That’s never a comforting sentence from him.
“About Arkady?” Vika asks quickly, and I hear the eagerness in it at once.
Papa turns to her. “No.”
The word lands like a slap. Vika goes still.
Papa looks back at me. “Arkady is safe,” he says. “Predictable. Limited.”
I already hate where this is going.
“But Roman,” he continues, “is a serious man.”
No one speaks.
Irina frowns first. Vika second. I just stare at him, because the shape of the thought is arriving too fast to stop.
Papa says, “He would be a much better match.”
The room goes silent.
Vika’s mouth opens. Irina actually blinks. I think my heart may have missed a beat entirely.
“For who?” Vika says, though she knows.
Papa doesn’t even look at her. “For Katerina.”
My first feeling is shock. My second is fury. My third is the hottest, most humiliating one of all.
Hope.
It rises so fast I want to claw it out of myself.
Because this is my father. He’s not seeing romance. He’s seeing leverage, danger, strength, usefulness.
And still, some traitorous part of me hears the words Roman would be a much better match and flashes back to the corridor, his mouth on mine, his hand at my waist, that low roughness in his voice right before he stepped away.
I bury the reaction at once.
Papa is still speaking.
“Roman is difficult, yes. But difficult men are often better husbands than weak ones. They require less managing.”
Vika makes a sharp noise. “You cannot be serious.”
Papa turns his head slowly. “Why not?”
“Because—” She stops herself, too late. The protest was too quick, too emotional.
Irina recovers before anyone else. “Sergei, that’s absurd.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” She gestures toward me like I’m an invoice with water damage. “Katerina has children.”
“She also has my name. And Roman,” Papa says, “is not the kind of man who frightens easily.”
I can’t listen to them discuss me like this for one second longer. “I’m standing right here.”
