Chapter 7
The morning passed in a haze of ordinary tasks.
She stripped the beds in the guest rooms. She dusted the library shelves. She polished the silver in the butler’s pantry. Her hands did the work while her mind replayed the night in fragments — the sound of his voice saying her name, the warmth of his hand on her face, the way he had looked at her in the gray morning light.
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Sloan arrived at seven. She took one look at Alina’s face and didn’t say a word. She just poured a cup of coffee and slid it across the counter.
“Don’t thank me. Drink it. You look like you need it.”
Alina wrapped her hands around the cup. The warmth seeped into her palms.
“Princess,” Sloan said quietly. “Whatever happened last night — I don’t need to know. But if you need to talk, I’m here.”
Alina looked at her. The woman who had been her only friend in this house for two years. The woman who had never asked for explanations.
“I think I’m in trouble,” Alina said.
“The bad kind or the good kind?”
“The kind I don’t have a name for yet.”
Sloan nodded slowly. “Those are the ones that matter.”
At noon, the dining room table was set for five. Consigliere Gregori Rotov sat to the right of the head — Damon’s chair. Zoya had claimed the seat to Damon’s left as though it had been reserved for her by birthright.
Damon entered last. He was wearing a dark jacket that covered the bandage on his shoulder. His face was composed, unreadable — the mask back in place.
He didn’t look at her.
She served the meal. Her hand was steady. Her gaze stayed on the floor. But she felt the absence of his eyes on her like a physical weight.
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Zoya dominated the conversation. Her voice carried through the room, light and sharp, cutting through the Russian exchanges. She laughed at something Gregori said. She touched Damon’s arm when she spoke to him.
Alina watched from the corner of her eye. Zoya’s hand on his sleeve. The way she leaned in when she spoke. The proprietary ease of her gestures.
Damon did not pull away. But he did not respond either. He sat like a statue, eating his meal, answering in monosyllables, his eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance.
After the meal, Alina cleared the plates. She was in the kitchen when Kirill appeared in the doorway.
“Alina.”
She looked up. Kirill’s face was as unreadable as ever.
“The Pakhan wants to see you in his office. Now.”
She dried her hands on the towel. Her heart had already begun to beat faster.
The walk to his office was the same route she had taken a thousand times. The same Persian rugs. The same bronze sconces. The same guards at their posts.
But everything was different.
She knocked twice.
“Come in.”
She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was the same. Heavy desk. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The rug that cost more than everything she owned.
He was standing at the window, his back to her. The jacket was gone. The bandage on his shoulder was visible through his white shirt.
“Close the door.”
She closed it.
“You shouldn’t have come to my room last night.”
The words hit her like cold water. She stood very still.
“I know.”
“I could have hurt you. I could have — ”
“You didn’t.”
He turned. His face was stripped of the mask. She saw the exhaustion in his eyes. The conflict.
“I have spent two years keeping you at a distance,” he said. “Two years telling myself that the safest thing for you was to stay invisible. And last night, I undid all of it.”
“You didn’t undo anything. You chose.”
“I chose selfishly.”
“You chose honestly.”
He crossed the room. Stopped in front of her. His hand rose to her face, the same gesture from the night before, but this time there was something different in it. Something resolved.
“Zoya is not here by accident,” he said. “She is connected to people who want me dead. She is a warning. A message. And now that she has seen you — now that she has seen the way I looked at you in the dining room — ”
“You looked at me?”
“I looked at you. I couldn’t help it.”
She reached up and covered his hand with hers. “I’m not afraid of Zoya.”
“You should be.”
“I’m not afraid of any of it.”
“You should be.” He said it again, softer this time. “Because I am. For the first time in three years, I am afraid of something.”
“What?”
His hand tightened on her face. “Losing you.”
She stood on her toes and kissed him. Quick. Firm. In the middle of his office, in the middle of the day, with the door unlocked and the whole house on the other side of it.
“Then don’t,” she said.
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he pulled her into his arms and held her there, his face buried in her hair, his breath warm against her neck.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he said.
“Probably.”
He laughed. A real laugh. She felt it vibrate through his chest. It was the first time she had heard him laugh in two years.
“Tonight,” he said. “Come to my room again.”
“Tonight.”
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“Bring the coffee.”
She smiled against his shoulder. “I always bring the coffee.”
