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“Are you attracted to her?”

I turn my head slowly.

Sergei looks entirely untroubled. “I asked because you've spent the last several years refusing to let anyone new get close to Anya, and now you're offering a woman you've known for a few hours a place in your house.”

“She saved Anya.”

“I know. I'm grateful to her too.”

“Then you understand.”

“I understand why you want to help her. I'm asking whether that's the only reason.”

I look away. His question annoys me, but he isn’t completely wrong. I noticed Elara the moment I entered the sitting room. Even with blood on her face and a torn delivery jacket hanging off one shoulder, she had caught my attention in a way no woman has for a long time.

At first, I thought it was simply the circumstances. She was the person who had saved Anya, and I was trying to understand what had happened.

Then she turned toward me, and her eyes met mine.

She looked surprised, then faintly annoyed, as though my arrival had created another problem she didn't have the energy to deal with.

A moment later, she fainted.

I remember catching her, the warmth of her body against mine and the way her hair brushed my wrist when I lowered her onto the sofa. I remember thinking she was beautiful before I had even learned her name.

That hasn't happened to me in years.

There have been women since Sofia died, though very few, and none who made me want anything beyond what was immediately in front of me. I never thought much about it. My life was full, and I had no interest in complicating it with a relationship.

Now I find myself wondering what Elara looks like when she isn't injured, exhausted, and threatening to become difficult over a sofa.

I look back at Sergei. “I'm not hiring her because I want to sleep with her.”

He raises an eyebrow. “That wasn't quite what I asked.”

“It's the answer you're getting.”

“Very well.”

I pick up the tablet again.

He has the good sense to leave it there.

Anya is waiting in the entrance hall when I get home.

She is sitting on the bottom step in her pajamas, holding a stuffed ducky, while Galina stands nearby with the expression of someone who has already tried to persuade her to go upstairs and failed.

The moment Anya sees me, she jumps up.

“Papa, did Elle wake up, and did the doctors say when she can come home?”

I take off my coat and hand it to the man waiting beside the door. “She is awake, and the doctors say she will recover, but they're keeping her in the hospital tonight to make sure there are no complications from the concussion.”

Anya's face falls. “But you said she could come back.”

“I said she could come back if she needed to, and I haven't changed my mind.”

“Then why isn't she here?”