Mama’s driver arrives to collect us, and I let the children go ahead with the nanny because I need one breath of air before I get back into the car and pretend this lunch did not happen.
The wind off the water is colder now.
I step away from the restaurant, one hand on the rail, eyes on the river, trying not to think about Roman’s body in that corridor, Roman’s hand catching my glass, Roman being so stupidly, dangerously good with my children.
Footsteps come up behind me.
I know who it’s before he says anything.
“You left quickly.”
I turn.
Roman stands a few feet away, coat buttoned now, expression unreadable again. The softness from lunch, if it was softness, is gone.
“The children are tired.”
“So are you.”
“That’s observant.”
“It usually is.”
The river moves dark and flat behind him. A ferry passes farther down, its lights blurred in the cold. For one ridiculous second, the whole city feels narrowed down to just the two of us and everything we never finished.
Roman looks at me for a long moment.
Then he says, “I know the truth.”
20
KATERINA
I thinkI might actually die here.
My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. My fingers go cold. For one wild second I imagine every possible version of disaster at once. Roman knows. Roman has always known. Roman found out last night. Roman has been looking at Nikolai all afternoon and doing the math. Roman is about to say something that will blow the whole rotten structure of my life apart in broad daylight.
Then he speaks again.
“I know the children are Lev’s.”
The world rushes back in all at once.
I inhale so sharply it hurts.
He watches my face as he says it, and I know immediately that he’s studying every reaction. Not just listening to my answer. Watching the pause before it. Watching what I do with my mouth, my eyes, my hands.
This man. Even now. Especially now.
I should deny it.
What else would he think? What else would this city think? Lev’s abandoned fiancée turns up pregnant not long after Moscow, carries twins, returns home silent, refuses to name the father. Lev dies. The house seals itself around the scandal. The children grow. The rumor becomes truth because it’s neat and everyone prefers a neat lie.
Roman is watching my face too closely.
He’ll see the lie before I finish speaking. He always could.
So I say nothing.
