Page 120 of Hate You Most

She kept moving forward. To hesitate would mean admitting to herself what a mistake this was. She had spent too long learning how to conform in the middle of things that were slowly ruining her.

She could do it for one more night.

Lev waited for her outside the entrance to the nightclub. She'd almost forgotten how tall he was. When he saw her, his expression changed into something practiced and camera-ready, the smile arriving a second too late to be anything real.

The cologne clung to him as he leaned close and kissed her cheek.

“You look beautiful,” Lev said, and for a single moment she couldn't help but wonder if he'd meant it. He wasn't a terrible guy and they did have some things in common. Lev had the same drive for acting that she had for skating, and he was unnaturally handsome and charming. If things had been different for them both, they could have ended up with kids and a large house in the heart of Moscow.

Viktoriya turned her eyes toward the street in front of her. “Thank you, and you too.”

He leaned close, whispered in her ear in Russian. “This place should do it. They’ll notice.”

Cold wind caught her hair and made her whole body shiver. They would be noticed together, of course. That was the entire point of this. A famous nightclub with elaborate and expensive drinks and wines, loud music, and a crowd that certainly contained at least two photographers pretending not to be. She knew exactly why she had chosen it, and exactly why she had let him come.

Lev fixed his hand perfectly around her waist. He drew her close, and she let him.

Photographers clustered around them, the moment his hand settled on her—exactly as she had predicted. The other people around her were dressed in layers of smoke and expensive perfume. It was the performance of a lifetime, all of them had come not to enjoy the night but to be remembered by the end of it.

Viktoriya allowed Lev to lead her toward the entrance.

One flash. Then another. Then the soft clicking rhythm of shutters in the darkness. Her smile arrived late and thin. It was something she wore rather than felt, and Lev tightened his fingers around her waist for exactly the length of time it required for them to make it inside.

Inside, the club was a bright and bruising blur of movement and sound. Colored lights swept across the room in slow collisions of pinks, purples, and blues.

The warm air stuck to her skin. The room was crowded enough that each movement she made, made her crash into strangers that brushed past her with apologies lost to the music.

Someone shouted near the bar and the sound was instantly swallowed by the music. Someone else laughed too loudly. A man in the corner had his hands pressed against a woman's back with the tender possession of a secret they did not intend to keep. Every person around her carried a status of some kind, and Viktoriya knew they weren't only here to be around likeminded people. Everyone was here so they could be seen by the cameras.

She moved further into the club, with Lev as close to her as she could physically manage. She was being watched from all sides, but it was different from what she'd been used to. She had never purposefully sought out the cameras or the attention before this moment.

The people around her had clearly recognized her and then tried to make it look like they hadn't. Their eyes found her and then hurried away, only to return a second later from the safety of a phone screen tilted at exactly the wrong angle.

The cameras and attention had followed her since she was young, she had quickly become too visible to just be known as herself. She wasn't allowed to just exist, she was an Olympic gold winning champion. Tonight it clung to her like dirty smoke. She felt it on her bare shoulders, and along the sides of her throat as she swallowed whatever drink Lev had handed her.

Lev leaned in so close that his mouth brushed against her ear. “Dance with me.” It should have sounded like a request, but he said it like an instruction wrapped in charm, and she hated herself a little more for the automatic way she complied.

The lights and music blasted at full capacity. She could barely hear herself think.

They were shoulder to shoulder as he guided her past a group of people and onto the dance floor. The crowd of people opened up, and there was actual space to move around.

Viktoriya let him take her hand, let him settle his palm at her waist and let him pull her just close enough to make the performance of a lifetime.

The music was loud enough that she could feel the beat through the floor, through the soles of her heels.

She let the rhythm carry her through it, lifted one shoulder, turned beneath his hand, allowed herself to smile at something he said that she didn't hear over the pounding bass.

She realized how easy she found this. She could play this part, certainly. She had played worse.

She tilted her head back and laughed as he spun her around. The laugh surprised her, it sounded too real. A man near the bar glanced over at them, only to immediately look away.

Viktoriya kept moving anyway. She lifted her chin, let the lights catch the sheen of her dress. She was drunk enough that this seemed like a rational decision.

Lev smiled and said something low and teasing to her. It was loud and she only caught half of it, but his hand was at her waist in a way that told her it was meant as a compliment.

The cameras outside of the club traced them through a glow of flashing lights.

Viktoriya knew exactly what headlines would be written by the morning. She knew what kind of language there'd be used. She could almost hear them before they existed, could almost see the photographs: the figure skating champion and the actor boyfriend back together. The proof that her silence had meant something, and that the rumors and nature of her relationship with Dakota would be temporarily forgotten.