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Or maybe that’s what I want to believe.
Maids enter with the first course—a salad—and place them before all of us seated, offering garnish and pepper. Pouring whichever dressing we want after inquiring.
“Tell me about yourself, Miss Wryn,” Viktor says, picking up his fork and taking a bite of his salad.
I finger my own fork, running the tip of my index along the cold silver.
“What do you want to know?” I raise my head to look at him.
I can sense Sylvia and Lilliana listening raptly as they sit across the table from me, and I fight the urge to look at them.
“I want to know who has captured the attention of my Sylvia’s stepson.”
Your Sylvia? She’shisdaughter?
Fuck.
“There’s not much to me—”
“Nonsense,” he says again. I stop talking. “There is much to everyone. It only depends on how much they are willing to tell you.”
“Don’t you have ways of getting people to talk?” I say without thinking, an image of being tortured crossing my mind. I gasp, aware of what I asked him, and I want to melt into the floorboard. My staccato heartbeat rachets up a few notches.
Viktor pauses before a loud bark of laughter bursts out of him, causing the muted conversation at the table to cease completely. “I like this one,” he calls out to Connor at the end and pounds one hand on the table again.
It makes me jump.
“I might keep you,” he says where only I can hear it, and it makes my blood still.
I don’t know if he means it or not, but I don’t want to be trapped here. I truly feel like I wouldn’t survive.
I force a laugh and make myself look bashful. I call on the zero confidence I possess right now to make an appearance.
“I’m not sure Connor would like that,” I tell him, a smile frozen on my face. I don’t know if I look crazy or not.
“I’m not sure I’d care,” Viktor says with a wink, and I immediately know this isn’t a joke.
Viktor is playing at something, and I need to tread very carefully. Thankfully, Sylvia pulls Viktor’s attention away from me, and I take a deep breath, blowing it out. I try not to look wildly around, but my gaze is pulled to Connor’s on the other side at the end of the table. He looks angry, which is strange since he’s usually so focused and calm, no matter what he might be feeling inside.
His brows are pulled in, a crease in the middle of his forehead as he stares back at me, and I wish I could ask him what he’s thinking, but I already know. He wants to know what Viktor is saying to me and what I’m saying to him. This is all a game, and I’m a player in it, one who doesn’t really know the rules.
The thought makes my heart beat faster, and I start to panic inside. I place my hands in my lap, pressing the nails of one into the palm of the other in an effort to ground myself with the tiny pain. I need something else to think about.
Viktor stands abruptly, and I jerk as he holds his cut glass, filled high with wine. He looks around the table, a smile on his face, one that doesn’t quite meet his eyes.
“A toast,” he says, waiting for everyone to raise their own cups.
Everyone hastily does, me included, and we wait. My heart feels like it’s in my throat, about to gag me.
“To our guests.” Viktor glances at Connor and then brings his attention to me. “The lovely Wryn and her pending nuptials to Connor Soltorre, my grandson. What a happy occasion.” He extends his hand to everyone seated. “To Connor and Wryn.”
“To Connor and Wryn.” The statement rings out around the table, everyone tilting their glass to each of us and then taking a long gulp.
Viktor sets his on the table with a thud and claps his hands together before sitting back down. I’m confused by his actions, how he appears to dislike Connor and then gives us well wishes. It’s a mindfuck.
I don’t eat much, as I can’t force it down my throat, my stomach not really wanting to cooperate. Nerves assault me as tension settles back over the room.
Do these people even know what peace is like?
