The Bride (The Boss) (7 page)

It was absolutely beautiful.

“Oh, baby. I am begging you to never sell this place,” I said, wheeling my suitcase to rest against the wall. I unzipped my blue parka and shrugged out of it, then walked around the loft, pulling down my sweater and straightening my hair. The place wasn’t homey, by any stretch of the imagination. I couldn’t imagine living here full time; it would feel like living in an art museum. It was like a little oasis: we were away from our jobs, away from friends and family—not that we didn’t love our friends and family—and truly alone together, out of our usual element. I wished we had more time to spend together in it.

Neil was visibly taken aback. I usually never expressed an opinion on what he should do with his money or properties. At least, if it didn’t concern me. He wanted to retire at his country estate in England, for example, and while I thought it reminded me a little too much of a horror movie version of
Downton Abbey
, I wasn’t about to ask him to revise his plans. I’d just asked that he close the house to tourists when that time came, and warned that if ever an antique doll turned its head to look at me, I would burn the entire place to the ground.

But I didn’t usually weigh in on this stuff. As much as I wanted to protest that I wanted to stand on my own two feet and be independent and a full partner in our relationship, where money was concerned I was kind of along for the ride, because my income didn’t match our lifestyle. I still had a twinge of guilt every time I used his money to go shopping, or when he bought me an occasional present. I wasn’t going to say, “Hey, I know you pay for most of my clothes, my food, the roof over my head, and you take me on trips all over the world, but let me tell you how to make major financial decisions.”

This time, though, I totally was, and it had come as a shock to him. Not an entirely unwelcome one, I saw from his hesitant smile. “You really like it that much?”

“I do. This place could be our little escape. We could fly out here on weekends or something.” The thought of getting away from New York—or wherever we ended up living—for the sole purpose of being alone together—made my heart flutter. “You’re always saying that your money makes our lives more flexible.”

“I’m strangely touched by the fact that you’re asking me to keep a very expensive home just because you think it’s pretty,” he teased.

“Don’t pull that misogynist sugar daddy shit on me,” I warned him with a laugh. “Just admit it, you’re thrilled that I’m telling
you
what to do, for a change.”

It was late. Neil started the gas fireplace and I headed to the ultramodern master bath to take a quick shower. Three tiers of natural wood decking surrounded the sinfully deep, two-person rectangular Jacuzzi tub. A plant with tall green shoots grew happily from a silver oval urn on the floor. I lifted an eyebrow at the square toilet and bidet.

Seriously, they were square.

I would deal with that mind fuck at a later time, I decided, plopping my beauty bag down on the counter beside the square vessel sink. I fished out my shampoo and soap and put them in the shower—a polished concrete and glass room with iridescent black tiles—and fiddled with the taps. Then I went back to the sink to brush my teeth. When I rinsed, I smiled at myself, flashing my braces-straight whites. I was going to look so good on television.

If you have the job
, I reminded myself, puncturing my vanity bubble. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but I really, really wanted the gig with
Wake Up! America
. I knew it was an extreme long-shot; I’d only gotten the interview because of strings that India Vaughn had pulled with her beauty journalism clout. A producer on
Wake Up! America
had once worked as an intern under India, and would do anything for her, including granting an audition for a job I would have normally had no chance in hell of getting.

But still, I wanted to hope. Believing something would happen was supposed to make it happen, right? At least, that’s what
The Secret
had said. I tilted my head back and forth, imagining how poised I would be on camera. Then I snapped myself out of it and got into the shower.

* * * *

After a few hours in bed—I had to force myself to sleep after my epic pass-out on the plane—Neil and I got up and had a light breakfast. We’d made out a grocery list to cover our three-day stay in the country, and the people who’d opened the house had stocked the fridge and cupboards.

“If we don’t use something in here, what happens?” I asked, pouring a bowl of cereal from a box I knew I wouldn’t finish before we left.

Neil leaned against the counter and considered as he chewed a bite of his tempeh scramble. How he managed to eat that stuff first thing in the morning, I had no idea. “I assume the housekeepers take it home with them.”

“Could you make sure?” Maybe it was my recent return to my roots that had reminded me of all the times we’d had
just
enough food to get by. I hated to admit it, but I’d become one of those people who forgot what needing money was like the second I didn’t need it anymore. “I just don’t want it to go to waste.”

