Page 90 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

“Making you soup.”

“You know how to make soup?”

“You know nothing of what I can and cannot do, little bird. Sit there and look surprised. It suits you.”

I worked in silence for a while, listening to her breathe behind me and refusing to pay attention to the voice asking what the hell I was doing.

I haven’t touched a cooking utensil since my grandmother passed. She loved to cook, and joining her had been our little ritual despite my father’s disapproval, but after her passing, I couldn’t find a reason to light a match besides setting something on fire.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she said eventually, watching me stir. “You’re going to burn it.”

“Then come fix it,” I replied instead of telling her the caramelized onion was an essential part of building the flavour.

“You asked me to sit.”

“I changed my mind. Get up.”

She huffed but slid off the stool anyway, standing close enough beside me that I could smell whatever soap she used, something clean and faintly floral, and she reached past me to adjust the heat.

“There,” she said. “Now it won’t taste like a crime.”

My lips curled. “High praise.”

“I’m a generous critic.”

It was almost funny watching her inspect everything I was doing like she was waiting for a disaster.

We stood there longer than the task required, close enough that turning my head even slightly would have put her mouth within reach. I didn’t move. Either way, she would drink the soup first. Then she would see a doctor.

I called my doctor instead, stepping into the hallway while the soup simmered, keeping my voice low.

“I need you at the address I just sent within the hour,” I said when he picked up.

After confirming he got the address, I ended the call before he could ask further questions I had no interest in answering.

When I came back into the kitchen, Genevieve was tasting the soup straight from the spoon, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and disbelief.

“Wow.”

“You’re welcome.”

She set the spoon down and looked at me, her expression shifting a little. “So why are you here?”

I considered lying, but it was difficult to lie when you couldn’t tell what was a lie and what was true.

“You took care of me in Moscow.” I settled for the easiest thing I could think of. “I’m not in the habit of leaving debts unpaid.”

It wasn’t the whole truth. It was an excuse at best, but it was the only thing I could make up for standing in her cramped kitchen with soup on the stove and a doctor on his way, and from the way her expression shifted, I suspected she knew it too.

I was blurring lines I’d spent a lifetime keeping sharp, and the worst part was, I was yet to figure out why or in what direction I was blurring it.

All I knew was, I’d started going to work more often than my weekly turn-in for meetings, and when she was absent for a few days, I’d realized my frequency at the office was not a result of a renewed passion for my job.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Genevieve

“He made you soup,” Anna said for the fourth time in the span of ten minutes.