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“So, why did you agree to bind yourself to this Gregor, out of all the dragons out there? Or did you tell me already?” His tone was casual, he was sipping his wine, but there was that glimmer of amusement in his gaze again. She couldn’t make heads or tails of his mood. Was he enjoying the conversation, or having the clear upper hand?
“No, I guess I didn’t tell you,” she said. “He made me think he’d be easy to control.”
She knew it was a gamble, but it was also honesty, and she had a feeling if she tried to lie, he’d take more offense than if she told him she wasn’t willing to give up her seat at the table and let her husband gain the position she’d waited her whole life to claim.
“Interesting,” he said in that slow way he had, dragging the word out as though buying himself some time to think. “So that’s what you’d want out of a mating bond? To remain in complete control at all times? You don’t think a healthy relationship is built on mutual understanding and compromise?”
She stared at him for a moment, then leaned her head back and laughed. There was no way for her to contain it. Once she turned her eyes back on his, he was wearing a quirk between his brows, looking perplexed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Oh, I just assumed you were joking,” she huffed, having another large bite of her fish. When he didn’t seem to be cottoning on, she aimed to clarify with, “You’re going to sit there and lecture me on mutual understanding and compromise? You think men like you build your business on mutual understanding and compromise?”
“I’m not talking business,” he said, a slight reprimand there. “I’m talking about—”
“You’re talking about binding yourself to another,” she cut in. “Isn’t that what any good business deal entails? Isn’t all business exactly like a mating bond, at the end of the day? And don’t you have to make certain you’re not the one taking it lightly while the other party is taking you for a fool? I’m sure you know how easy it is to get screwed over—”
“Oh, I know,” he interrupted, a tinge of annoyance there now. “Spare me the lecture.”
She held the rest of her opinions in with some effort, having the last of the fish and skewering a boiled potato without cutting it up, taking a bite of it off the fork. He watched her poor table manners but didn’t comment. Good. He could spare her the lecture.
“What do you do for work?” he changed the subject.
“I buy art.”
“You’re a curator?”
“In a sense. It’s for my father’s collection. Most of its boxed up in a high-security warehouse. Not like I’m working at a gallery.”
Alina knew how perfunctory she sounded. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her job, it was that it had felt like her father was humoring her and at the same time keeping her close in one fell swoop when he offered it to her. She hadn’t been able to discern if it was because he really was grooming her to take over, or if he simply didn’t want his daughter to move away the same way his son had.
“So… you work for your father,” Dmitri said.
It was a statement, not a question. He was contemplating it now too, whether she was actually being taught the ways of their trade. She still didn’t know for certain. Her father had never given his confirmation and with Zeke back in the picture, married to an Aslanova, she wasn’t convinced Semyon didn’t hold out hope that Zeke and his bride would wish to rise to the occasion, when that occasion presented itself.
“Don’t you also technically work for your father?” she asked innocently, tipping the last of her wine into her mouth.
A glimmer of amusement again because, of course, she was right. But Dmitri had already secured his position within the ranks of his family—she had not.
“You didn’t want to break away?” he queried.
“What, like Mikah?” she asked, using her brother’s childhood nickname since she wasn’t entirely certain Dmitri knew he’d gone by Zeke since college. “No,” she added.
“Why’s that, then?” he asked.
That was a multi-layered question with as many layered ways of answering it. She needed to choose the reply that wouldn’t give her away entirely because she had no reason to let him know how she wished to reform the business—clean it up, make it more legitimate without losing control of it—but a reply that would still satiate his curiosity. She couldn’t lie. So, she chose a half-truth.
“I’m loyal to my father, and what he’s built.”
“And your brother isn’t?”
“Do you think he would have left if he was?”
“Is he more loyal now than before?”
“I’m not discussing that with you.”
He tilted his head back a fraction, assessing her for a moment, then let it go. She was glad for that, because there was no way she was going to tell him the more intimate details of her family dynamic.
