He turns to the broker. "I’ll catch up with you later, Lionel."
The broker hesitates, then retreats. Rovin doesn’t watch him go. His attention stays on me, total and undivided, and I understand suddenly why the women who have faced this beforeleft in tears. Being the focus of Rovin Mostovoi's full attention is like standing in a searchlight. There’s nowhere to hide.
I don't want to hide.
"Five minutes," he says.
"You're attending this dinner to find a wife."
His chin lifts slightly. A fraction of an inch, but I'm watching closely enough to catch it. "You're well informed."
"I'm thorough. You've attended two previous dinners and left without choosing anyone. You're looking for something specific, and you haven't found it yet."
"And you believe you are what I'm looking for?" One perfectly arched eyebrow rises up his forehead. He isn’t used to being addressed so directly. That sends another thrill through me.
"I believe I'm the only woman in this room who walked in knowing exactly who she wanted and why."
The silence between us is dense and warm. Around us, the room continues its careful choreography. Glasses clink. Voices murmur. A woman laughs, soft and practiced. None of it reaches the space between Rovin and me.
"Why me?" he asks.
I’ve rehearsed this answer. I have stood in front of my bathroom mirror and said these words a dozen times, testing them for weakness, for hesitation, for any crack that might let him see uncertainty.
But standing in front of him now, the rehearsed version feels wrong. It feels polished in the way he apparently dislikes. Constructed. So I drop it. I tell him the truth.
"Because you can't be destroyed," I say. "My father was powerful, and they dismantled him in six days. Headlines, investigations, public opinion. He existed at the mercy of people who could withdraw their approval. You don't. You are the onlyman I've ever watched who doesn't depend on anyone else's permission to exist."
His eyes narrow, infinitesimally. I keep going.
"I watched my family's name become worthless overnight. I am not interested in building a life on a foundation that someone else can pull out from under me. I want permanence. I want a name that cannot be taken. And I want to give that name to children who will inherit something unbreakable."
I watch the ripples of my words move across Rovin's face. His jaw tightens. His gaze drops, for one instant, from my eyes to my mouth, then lower, to the line of my throat that disappears beneath the black silk of my dress, then back up.
"You're very direct," he says.
"I was raised in politics. I've seen what indirectness costs." I feel calm. The kind of calm that happens right before something big smashes into your life from a place you don’t expect. Panic tries to claw a warning into my psyche, but I’m too amped to listen to it.
"And you came here tonight specifically for me?" I have his absolute attention now. I know it. I feel it.
"Yes." I keep my eyes on his. I don’t even twitch, because the loss of that connection right now feels like it would destroy what chance I have.
"You know what I am?" he asks, narrowing his eyes and turning his head slightly.
I smile then. "I know exactly what you are, Rovin Mostovoi."
He takes a step closer. The distance between us shrinks from three feet to two, and I can smell him now. Clean, cold air and sandalwood, with a darker, amber-like note underneath.
"The other women here," he says, his voice lower now, pitched for my ears only, "have been vetted for months. Their familieshave been researched. Their medical histories reviewed. Their backgrounds are impeccable."
"Their backgrounds are constructed,” I argue in a tone low enough to match his. “Mine is real."
"Your background is a scandal."
"My background is proof that I know what it feels like to lose everything. And I'm standing in front of you anyway. Not because I have nowhere else to go, but because this is where I choose to be." I gesture to the women around us. “How many of these chose to be here tonight?”
He studies me for a long moment. I hold perfectly still under his gaze and let him look. Let him see the intelligence Grace told me to hide and the ambition my mother told me was unladylike and the hunger that has lived in the pit of my stomach since I was nineteen years old and watched this man walk into a room and change the gravity of it.
"Your five minutes are up," he says.
