SWEET KISSES FROM RUSSIA
Fan Fiction – Alternate Universe
Caroline & Klaus
Elijah & Katherine
From: Lovely Vero
Chapter 2
"The first meetings"
Moscow – One of the matrimonial agencies - Arcadia
"Katerina, you're making me nervous." Carolina told her sister, while swallowing a nervous lump in her throat.
They had been ask to wait in this small office of the Arcadia Matrimonial Agency, downtown Moscow, and Katerina was walking back and forth in front of Carolina's sitting position.
"I can't help it." Katerina responded, while biting her nails nervously, before passing a hand through her long, curly, brown hair. "They call! That can only mean that they have a potential husband for you."
"We have no idea why they call us here? Maybe it is just to fill other papers?" Carolina replied to Katerina, while rubbing her hands nervously together.
"We have filled hundred of stupid papers already." She responded, before sitting on a chair beside her sister. "No, this is it, Carolina. I can feel it in my guts. This is it, you've been chosen." Katerina responded, while smiling, turning on her seat to face her sister and grabbing both of Carolina's arms.
Carolina smiled timidly back to her sister, while hoping for the contrary upcoming, scenario. This all Russian Matrimonial thing had been the idea of Katerina from the start. Her sister wanted a better path for Carolina, away from Russia and the remaining of their, hard, day to day, life. But, the younger sister was not entirely sold with the idea of giving her life, body and soul, to a stranger, with the addition of losing her sister forever. She was so not sold with her sister's idea, that she had a plan to run away, if necessary, to avoid leaving in a foreign country, with a stranger, that would become her husband for life.
"I don't want to loose you." Carolina whispered, while drowning her teary eyes in her sisters'.
"Carolina, listen to me… You won't loose me….We'll…" Katerina started explaining to her sister, before lowering her head and sight away from the piercing gaze of her sister. "We'll write to each other, we'll talk to each other on the phone, we'll find a way to keep in touch, in spite of the distance." She added, while holding her sister's hands in hers.
"But it's not the same as seeing you every day, Katerina." Carolina replied, while closing her eyes.
"Look at me, sister." Katerina started explaining, while raising Carolina's chin in her right hand. "You can't blow this chance into million of pieces, you need to embrace the chance life will give you at this new start."
The office door opened widely, while letting in under its arch, a very tall, thin, middle age woman, who pushed it close a second later, directing her high heels black shoes toward the other side of the desk, while carrying a file, before throwing it open on the desktop and taking in her hands a match to light her golden cigarette holder.
Katerina kept her sight glued to each of her movement, while squeezing Carolina's hands in hers.
"So?" She asked, while sitting on the edge of her chair. "Does my sister have a man interested in marrying her?"
The thin and cantankerous woman raised her cold sight in the one of Katerina, before taking a puff of her cigarette holder.
"Yes." She simply replied, after a long while.
"Are you sure?" Katerina asked again, while turning her body and sight toward her sister, who had lost all her colours.
"Yes." The woman added once again.
Katerina raised on her feet from her sitting position, before pacing back and forth in the small office.
"What are the next steps? What is Carolina supposed to do now? Write to him? Phone him? How does it work?" She asked, in all nervousness.
"Katerina, please … Listen, maybe we should talk about this, and take a step back before deciding anything." Carolina tried to plead to her older sister.
"There is nothing to talk about, Carolina this is your big break." Katerina replied, while approaching her sister sitting position and caressing her hair.
"Actually it's both your big brakes." The agency woman responded, while smoking her cigarette slowly, before resting her back on the leather office chair.
"What?" Both Petrova's sisters replied simultaneously, and in astonishment.
"What do you mean it's both our big brakes?" Katerina asked once more, while resuming her sitting position.
The emotionless lady took the file back in her hands, while looking, attentively, at several pages.
"The file says that the applicants are two, wealthy, English brothers who apparently have chosen both of you." The lady informed them more.
