Roman says something low to Papa, then Vika laughs too brightly and touches his sleeve. He doesn’t move away. He doesn’t encourage her either. He simply allows the contact the way men like him allow weather, servants, and lesser people with temporary uses.
That should comfort me.
It doesn’t.
A few minutes later, when the music shifts and the room begins to loosen into the easier rhythm that comes after formal introductions, Vika gets exactly what she wants.
Roman offers her his hand.
Or maybe she all but takes it. I can’t tell from where I’m standing, and it makes me angry that I care enough to notice.
They move onto the dance floor.
I don’t think they are flirting. That would almost be easier. It’s worse than that. They look good together. Vika knows how to hold herself, how to tip her face at the right angle, how to give a man just enough softness to make him seem larger beside her. Roman is impossible not to look at. Tall, dark, silver at the temples, his hand at her waist as if it belongs there, every line of him controlled.
He should look wrong beside her, but he doesn’t.
That hurts in a way I resent.
Sofia is half-asleep against Mama’s shoulder now. Nikolai stands close to me, one hand wrapped around two of my fingers, and I feel suddenly trapped between things I cannot bear. My son in this room. My father watching him. My sister on Roman’s arm. Roman acting as if our history is folded away somewhere inaccessible to everyone but me.
I need a minute.
I bend toward Mama. “I’m stepping out.”
She searches my face and does not ask why. “I have them.”
I nod and walk before I can lose my nerve.
The corridor outside the ballroom is cooler, quieter, lined with mirrors and low lamps. My heart is beating much too fast. I keep walking until the music softens behind me and the sound of voices becomes something distant and muffled.
Only then do I stop.
I brace one hand against a marble console and look at myself in the mirror.
My face is flushed. My hair has loosened near one temple.
“You always did know when to run,” murmurs a voice behind me.
I close my eyes once. Then I turn.
He’s standing in the doorway, jacket still on, tie loose now, his expression unreadable in that way I once thought meant calm. I know better now. With him, unreadable usually means dangerous.
“I didn’t run,” I say.
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then lifts again. “No? It looked very familiar.”
I deserve it. I hate that he knows I know that. “I needed air.”
“You left your children in there,” he scoffs. “I’m yet to see why you brought them here tonight. What kind of opportunity do you see here, princess?”
I seethe at the title. “None of your business.”
“You’re at my event,” he points out calmly.
“I left them with my mother.”
“With Sergei Markov in the same room,” he says. The anger under his voice is so immediate that my own rises to meet it.
