Page 37 of Arranged for the Russian Pakhan

So far, so good, I think.

“You look unfairly good,” Anton drawls, eyes flicking up from his newspaper. “Especially for someone who got as little sleep as I did.”

Well, so much for that expectation.

“I have fantastic genetics and an even superior sense of style,” I say imperiously, nose upturned in a sanctimonious “Of course I do,” that I hope will quell this disconcerting friendliness he’s putting on.

Instead, he smiles at me, exhausted but untroubled. “Can I pour you a cup?” he asks, gesturing to the cup at the place-setting.

I refuse to squirm. Offering him a blasé smile in return, I say, “Depends on what’s in the pot.” I gesture to the teapot by his elbow.

“Tea.”

“I’m a coffee kind of girl. Black as tar, atrociously sweetened.”

Anton raises his brows at me in an expression I’m growing disturbingly familiar with. He looks, I swear, almost fond of me. “If you’d let me continue, you’d find out much sooner that I’m referring to the carafe of coffee I had prepared for you.”

This is why sleep is important. You don’t sleep enough, and suddenly, you’re stupid and don’t see perfectly obvious things sitting right in front of you.

The tips of my ears warm. I sink into the seat by his side because this dining table is too large to justify walking all the way across it to sit at the other end of the table. It feels indecently close, though it isn’t.

“Then yes,” I harrumph. “Pour away.”

Even to my own ear, it isn’t a great cover for how out of balance I feel right now. This isn’t helped at all by the fact that he folds his newspaper and offers it to me before he does it. From the positioning of his fingers, I can tell he’s reading the Business section.

“We can share,” I say, fighting not to sound strained. “I’ll take the Lifestyle and Culture section.”

“Separate them. I’ll pour your coffee.”

This is so weird—the thought flashes in my head like a big, bright neon sign. Weird, because it isn’t. In fact, it feels eerily natural to sit here, bathed in the morning light, and split the paper into sections to share. To take the cup of coffee he extends, the same way Filip or one of my siblings might, yet nothing like that at all.

The only part of it that’s really out of place is the look on Anton’s face, approximately three minutes into falling into a comfortable silence as we eat and read. He thinks so loudly, it practically screams for me to look his way, despite my concentrated efforts to do no such thing.

It would be rude not to, however, when he blurts, “Would you like to accompany me on today’s mission?”

Did he just—? My brain glitches.

“Yes,” I say, like I’m running out of time before he can realize what he’s offered and changes his mind. “Just let me get dressed.”

“You’re already—”

I’m out of my seat and out of the room, my coffee in hand, before he gets another word out. There’s got to be a better outfit than this sweater and cigarette-pants combo for this situation.

Over the years, I’ve been entrusted with spearheading many events for the Yuri Bratva. I’m aware of the machinations of this world. But never have I tagged along on a mission before. Nevertheless, I’m more abashed than I thought myself capable of when we roll up to the location—after I’d gotten dolled up in a sexy little powersuit of my own to match Anton’s. The location, more specifically, a tarmac runway that currently houses a private plane.

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that it belongs to my husband.

Of course, I’ve traveled privately before. We Yuris are hardly a commercial-flight kind of family. I suppose when I imagined a Bratva mission, I wasn’t expecting to be on a flight.

“This is beginning to feel like an abduction,” I mutter darkly, just as Anton opens the car door for me. I hop out of the SUV in a huff, able to get in his face in the teetering high-heels that encase my feet. “Where are you taking me?”

“Your birthday was two weeks ago, and you were entrenched in wedding planning,” he says, like that’s a completely normal thing for him to know about me. A fact that I’ve never shared with him. “I thought a trip to New York for a belated celebration could be fun.”

My mouth twists before I smooth it out, under the guise of fixing my lipstick. “So, there’s no Bratva business?”

It frays my patience when I see the corners of his mouth twitch. Amusement glimmers in his eyes, the milkiest of greens in the afternoon sun painting his chiseled face as golden as his hair.

“Whatever else you may think about me, I wouldn’t lie to you,” he says. “There are just two reasons. There’s business, and I thought you’d appreciate some one-on-one time with your little sister.”