"Are these two English men from America?" Katerina demanded, with a mouth open expression plastered on her face.
"No, they are from Britain." The lady responded, while shaking her cigarette holder near the crystal ashtray.
"Oh my God … Katerina, you'll leave with me!" Carolina exclaimed, in joy, her left hand placed over her chest, while grabbing the hand of her sister and feeling tears rolling on her cheeks.
"It can't be." The said one replied, still in shock, while shaking her head. "Are you sure one of them has chosen me also?"
"Yes." The lady replied. "And they are willing to even triple the amount of the package fair to have you as their wives as soon as possible."
"You've said that they were wealthy, who are they?" Katerina demanded to know.
"Certainly not the kind of men that we've seen makes those applications in this agency before." The lady responded, while rolling her eyes.
"What do you mean?" Carolina asked.
"They are Dukes." The agency lady replied.
"What do you mean Dukes?" Katerina exclaimed, more shocked than ever.
"I meant it as literal as possible. They are from the royal family of Britain." The lady replied, while shaking her head, herself surprised.
"What do you mean Royalty?" Katerina repeated, while drowning her sight in the emptiness of the room, before adding, while once more getting up on her two legs. "But, it makes no sense, why would they need the services of this trashy agency to find a set of wives from Russia; they have the opportunities to meet those fancy ladies in every balls or parties they'll go." She added, while gesturing nervously with her hands and arms. "If they think that we'll be available for their sick sexual fantasies of the moment, they'll have me to show them otherwise!"
The lady raised an eyebrow at her remarks, while coughing, before crashing the last remaining of her cigarette in the ashtray.
"No disrespect intended about the agency." Katerina added, while blushing, before crossing her arms in front of her chest and shrugging her shoulders.
"We are not here to question the motifs of our wealthy clients, you shouldn't either, or you wouldn't have offered your names as candidates for a foreign marriage." The lady responded, slyly. "As for their sexual fantasies, it's also none of the agency's business. They have enrolled in this agency for legitimately marry two women at the end of this process. This said they are exactly like any other applicants. If you are not interested anymore, you need to tell me now?"
Katerina sighed loudly, before retaking her sitting position on the chair, and calm herself down.
"Will we live near from each other … I mean, me and my sister?" She demanded, with a shaking voice.
"You'll be staying, both of you, at the same residence, with your two prospect husbands." The agency lady replied, before adding. "All this information will be giving, to each of you, in due time, and by writing in your contracts."
"What … What is the next step?" Carolina asked, with a shaking voice.
"You'll be asked to communicate with your future husband for the first time, in a private room of the agency." The lady replied.
"Phone?" Carolina asked more.
"We are in the modern time." The lady replied, with little patience left in her. "Therefore, you'll be in communication via a webcam and a laptop."
"I'm sorry, I should have known…" Carolina replied, while blushing and lowering her head.
"Unfortunately for us, we don't have the chance to enjoy the technology of our modern time." Katerina responded, tit for tat, while raising her chin as a confrontational gesture. "Or we wouldn't offer our services as wives to perfect strangers."
"Well, that won't be your problem anymore, if you accept this marriage proposal, you'll have the wealthiest that you always desired." The lady replied, while titling her head, before adding. "So, do we have a deal?"
Katerina turned her head toward her sister at the same time Carolina turned hers, before timidly smiling to each other.
"Klaus!" Elijah shouted several times through the quietness of the mansion's corridors, while walking rapidly from door to door, with his hands placed on each side of his waist, bothered and angry by the obvious absence of his brother. "Damn you!" He added, while turning on his heels to come back to his private office, before slamming the door on its arch, in a loud noise, and walking to reach his desk. "You find a way to make me give a try at this ludicrous idea of marriage with a foreign woman, and then you are missing your first webcam meeting with your own, soon to be, wife." He growled a little more.
Elijah sat in his luxurious leather desk chair, while opening the screen of his laptop, the webcam, the high-tech speakers, before rubbing his chin in a mix of angriness and nervousness.
