"And have you?" he asks.
The question catches me sideways, because it isn't the question men usually ask in rooms like this. Nobody's asked me anything tonight that wasn't really about my brother or my family name. This is just a question, plain and curious, like he actually wants to know the answer.
"I raised my little brother," I say, before I can decide whether that's something I want to admit to a stranger at an auction."After our parents died. So. Something, I suppose. Just not the kind anyone puts on a résumé."
"That's the only kind worth putting anywhere," he says, and there's no flattery in it, no smooth recovery line. He just says it like a fact, looks at me like he means it, and something in my chest goes soft and unguarded in a way I don't have time to examine before he's grinning again, the mood shifting like he flipped a switch. "So. Tell me something terrible about yourself. Quickly, before someone interrupts and I have to go be charming at strangers again."
"Something terrible?" I ask, a frown pinching my forehead.
"Everyone here is presenting their best self tonight. Frankly, I find it exhausting. Give me something real."
I think about it, which surprises me more than the question did. "I once told my brother I'd read an entire book series with him so he'd stop bothering me about it. I didn't read a single page. I just watched enough of the show to fake it."
He stares at me like I've handed him a gift. "Which series?"
"I'm not telling you. You'll quiz me."
"I absolutely will." He's laughing now in the way that crinkles the corners of his eyes, and the sound of it does something warm and unexpected low in my stomach. "That might be the most deeply human thing anyone's confessed to me in three years of these dinners. Everyone else tells me about their charity work."
I almost snort. "I do charity work too.”
"Liar."
"Fine. I did one fun run. Once. I walked most of it."
"There she is," he says, like he's been waiting all night for exactly this version of me to show up, and I laugh before I can stop myself, a real laugh, surprised out of me, the first one all evening that doesn't have fear stitched into the back of it.
I catch myself mid-laugh and go still, because I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be sitting in a chair beside a man I've known for four minutes, in a room where I'm currently being priced like livestock, feeling my pulse pick up over a joke about a fun run and the irony that I believedthiswas a charity dinner.
He notices the shift and I'm starting to suspect there isn't much that gets past him.
"You went somewhere," he says, quieter now, the teasing dialed back. "Just then."
I shake my head slowly. "I'm fine."
"You don't have to be fine. Not with me, anyway. I’d rather take the ugliest reality than the prettiest performance." Something flickers behind his eyes, there and gone before I can name it. "But I'll let you have it if that's what you need tonight. Pretend with me a little longer, if it helps."
I look at him properly then, past the suit and the size of him and the easy charm he wears like a second jacket, and I find something underneath all of it that I wasn't expecting. Attention. The kind that doesn't come with a price tag attached.
"Thank you," I say, and I mean it more than the words probably suggest.
"For what? I haven't done anything yet." He winks, and the moment breaks open into something lighter again, easier, like he's decided I've had enough weight for one evening and it's his personal mission to lift some of it off. "Although I should warn you, the night is young, and I have several more terrible jokes prepared."
"I look forward to being disappointed."
"That's the spirit." He stands, straightening his jacket, and for a second I think that's it, the conversation’s over, whatever this strange small spark between us extinguished as easily as itcaught. Instead he leans down, close enough that I catch the warm, clean scent of him.
"I'll see you again tonight, Alivia Beckett," he says, low enough that it's just for me. "I'd put money on it."
He walks off toward a group of men before I can answer, and I sit there at a half-abandoned dinner table, feeling something dangerously close to hope flickering where dread should be sitting instead.
I don't know what he does, what kind of family put that look of wary respect on every face he passes.
I just know that of every terrifying man here, he is the only one who tried to make me feel safe.
Volody
I don't make it five steps from the table before I know I'm in trouble.
