“What’s going on?” I finally asked.
His head snapped toward me instantly. He did a slow sweep downward—from my hair to the clothes he bought me to the slippers—like he was checking each detail, making sure I was comfortable, warm, safe. Approval welcomed me further into the room.
Then he turned fully, hands on his hips. “Good. You’re up.”
“I am.” I gestured vaguely at the chaos. “And this is…?”
He nodded toward the workers. “They’ll be done in an hour or so.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
His gaze softened, “Your apartment was wrecked,” he said simply. “They ransacked the place.” His jaw flexed. “And when I saw the pictures of what you had on your walls—the decorations, the tree, the stockings—I realized it mattered to you.”
A pause. A breath. Could this be?
“And if you’re going to be here,” he continued, voice dropping to something low and sure, “you’re not going without the things that make you feel like yourself.”
Warmth rushed into my chest so fast it almost hurt.
“You... did all this? For me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “If what I ordered isn’t enough, or not right, or missing something, you’ll tell me. We’ll get more. As much as you want.”
I blinked at the towering tree, then at the garlands waiting to be hung, the boxes labeledornaments, the spools of ribbon, the snowflake lights.
“What if I don’t even know what I want?” I whispered.
He stepped closer, just close enough that his heat brushed mine.
“Then we figure it out. Together.”
Something in me melted—slow, sweet, terrifying.
But I didn’t step back.
I not supposed to be falling for him again.
God, I repeated it like a mantra, like a warning label, like a trap I was willingly stepping into for the second time. But how was I not supposed to fall when Dmitri paced the room like a silent storm, redirecting every single worker toward me?
“Ask her,” he kept telling them. “Whatever she wants.” And… “Don’t move that until she says so.”
It was ridiculous. And impossible not to feel seen.
Every time someone asked whether the garland should go higher or lower, whether the snowflake lights fit the window frame, whether I preferred warm white or cool white bulbs, Dmitri stood back with his arms crossed, eyes on me, watching as if I were the only thing in the room that mattered.
I tried not to look at him too long. Tried not to read into the softness carved around his eyes. Tried not to get used to the way he hovered close enough to reach me if I so much as wobbled on a step stool. But the truth pressed in, warm and terrifying.
He knows everything about me... even the things I don’t say.
I got lost in decorating—untangling ribbons, shaping ornaments, fluffing the branches of the enormous tree. My hands moved on instinct. My mind slipped into the comfort of nostalgia. And every time I turned, Dmitri was there.
Not smiling. Not speaking. Just watching.
Like he was relearning me. The workers eventually finished and carried out the empty boxes. The house smelled like pine and cinnamon. Somewhere down the hall, the chef was cooking—garlic, butter, herbs drifting through the air.
I was adjusting a silver ornament when the front door opened and Cori strolled in. More like stumbling. Cori looked rough. Unshaven. Eyes glassy. Shirt half-tucked. A twitchy grin that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Natashaaa,” he sang, moving toward me with arms wide. “Checking on you, kiddo.”