"What am I supposed to say to that poor – innocent girl now?" Elijah mumbled, angrily, once more.
The deal was for Elijah to choose Klaus's future wife and for Klaus to choose Elijah's, while trying to keep true to their taste in women.
The screen opened on its welcome screen, asking for its private password, Elijah opened the internet explorer before reading the instructions to make the connection with the Russian agency, while using a private applicant number, before seeing a private message appearing in front of his eyes in flashing red letters.
Mr. Klaus Mikaelson, your private session in our luxurious lounge
With:
Miss Katerina Petrova
Starts in 30 seconds
29
28
27
…
"Damn you Niklaus!" Elijah mumbled, between his teeth, while passing a quick, nervous hand through his perfect styled hair, before lowering his head in his hands, while sighing loudly, and closing his eyes to calm himself down.
"Klaus Mikaelson?" He heard a feminine voice, with a strong Russian accent, addressed itself to him in perfect English.
Elijah slowly raised his head, before drowning his eyes in the ones of the magnificent brunette that was standing in front of his sight. Yes, he had chosen that specific woman for his brother, and had seen her picture through the hundred that he had to look at on the Agency site, but she was without a single doubt in his mind, even more beautiful then expected.
"I'm Katerina Petrova." She added, in a neutral tone of voice, while raising her chin, and keeping her sight on Elijah's visual image on her screen. "You're …. The man named Klaus?"
Elijah narrowed his sight at her, while lowering himself on the back of his office chair, before opening the button of his Armani suit jacket, taking completely aback by the majestic aura of that woman.
"Actually, I apologize for …. "He started explaining, before being cut in the middle of his sentence.
"You're old." She suddenly said, while frowning and raising an eyebrow at him.
"I beg your pardon?" Elijah replied in shock, while approaching his laptop screen.
The young woman was sitting in a private closed lounge room, in a comfortable velvet armchair placed in front of a desktop. She was wearing a green turtleneck sweater, that was accentuating her fit figure and the roundness of her breasts, Elijah couldn't do without noticing.
"Well, you seem to be older than I thought you would be." Katerina replied, while shrugging her shoulders.
"And that is bothering you?" Elijah replied to the Russian woman, with a smirk on his lips.
"I'm not very young myself, so who am I to be bothered by your age." She shrugged more, before adding in a blunt way. "I'm surprised that you could be interested by me, and not a younger woman?"
Elijah smiled more, before lowering his upper body on the back of his leather chair, his chin placed in his right hand.
"You're not even thirty." He replied, while keeping his sight in hers.
"I'll be thirty in two months." She replied, while staying emotionless. "You're older, aren't you?" She couldn't retain the question.
"You could say that…" Elijah replied, amused. "But not much older than you…And you thought that I would be interested in a sugar daddy relationship with my future, much younger, wife, perhaps? Not my style, I like to be equal to my partner." He asked her, as blunt.
"The thought crossed my mind." She replied. "It's the all suit thing that is aging you." She added, while pointing a finger at his clothes. "And your hair is styled in a way that is making you look older too." She added.
"Anything else you want to add to the list?" He asked, while raising an eyebrow, and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"Not at the present moment, thank you." She replied to him, while straightening her upper body on the chair. "At least you're not as old and as ugly that I thought you would be." She added, with a long sigh.
"You've imagined that I was ugly, old, and what else?" Elijah requested, amused.
"Impotent…" She added, still as blunt as ever.
Elijah lowered his head backward before bursting into loud laughter.
"Oh … Delightful Katerina…" He started, while returning his attention on the screen. "I can assure you that I am everything but impotent." He replied to her, with a big smile plastered on his lips.
"Well, a woman needs to know those personal things." She replied to him, while blushing for the first time since the beginning of this virtual meeting.
"So, you think that the sexual part of a marriage is very important then?" Elijah asked more.
"Don't you?" She said, tit for tat.
