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“Please don’t do that.” Katja laughs. “I don’t want to be left alone.”
“Oh, please, if you kissed Petar, you’d do the same, I just know it!”
“Alena!” Katja scolds with a smile, and her cheeks flush as red as mine must be from the heat in my face.
“I know, I’m sorry. I just…” Darting back to her, I clutch at her hand and grin. “Thank you. You were so right, acting more like my mother finally got his attention. He definitely doesn’t see me as a little girl. I’ve not felt this seen, this excited since?—”
“Alena!” Mara appears in the kitchen doorway, one hand on her hip, and even from across the room, her icy presence immediately dampens my excitement. “What on earth is all the yelling about? We still have some guests out here. Now please, gather yourself!”
I purse my lips and attempt to shove down the fizzy adrenaline inside me.
“Yes. I’m sorry, I was just… I’m sorry.” And yet the happiness remains. Even she can’t fully dampen my mood right now.
“Where did you and Mikhail disappear off to?”
“Hm?”
“Mikhail. I saw the two of you leave together. What happened?”
“Oh, we just went out to the garden?—”
“It’s so nice to see the two of you getting along,” Mara continues, so I fight the urge to roll my eyes and grab one of the leftover cupcakes from the stand as I pass.
With the rest of the guests leaving, I should make an appearance to say goodbye.
“It’s important that you take an interest in this, Alena.” Mara stops me in my tracks with a long, pointed finger. “It will make the arrangement much easier.”
My heart skips a beat. “Arrangement?”
“Yes.” Her thin lips press together, and Mara straightens herself, standing an inch taller. “You and Mikhail are due to be married next year, on your birthday. Rather fitting, don’t you think, since you just had your first date?”
“What?”
“Your union will secure an unbreakable bond between us and the Kuznetsovs, and beyond that…” She presses her hands together and smiles like the cat that got the cream—and then a full pail right after. “This will really secure the Orlovs on top.”
My world shatters, and the bubble of excitement from my first kiss crashes down around my ears like a crystal ball.
Married? To Mikhail?
“No.”
“What?” Mara’s gaze becomes steely, and all color vanishes from her lips when she presses them together.
“I said no.”
“There is no no here, Alena. It is happening.”
“No!” Warmth prickles up my neck, and I can’t help stamping my foot in frustration. This can’t be happening, not when the night was so perfect. Not when Kristof finally noticed me, not when I finally got my first kiss.
Married to Mikhail? “I refuse.”
“Don’t be so ridiculous, Alena,” Mara scoffs at me. “You’re eighteen now, an adult, and it’s high time you started shouldering some of the responsibility that belongs to you as our first and only child.”
“I don’t care! I don’t care about any of that. I’m not just some piece of meat that you can sell on to the highest bidder or the one who will make life better for you and Papa. What about me? What about my life!”
“Alena!” Mara raises her voice, silencing the tirade spilling from my own lips. “How dare you, you ungrateful girl! Your father and I have given up our lives for you for the past eighteen years. We have loved and protect?—”
“Loved!” I snort, the cupcake crumbling between my fingers.
