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I wait.
She looks at me then. “I kept thinking about this morning. About Anya. About us.”
Us.
I walk toward her slowly, giving her room to step back if she wants to. She doesn’t. When I reach her, I touch her face with the back of my fingers.
“What about us?”
“I don’t know what we are,” she says. “And I know that sounds ridiculous because it has barely been any time, and I know your life is complicated, and I know Anya is the most important thing here.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth tightens, but she nods. “Exactly.”
I understand then.
She’s not angry because Kirill saw us. Not only because of that. She is angry because I made it sound as if being hidden was the natural cost of being with me, and she was expected to accept it quietly because everyone in my house is trained to look away.
“I told you I was wrong for that,” I say. “You were upset, and I treated it like a practical problem.”
“It was a practical problem.”
“No. It was also about you feeling like something secret and temporary.”
She looks up at me. There it is. The thing she has been trying not to say.
I move closer. “You are not temporary.”
She swallows. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
Her eyes search mine, and I can see she wants to believe me but doesn’t trust the wanting. I don’t blame her. Men have promised her peace before. She has the right to be wary.
“I’m going to tell Anya,” I say.
She goes still. “What?”
“Not tonight. Not suddenly. But soon.”
“Nikolai—”
“She already loves you.”
Her eyes shine at once, though she looks away fast enough to hide it. “She’s a child,” she says. “She loves easily.”
“No. She doesn’t.”
Elara looks back at me. “I don’t want to hurt her,” she says.
“I know.”
“And I don’t want to become someone she loses.”
