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I don’t let Alexander’s order rush me. I consider her question seriously. “Maybe it used to be possible. At one point, you and I could both benefit from the same outcome. But now… I can’t win if my enemy succeeds. And you’re with the enemy.”
She blinks like I physically hit her. Her mouth falls open. Before she can gather the words for whatever lie she is about to tell, I brush past her and head towards the stairwell.
If I’m going to make it through tonight, I need to focus my energy on the players that matter.
Just as I reach the foyer, my mother not far behind me, Alexander reaches for the doorknob. His eyes sharpen on me. One silent final warning to behave.
I take a deep breath as he pulls the door open.
Let the games begin.
* * *
Before the appetizers can even hit the table, Konstantin Sokolov has offended me in every way that matters.
“If things had happened like they ought to have,” Konstantin says, referring for the fifth time to me running away to avoid marrying his son, “then I wouldn’t be worried. But she’s past her prime. If we want healthy offspring, they need to get married and get started as soon as possible.”
Past my prime?I’m twenty-four, for fuck’s sake!
Then again, I don’t want to be in my prime. Not for Mikhail Sokolov. Not for being used as a breeding cow for his psychopath babies.
So I bite my tongue and drown the words. I wish I could literally drown them, but Alexander already silently warned me off of any more water. When the maid refilled my glass for the third time, Alexander glanced over and shook his head. But I think he’d rather I drink than say what is on my mind.
Which is that Konstantin Sokolov is going to need more than a woman in her prime to have sex with Mikhail if he wants grandchildren. Because as it is, one look at his mean, pasty son has me dryer than the Sahara. I can practically feel my ovaries shriveling up. Nine out of ten fertility doctors recommend against trying to reproduce with men you despise on a visceral, physical level.
“We announced the engagement today, but left the wedding date unspecified since the situation is… unfolding.” Mikhail looks down at me and I realize I am “the situation.”
“‘Unwilling’ is more like it,” I mutter.
No one seems to hear me because, right as I speak, the kitchen doors open. Four women I don’t recognize and one I do march out carrying baskets of bread and salads. There’s one server for each person at the table. Because that isn’t ostentatious and obnoxious in the least, right?
If Mikhail and Konstantin are impressed by Alexander’s show of wealth, they hide it well. Better yet, everyone is so focused on the food being placed in front of them that no one notices a small phone being dropped into my lap.
The young maid doesn’t look at me or signal to me in any way. She simply places my starter course on the table and then drapes a cloth napkin in my lap, discreetly covering the phone. Then, without breaking rank, she disappears into the kitchen with the others.
“That’s why we’re here,” Alexander says to the table. “To hammer out the details of our families becoming one. I’m sure we can handle that over four courses.”
Four more courses?I can’t sit here for four more courses! Not with this bomb in my lap.
My heart is thundering. I take a bite of bread, but it turns to cement in my dry mouth.
Is the phone from Ivan?
Or is it a trap?
Maybe Alexander and the Sokolovs are testing my commitment. Maybe they are testing me to see what I’ll do when presented with a way out. Will I take it or will I obey?
“I don’t want to wait four courses; I’ve waited long enough,” Konstantin says. “I don’t see what we’re doing with this dinner in the first place. It’s a waste of time. It should be a wedding rehearsal.”
“If we rush it, it looks like we’re scared,” Mikhail offers.
He looks down the table at me for only a moment. Does he know what’s hiding in my lap? He has to know.He can see right through me. He sees the terror burning under my skin.
Then I see it. The ghost of what he felt in the restaurant is written all over his face. The panic at seeing Ivan there. The fear that I am slipping through his fingers.
What would he think if he knew he’d never had me in his grasp in the first place?
Konstantin sighs. “I suppose. But the wedding should happen as soon as propriety allows.”