He nodded. “Certainly. You could leave a note, if you’d like.”

“Will they understand it? I mean, since I can’t write it in Icelandic?”

“I could write it for you, if you’re concerned. But, as far as I’m aware, my staff here speaks and reads English.”

“As far as you’re aware?” I frowned. “You don’t speak English with them?”

He looked like I’d just asked him why he didn’t have a tail. “No. Sophie, I lived here from age seven until I went to university. When I’m here, I speak
Íslenska.”

“Oh.” I had meant to get Rosetta Stone or something to try and learn Neil’s second language, but the year had been kind of busy. Now, I felt a mild stab of panic. “Your brothers speak English though, right?”

“Yes, of course. They spent more of their childhoods in London than I did. Anyway, you’d be hard pressed to find someone here who doesn’t speak English.” He pointed his fork at me and narrowed his eyes in a playfully stern scowl. “But it wouldn’t hurt to try. With the family, that is. Not the general public.”

“I remember ‘Merry Christmas,’” I said with a laugh. “That’s going to have to do.”

“Do you now?” He took a sip of his coffee. “And how do you say it?”

“Gleh…um. Glehk-ee-leck yo?” My face got hot as I tried to contain my embarrassment at murdering the greeting.

He sputtered and set his coffee mug down, laughing as he reached for a napkin to wipe his face. “That might be the worst I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, excuse me,” I huffed, only partially offended. “You know, at least you didn’t have to learn a foreign language to meet my family.”

“Oh, didn’t I?” He chuckled ruefully. He set his plate on the counter and reached for me, snagging one arm around my waist as I moved to put the soymilk back in the fridge. He pulled me up against him, and I put the carton on the counter with a weary sigh. But I couldn’t be too mad, because he leaned his head and kissed me.

Even with his coffee breath, I couldn’t resist him.

He raised his head, arms still wrapped around me. “It’s
Gleðileg jól.
And Happy New Year is
Hamingjusamur Nýtt Ár.”

I hesitated a moment, then giggled. “No, I’m not even going to try that one.”

Neil’s life in Reykjavik was completely different from his life in New York or in London. At the Belgravia house, we had a staff of five people. On his country estate, well, I had no idea. There were too many to count. And in Manhattan, he just had a housekeeper and a driver. Here, things seemed so…normal. Nobody waited on us, apart from stocking the kitchen and cleaning before we arrived. Nobody cooked our meals, and if I put down a dirty cup and walked away, it would still be where I left it when I returned. It was like real life, and I could have found myself getting used to it.

After we cleaned up our breakfast, Neil showered while I put on my makeup. It was almost eleven-thirty before the sun rose, and I watched the sky lighten over the bay as I dressed.

“Can you zip me?” I asked Neil as he emerged from the bathroom, a towel riding low on his hips. I held my hair up so he could pull the zipper on my red lace Dolce & Gabbana A-line dress. At my throat, I wore the diamond necklace Neil had given me for Christmas the year before. “This isn’t too much, is it? I don’t know how fancy your family is.”

“It might be too much, but don’t let that stop you,” he said, leaning to kiss the back of my neck before I let my hair down. “This is the first time they’re meeting you. Let me show you off a bit.”

Neil drove us to his brother’s house, about an hour outside of the city. Neil looked amazing in a dark berry-colored sweater and brown corduroy trousers. Our parkas were tossed in the backseat of the Range Rover, and I relaxed into the ride, eager to see some of the sights.
 

What I could see from the car, anyway. One minute, we were in the city suburbs, the next, scattered industrial buildings. We took the highway past a huge lake, and then we were off on some alien planet. The countryside outside of Reykjavik was a snowy white wonderland dotted with brown grasses, black rock, and rolling gray hills.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” I marveled, gazing out at the dim white horizon. “It’s beautiful. You’re right, it looks nothing like where I grew up. It looks…totally bizarre.”

“Fewer trees,” he said, and it made such perfect sense, I wondered how I’d missed that detail in the first place. But there really weren’t as many trees as I was used to seeing from the highway in the US, where they kind of blocked the view. I felt like I could see forever from the car windows.

