens, stands the Grand Palace, or Bolshoi Dvorets, where the monarch historically resided...which I’m now repairing and renovating, so I hope you’ll excuse any mess. Ah, here is one of my favorite features of the place...”
Kassandra’s head swung to where he was pointing, the most glorious cascade and fountain she’d ever seen, situated right on the bluff’s face below the body of a palace so grand it looked right out of a fairy tale.
“That’s the Grand Cascade, or Bolshoi Kaskad, with the Grand Palace forming the centerpiece of the entire complex, and it’s one of the most extensive waterworks of the Baroque period.”
Leonid kept explaining and describing what they were passing through, with all of them, including the girls, hanging on his every word. Apart from realizing he was telling them important things he wanted them to learn, the girls, like every other living being, she suspected, just loved listening to his voice and were hypnotized by the way he spoke.
The hypnosis only deepened as Leonid took them inside what he kept referring to as their “new home.”
In her jumbled state, Kassandra’s mind couldn’t assimilate the details her eyes were registering, just the major strokes. From beneath the scaffoldings of in-progress renovations clearly close to being finished, she could see an entrance, staggering in size and grandeur, under hundred-foot, painted dome ceilings, halls with soaring arches with dozens of paintings depicting naval battles, atmospheric landscapes and royal ancestry, and chambers displaying countless ethnic influences in their art and decor.
What made her focus sharpen were an inner garden and pool that, while they had elements of the rest of the place, were evidently new, and the most incredible parts of the palace to her. Somehow she had no doubt they were Leonid’s idea and taste.
Throughout the tour, the girls, who’d never been in an edifice of that size, ran around squealing and pointing out their discoveries to interrogate Leonid about before another thing distracted them.
“And here are your quarters, for now.”
They entered through white-painted, gold-paneled double doors to the most exquisite, expansive living area she’d ever seen. Though the dimensions and architecture echoed the rest of the palace, the furnishings and decor were more modern, comfort inducing and closely resembling the style and color scheme of her own living room in LA. And it was also outfitted and proofed for toddlers, clearly with Eva and Zoya in mind.
She wouldn’t even ask how and when he’d had such personalized furnishings installed. He was powerful and rich enough he could have anything realized as soon as he thought of it.
But one thing didn’t make sense. “For now?”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “This is my effort at anticipating your needs and preferences. But you may decide you’d prefer some other place in the palace, or want something built on the grounds from scratch to your demands. So this will do until then.”
“You can’t seriously think I wouldn’t find this perfect? It’s actually...too much. This living room is as big as my whole place, which is big to start with. And I see glimpses of more tennis court–size rooms beyond.”
He shrugged dismissively. “Everything is built on a grand scale in Zorya, even peasant’s houses. You’ll get used to it.”
Will I? Will I also get used to you blowing searing then arctic, to never knowing where I really stand with you?
She only tossed her head toward Despina and the girls, who were rushing about exclaiming at all the delights he’d layered the place with. “Even if this magnificent place for some inexplicable reason didn’t suit my taste, the girls and their nanny have given it their fervent seal of approval.”