"It's me who've asked the question." Elijah replied once more, with a smirk plastered on his face.
"If the marriage is faked so can be the sex … If the marriage is real so can be the sex." She explained, while shrugging her shoulders more.
"You think that our marriage will be counterfeit?" He demanded.
"I don't know the meaning of the last English word?" She said, honestly.
"Fake?" He added.
"I don't know…I don't know you." She replied honestly.
"I don't know you either." Elijah replied, while smirking even more.
"I think that if we don't play the amorous couple, or being hypocritical about this relationship. We could find a good agreement." She replied, honestly, while raising her chin in the air.
"You always go right to the point, don't you?" Elijah said to the brunette.
"Isn't it the point of this meeting finalizing the agreement?" She asked in her blunt way.
"Indeed." Elijah replied.
"If you are not too bad to me, and threat me with respect, I could probably sleep with you in the future." She added. "Isn't it what you are concerned about?"
"Well, I'm happy to hear that." Elijah responded, before bursting into laughter one more time, before adding. "Katerina, I am not concerned the least about that."
"Why?" She asked, curious.
"Because, I always get what I want." He informed her, while making Katerina startled on her chair.
"Why me?" She asked more.
"Why not?" He responded.
"You are rich … You could have a lot of women." She stipulated. "Younger women…" She added more, with a smirk.
"None of them would be able to have this verbal joust with me at the moment." He smirked, while making her smile. "I'm easily bored…Called it the age." He mocked her more.
A beep sound was suddenly heard with a message appearing on their respective screen:
This present session will close itself in:
60 seconds
59…
58…
57…
"You need to inform the agency if I am not what you are looking for." Katerina informed, while swallowing a lump of nervousness in her throat.
"What makes you think that you are not what I'm looking for?" Elijah asked her.
"I could be easy on the eyes, but I am hard to handle." She responded, frankly.
"So am I." Elijah replied, tit for tat, while making her smile for the second time.
22…
21…
20….
"I'm …." She started asking, before taking a small pause, and finally demanding. "I'm curious, is your brother Elijah a good man?"
Elijah raised his sight in hers, in surprise. In a life coincidence, Elijah knew that they, him and his brother, had chosen sisters.
"You're afraid for the faith of your sister? Aren't you?" He asked, bluntly for once.
"Yes." She replied, honestly.
"He's a good man." He responded.
9…
8…
7…
"Katerina?" He called her.
"Yes?" She replied.
"It's you that I want." He finally said.
2…
1…
0
Carolina turned the key into the lock of the private lounge, before lowering her forehead on the door, closing her eyes and sighing loudly.
"You need to be strong, Carolina, be strong!" She murmured on her lips, before raising her head and walking into the private internet lounge.
The room was luxurious and welcoming for its purpose: an L-shape leather sofa, with fluffy pillows aligned together, in all shapes and colour, a low coffee table with several foreign fashion magazines, a tray with an assortment of beverages, a mahogany wood desk with a velvet arm chair in front of a laptop placed on its desktop.
She closed the switch of the ceiling lamp, before slowly approaching the roller blind of the only window, closing them on the last sunlight of this Moscow winter day. Then she opened a small lamp placed on the desk, near the laptop, lowering her handbag on the blue carpet, while getting rid of her boots, and winter coat.
Carolina was wearing a crossover white wool sweater dress, with her blond hair cascading freely on her shoulders, and only a trace of a light pink lipstick on her lips. She looked at the only jewellery she owned, her mother's watch, while noticing that she had ten more minutes left before the showdown.
What her mother would have thought of those arranged marriages? Carolina thought to herself while closing her eyes and feeling tears filling her eyelids.
She knew basically nothing about the man who wanted to marry her, except that his name was Elijah Mikaelson … Duke Elijah Mikaelson.
The laptop screen suddenly light up with flashy numbers of a countdown: ten more minutes.
Carolina sat in front of the screen, while rubbing her hands together in all nervousness.
