I opened my mouth, but Dmitri spoke first. “Isn’t she right?” He asked, and Malia stilled.
After swallowing, I turned back to Malia. “I’m not arguing. I’m saying you can’t discuss inflation like it’s a graph with no people attached to it. When households can’t afford to spend, demand drops. Businesses feel that. It moves up the chain.” I searched for the word and lost it for a second. “It’s about the overall... the overall...”
Dmitri’s thumb pressed gently against my thigh.
“Consumer confidence. When that drops, it doesn’t stay in one corner of the economy. It spreads. You can’t build anything stable on a cracking foundation.”
Nobody reached for their glass or cut into anything. They all looked at me as if I were suddenly out of place.
My heart was racing, but Dmitri’s caress on my thigh kept me grounded. I didn’t look down or apologize. I wasn’t educated as they were, but I learned a few things on my own because life forced me to.
Madam Regina cleared her throat. “Foundations matter a lot,” she said. “You can polish the top floor as much as you like. But if the base is unstable, the whole structure comes down.”
I stared at her at the head of the table. She was warm to me from the moment Dmitri and I walked in, a warmth that didn’t feel forced, and I was holding onto that quietly.
“While we are at that,” she continued. “I’m sure you are all wondering about Inna.” My stomach dropped before she finished the sentence. “We respect what this friendship has meant over the years, and we understand that the arrangement between Dmitri and Malia was something we all agreed to in good faith.”
The words landed. Was she going to talk about marriage? This was bad.
“We have agreed to end it,” Madam Regina declared, “now that Dmitri and Inna have a past.”
I reached for my water and took a slow sip, shaking.
None of this made sense. I was temporary. Dmitri knew Cole wasn’t his son. He built the whole arrangement around the fact that I was temporary. And yet here sat his grandmother, ending a real engagement for my benefit. Malia was the educated one. She wore the right things and fit into this world without having to be briefed on how it worked. And I was the reason that was ending.
He also made his grandmother believe the lie.
Laughter broke through from somewhere down the table. Madam Regina and Malia’s mother already moved on. What just happened? I surfaced back into the room and looked at Malia.
She was not laughing, but when I looked at her, she pushed her chair back and got up.
“Excuse me,” she said, and left.
I also got up and followed her down the hallway. We passed closed doors until she pushed into the bathroom, and I stepped in behind her. She went to the sink and let the water run over her hands.
“Congratulations,” she said, looking at me in the mirror as she reached for a paper towel.
“About that, I didn’t know the dinner was about it.”
She turned to face me, folding the paper towel once. Her eyesmoved over me, checking me out, then came back to my face.
“I can tell.” She smiled, “I can also tell there’s a lie in here somewhere. I haven’t found it yet. But it’s there.”
“Malia—”
“Have you seen yourself?” She scoffed. “If Dmitri brought in a model or a businesswoman, at least that would make sense. But you?” She shook her head and dropped the paper towel into the bin. “He could have used someone better to get rid of me. Anyone.” Her eyes moved over me one more time, making sure I felt it.
The tightness in my throat pulled harder. She was right, and we both knew it.
“But then again,” she pressed on, her voice dropping as if she was amused, “who else would be easy enough to use?”
She turned towards the door.
“You like him,” I said, and she stopped.
I closed the distance between us until there was nowhere else for her eyes to look. If she wanted to feed on the fact that I was nothing, I would give her the full meal.
“I followed you here because I know you like him. The announcement was sudden, and I actually wanted to say something kind.” I paused. “But hearing you, I now understand why Dmitri used someone like me to get rid of you.”
