"The bidding process is a formality," I say. "I will outbid everyone in this building without effort. But I'm telling you now, before any of that happens, that if I take you home tonight, you are not leaving."
"I know."
"Say it."
"If you take me home tonight, I'm not leaving."
I brush my thumb across her lower lip, lightly smearing the lipstick there. Her breath catches, and this time she lets me hear it.
"Wait here," I say. "I'll handle the broker."
I leave the room. The walk downstairs takes forty seconds, and in those forty seconds, I think about the women I've dismissed over the past three years. Beautiful women. Well-connected women. Women who would have been perfectly adequate wives and mothers and trophies on my arm.
None of them walked across a room to claim me.
None of them told me the truth about why they wanted me.
None of them saidchildrenthe way Claudia Hartley said it, with hunger disguised as composure.
It doesn’t take a PhD to decipher that she wants a family because she wants to belong to something that won't abandon her when the chips are down.
Six years?
The broker is in the reception room, managing the remaining negotiations. He sees me coming and straightens, his tablet clutched to his chest.
"Mr. Mostovoi. Have you made a selection? I have several excellent candidates still available for private conversation. The Koralev girl is particularly—"
"Claudia Hartley," I say. "She's mine. Process the arrangement."
"Mr. Mostovoi, Ms. Hartley was not formally vetted through our standard—"
"I said process it."
I don’t know if it’s the sharp tone in my voice or the hard look in my eyes, but he stops talking. This is the correct response.
"And the financial terms?" he asks, quieter now.
"Whatever the highest bid would have been tonight, I'll triple it."
His eyebrows climb. He makes a note on his tablet. "I'll prepare the paperwork."
I turn and walk back upstairs. On the landing, I pass Akyl, who is leaning against the banister with a glass of wine and an expression of genuine curiosity.
"The Hartley girl," he says. "Really."
"Her name is Claudia."
Akyl tilts his head. Studies me. "You're different."
"I'm the same."
"No." He smiles, and for once it is without edges. "You're not. You should see your face right now, brother."
I don't ask him what he sees. I already know. He sees what I am only now beginning to understand.
I climb the stairs, and Claudia is standing exactly where I left her, by the window, looking out at the grounds.
She turns when I enter.