She had no idea what to do or what to expect? But she knew that this was like a verbal contract between herself and a man that desired her in his life as a wife, and more so, a woman in his bed!
ooOoo
"Elijah!" Klaus shouted into the main parlour of the Manor, while opening the French doors widely, before scattering all the downstairs rooms, climbing on the second level and not finding a single trace of his older brother. "Damn it where are you brother?" Klaus screamed more, before growling his frustration and adding on a lower note to himself. "I mixed up the hours for both meetings!" He added, while shaking his head, in despair.
First, he had missed the first chance of being able to meet the woman Elijah had pick for him, secondly, he would now need to log in to the agency site to talk to the one that he had picked for his brother. He rolled his eyes, before reaching the private quarter of his suite, walking toward his desk, and opening his laptop.
The connection was made easily; he could see clearly the message flashing in front of his eyes.
Mr. Elijah Mikaelson, your private session in our luxurious lounge
With:
Miss Carolina Petrova
Starts in 30 seconds
29
28
27
…
If he would think about it, while smirking and lowering his head on the back of his office chair, with both of his hands crossed behind his head, and his legs and leather biker boots elevated on the desktop, he could easily pretend that he was his brother, for this time only, of course…Now, why did he not think of it sooner? That could even be fun?
You're connected
"I'm Carolina Petrova…" He heard a harmonious feminine accented voice addressed itself to him while suddenly raising his sight in the one of the beautiful blonde on his laptop screen.
"I was not expecting anyone else, Love." He responded, with a sarcastic smile on his lips. "I'm K…Elijah." He added, while letting his wandering sight slide on her silky, long, blonde hair, the delicateness of her neck, where he could easily see the pumping blue vein on its right side.
"I know who you are. I was not expecting my prince charming." She replied slyly, while making him loose his smile.
"My … My … You are certainly a sharp tongue." He responded, while raising an eyebrow.
"And you are certainly not well educated. My mother always told me that it was impolite for a man to put his feet on a table." She added, with a vicious smile "Are you an impolite man, Mister Elijah, or simply a rich one?"
"It's a desktop, Love." Klaus responded, tit for tat, with a smirk on his lips, while being literally hypnotized by her presence and audacity. "And it's my home; therefore I do what I please. Do you want me to be impolite with you? Are you into role playing games, beautiful Carolina?"
"Are you always trying to find a way to argue?" She asked him, before raising a questioning eyebrow to him as well, while noticing his younger age, than expected. "Or is it that you always want to be right in every argument that you're having with a woman?" She asked more, while crossing her arms in front of her deep cleavage, where his sight was now travelling, before noticing that he had dark blonde, curly hair, and piercing blue eyes. "The question for me is more: Are you into role playing games, Mister Elijah?"
Klaus lowered his feet and legs on the floor, before frowning and narrowing his sight on the young woman that was sitting in an armchair, her fiery sight on him. She literally wanted to fight with him – Him, Klaus Mikealson!
"I'm always interested at playing games…I love the thrill of being the hunter tracking his prey, but, not at the present moment, sweetheart." He responded, with a malicious smile curving his lips. A fight she wanted, a fight she would have! "I just want to check the merchandise that is offered to me by the agency, before buying it of course."
Carolina startled on her chair, while biting her bottom lips. He was a wicked, disturbed man, exactly like she had been expected that he would be. Who would take a perfect stranger as a wife, except if the said man would have ugly, low, and despicable instincts to fill? He older sister, Katerina, would not back down of this chance of leaving their country, but Carolina would promise herself that this man would never put a hand on her, she would find a way to escape or die if necessary, before that would happen…But, for the time being she needed to play his sick game.
"You want to verify the merchandise?" She repeated, while raising her chin in a confrontational manner. If he thought that he could intimidate a Petrova, he would soon realized that she was not one of being so easily intimidated by the presence of this English, rich man, who seemed to be so full of himself.