Though we arrived just a few minutes late, the sky had already started to dim when we pulled up the long, two-track drive to the house.

“It’s getting dark,” I said with a frown, gazing at the sky above the pines. There were more trees here, practically a forest. Probably because of the small, private lake Neil had told me all about. His brother Runólf owned seventy acres in a sprawling plot. “His only neighbors are some archaeologists working on a Viking settlement on the other side of the lake,” Neil had told me. “Runólf is very private.”

Since he lived out in the middle of nowhere on way too much land, I’d expected Runólf’s house would be a log cabin or a sod house. But we parked on a circular drive paved with cobblestones, in front of a house with an A-frame center and two long, half-sunken wings. The exterior was sided with cedar set at angles toward the apex of the roof, and large windows revealed a warmly lit interior.

“This is the place,” Neil said as he turned off the ignition. But he didn’t get out of the car. He sat for a moment with the keys in his lap, totally zoned out.

“Are you okay?” I had a weird, queasy feeling suddenly. Was he embarrassed of me? Did he not want to introduce me to the rest of his family?

He looked over to me with a benign smile. “Yes, absolutely. Perhaps a touch jet-lagged.”

That didn’t set my mind at ease. I knew him too well.

We grabbed our parkas and pulled them on, then went to the back of the vehicle and unloaded the duffel bag full of presents we’d brought. He had gifts for Emma and Michael, and for his new niece, but he and his brothers didn’t exchange presents.

Neil and I had made the same agreement this year, as well, but I’d totally cheated; I just hadn’t given him his gift yet. He’d probably cheated, too.

He knocked on the door, and a man about as tall as Neil, with the dirty blond hair color Neil had before the chemo, answered the door. Same green eyes, same elegant facial features, the only real physical difference between Neil and his brother was that Runólf was a bit pudgier around the middle and in the face.

A difference Neil must have pointed out a time or two, because Runólf grabbed Neil’s midsection and said something in Icelandic that I couldn’t understand. But it carried the universal tone of big brother fat shaming.

Neil swatted his brother’s hands away and pulled me forward. “
Þetta er unnusta mín—
um,
kærastan,
Sophie.”

Runólf’s eyes went wide as he looked from Neil to me. Neil looked like he was swallowing a really big pill. What had he just said about me?

Then Runólf said, “Sophie, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hi!” I reached out and shook his hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak—”

“Not at all, not at all.” Runólf’s posh English accent strongly matched Neil’s. “Come on inside. Emma’s already here.”

We took off our coats and hung them in the small coatroom off the wide, open, octagonal foyer. To the left and right, hallways led off in opposite directions, and a staircase swooped in a graceful arc down to the lower level, where a Christmas tree that had to be eighteen feet tall stood in front of an all-glass wall that faced the lake. The house was built into a hillside, I realized.

“Dad!” Emma called as she thundered up the stairs. She threw her arms around Neil’s neck before he could get a word in. “I missed you. Christmas wasn’t the same without you.”

“I missed you, too.” He kissed her forehead and set her on her feet. “And I suppose Michael had to come along?”

“Daddy.” A one-word admonishment was all she needed to give him.

He held up his hands defensively. “Fine, fine. That was the last one, I promise.”

“Sophie,” Emma said, putting her arms out. “Christmas hug?”

“Of course!” I’m the huggy type, but Neil’s daughter is not. For a while, I thought it was because of our strange situation—it couldn’t be easy, having your dad date someone who was your exact age—but as I’d gotten to know her better, I’d realized that she was quite sparing with her physical affection.

I guess that just made it mean more.

Downstairs, Neil introduced me to the eldest Elwood sibling, Geir, and his wife, Helen, who was a Canadian from Winnipeg. They’d met when she’d been plying her trade as a lawyer in the contracts department of North Star Media, the company the Elwood brood had inherited from their late father. Geir and Helen’s children weren’t with them for Christmas—they were all grown and busy with their own families in Canada and England. Geir looked more like Neil’s mother. He was shorter than his brothers, and plump, and he didn’t smile as easily, though he didn’t come off as a grumpy sort of person. Helen was slender and youthful, despite the gray streak in her effortless brown bob. She talked with her hands and showed tall white teeth when she smiled.