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I can’t leave the table, I know that. I can’t leave them alone. I sit there frozen in my seat as Mikhail pours the wine, trying to look relaxed and natural despite feeling anything but.
“I hope you’re not vegetarian,” Mikhail says lightly, but the look he gives Ruby is almost a challenge, and I flinch. I wish more than anything that he’d try to be conciliatory with her, but I’m sure that he’s, if anything, hoping to pick a fight. I don’t think he wants to let her leave, and that terrifies me more than anything.
“Not even close,” Ruby says, with another of those smiles that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I love a good cut of meat.”
“I don’t cook often.” Mikhail reaches for his knife, and something about seeing his fingers close around the handle of it sends chills down my spine. “But I thought for a special occasion like this, why not?”
“Natalia’s very lucky, then. Not many men spoil their girlfriends like that, let alone her friend.”
I know Mikhail is expecting me to contribute to the conversation. I smile as sincerely as I can manage, reaching out to brush my hand against his thigh. “I had to have been lucky, to fall for someone so quickly.”
I feel Mikhail tense slightly under my touch, and when he glances at me, there’s something strange in his expression that I don’t entirely understand. “Natalia was captivating from the moment I saw her,” he says, his voice lowering slightly, as if what he’s saying isn’t really for Ruby’s benefit, but only for me. “I had to sweep her off her feet and get her away from there. I couldn’t think of anything else from the first time I saw her dance.”
Ruby laughs, taking a sip of her wine. “Do you have a brother? Any friends that look like you? I could use someone to do the same thing. The only guy spoiling me right now is three times my age.”
Mikhail raises an eyebrow. “I think my friends would like you,” he says slowly, a small smirk curving the corner of one side of his mouth. “I don’t know how much you’d like them, though.”
“Well, I always love meeting new people.” Ruby’s smile is still plastered on her face. “That’s part of why I wanted to come tonight. I had to meet the man who managed to turn Natalia’s life so upside down.”
“And the rest of the reason?” Mikhail raises an eyebrow, and I can feel my pulse quicken in my throat, waiting to hear Ruby’s answer.
“To make sure my friend was safe and happy.”
Her answer is so frank, so plain, that it makes me feel slightly nauseated all over again. I see Mikhail’s mouth twitch, and I know he’s considering his response to that.
“Well?” He looks at her coolly. “What do you think?”
“The jury’s still out.”
I watch them look at each other, almost as if they’re sizing each other up, and I feel the tension in the room rising, so thick it could be sliced. I feel like I might explode from it at any moment, from the pressure of trying to pretend that everything is fine.
“How long have you lived here?” Ruby asks, changing the topic before Mikhail can pursue it any further, as if she also senses that the mood in the room is on the knife’s edge of turning sour. “It’s a lovely house.”
I take a hasty sip of wine, glancing at Mikhail. His face stays calm and blank except for the smallest of smiles at the corners of his mouth. I have the distinct feeling that he is, to some extent, enjoying this.
I know all too well how much he enjoys playing games.
“Not long,” he says, cutting a bite of scallop. “A few months. I bought it when I came back to Moscow.”
The lie flows so easily that it’s almost hard formenot to believe it. I have to stifle a laugh, because it feels so very hypocritical that he hates being lied to so much, and yet he’s so good at it himself.
“Back to Moscow?” Ruby takes a bite of her steak, her attention laser-focused on him. “Where are you from?”
“Here,” he says casually. “But I spent a long time in New York.”
That at least, I think is true. Ruby nods, seemingly buying it as she gives him a slightly more genuine smile. “Well, New York must be where you learned to cook then. This is delicious.”
“It really is.” I speak up before Mikhail can say anything else, my heart beating like a rabbit’s as I watch the two of them appraising each other, as if they’re both trying to discern what the other is really saying. “I know he said he doesn’t cook often, but he’s made breakfast every day. It’s so kind of him.”
I feel him flinch under my hand again, and I know he hears the double meaning behind my words too, the reminder of what our days here really have been.
The rest of the dinner is very much the same, peppered with pointed questions from Ruby and smooth answers from Mikhail, with me sitting there on pins and needles, inserting comments wherever I can to try to keep things as calm as possible. Ruby asks questions about Mikhail’s work, which he lies about easily, saying he’s in government work–all very classified, of course. I’m not sure that Ruby entirely buys it, but I also can feel her relaxing a bit, some of the suspicion easing out of her face.
When the dinner and wine is all gone, Mikhail stands up, smiling pleasantly at Ruby. “I’d love if you’d stay after for drinks and a game,” he says, reaching for the plates. “I’ll clean up and meet you both in the living room.”
“I don’t want to put you out, you’ve already done so much–” Ruby says, a tight politeness in her voice, and Mikhail returns it with equal aplomb.
“If you don’t have anywhere else to be, I insist,” he says, and I feel my stomach turn over again, feeling as if I’m watching a car crash with no way to stop it.