"Yes." Klaus responded, before lowering his upper body on the back of his chair. "I will pay good money for your services; therefore, the least that I can receive in return is some kind of insurance that the merchandise is good quality."
Elijah would definitely killed him for this, but at the present moment, he could not back down from the most thrilling, exciting joust that he had ever experimented with a woman in thousands of years…That one got fire!
"Fine!" She responded, before rising on her two legs, pulling away the arm chair, with an angry push of her right feet, raising the electronic eye of the webcam, before taking a few backward walking steps away from the desk.
Carolina stood in front of the camera, with a cold and emotionless stare, before untying the belt of her crossover dress, letting the fabric fall at her feet, unhooking her bra, and throwing it on the floor, as well, in front of a speechless – mouth opened Klaus.
"Is the merchandise enough good quality for you?" She asked him, coldly, while standing semi-naked in front of his sight.
ooOoo
Klaus kept his sight in hers in all time, in a joust of silent power between the young Russian woman and this thousand year's hybrid Original vampire.
"I don't want my future wife to act like a whore." He mumbled, angrily, between his teeth.
A slap in the face would not have been worst than the cruelty of his words, Carolina thought, while startling and frowning at the insult, but she also knew that she had sought for this to happen, for this man anger to come to the surface. He had a weakness in him, and that information could get handy someday.
"Dress yourself!" He ordered her, nervously, while rising up from his sitting position and pacing back and forth in front of his laptop. "Now!" He ordered more, in a louder voice.
She jumped at the sound of his ordering voice, before bending her upper body, grabbing her dress and bra on the floor, turning her back at him, and quickly dressing herself.
"Now sit!" He ordered some more.
Carolina pulled the armchair back to its position in front of the camera and laptop, before taking her sitting position, while noticing that he was sitting on his chair now, with a closed expression on his face.
The beep sound was suddenly heard with a message appearing on their respective screen:
This present session will close itself in:
60 seconds
59…
58…
57…
"You'll have to learn to obey me." Klaus warned her.
"I'm not one who obeys easily." Carolina responded.
"You'll learn." He added.
"Maybe you could find another candidate more willing to obey you?" She suggested, fearless, while raising her chin.
"And missing the joy to hunt the beautiful prey that you are?" Klaus responded, with a devious smile on his lips, making her loose the colours on her cheeks.
22…
21…
20….
"You're making a mistake…In choosing me." Carolina finally replied, with a growing feeling of hate inside of her.
"I doubt it …I'm not known at making mistake…" Klaus responded.
"If you want, I will marry you, you can even force yourself on me … But, I will never love you." She mumbled, angrily, between her teeth. "If I was you, I would choose another, more fitted candidate."
Klaus startled and frowned at her mention of a loveless life. Wasn't it his curse since his birth?
"Who says I'm interested in this "love" thing you're talking about?" Klaus maliciously responded. "Maybe, I am just into playing twisted game as choosing a foreign woman to become my obeying wife?"
12…
11…
10…
"You life with me in it, we'll be a living hell." She said, harshly to him.
"This is music to my ears." He responded, with the biggest smirk on his lips, before adding. "I'll contact the agency; you're the woman that I want."
Carolina startled, while swallowing a big lump of nervousness in her throat. Her life would be soon tied up to this despicable man.
"…Until we meet face to face, "my" Carolina." He added, deviously.
3…
2…
1….
0
Thank you for reading, my dear readers.
I hope you enjoyed this second chapter, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Answers to the anonymous reviews:
Please put a fictive nickname for your reviews, it is easier to answer you after.
Guess1: who said that she could not wait for the second update … Thank you for your nice review, sweetie, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Guess2: who mentioned both couples, thanks for the nice review, sweetie, it's true that Carolina won't stay pure for ever … LOL … And Katerina is able to defend herself very well.
Justineeeeeeeeeeeeeee: Merci ma chérie pour suivre cette nouvelle histoire. Je crois cependant, et te connaissant, que ce chapitre va t'achever…LOL.