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Wonderful. Excellent.
We’re both going to pretend I didn’t just walk out of Nikolai Volkov’s locked study looking like I had lost an argument with my own clothes.
I step past him. He shifts aside at once, but that look remains with me as I walk down the corridor.
By the time I reach the main staircase, I’ve decided I am overthinking it. Kirill is security. He probably gives everyone strange looks. Maybe his face is simply built that way. Maybe I am projecting because I have just done something deeply inappropriate, and my conscience has decided to borrow his cheekbones as a courtroom.
Perfectly possible.
“Elle!”
I look up.
Anya is coming down the corridor from the opposite side, still in the leggings and oversized sweatshirt she wore for movie night. Her hair is tied in a loose braid, and she looks more like herself than she has all week, which makes something in my chest ache.
“I was looking all over for you,” she says.
Guilt hits me with such speed that I almost flinch. All over for me.
While I was on her father’s desk with his mouth between my legs.
That’s a normal, wholesome nanny activity.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was… speaking to your dad.”
This is technically true. Both of our moves were moving, after all.
Anya stops in front of me and studies my face. “You look weird.”
“I always look weird.”
“No, different weird.”
“Thank you. I appreciate the precision.”
She doesn’t smile. “Did Papa say no?”
I blink. “Hm?”
“The party,” she says, impatience creeping in. “Lily’s birthday party. I really want to go.”
“Oh.” I rub my forehead. “Right. The party.”
“You said you would talk to him.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I haven’t yet.”
Her face falls a little. It’s small, but I see it.
And because I deserve to feel terrible, I feel terrible immediately. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I got distracted.”
That’s one word for it.
Anya looks toward the hallway where Nikolai went. “Is he angry?”
