I nodded, absorbing it. After a beat, I asked casually, “Is he married?”
His head snapped toward me.
The shift was immediate—attention sharpened, posture subtly changing, as if he were back in a war room. “Why are you interested in his marital status?” he asked.
I met his gaze without flinching. “Because information is leverage.” My voice was calm, precise. “We may have one more chance tonight. If diplomacy fails, we look for weakness. A wife. A lover. A child. Something that makes neutrality inconvenient. Shouldn’t we use every tool available?”
Silence stretched between us, taut as wire.
Dmitri studied me, really studied me, as if reassessing a chessboard he thought he already understood. Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, perhaps. Or reluctant admiration.
He pushed away from the railing and began pacing the terrace, boots scraping softly against stone. I rose and followed him.
“Or,” he said quietly, stopping at the far end where the lights from the villa no longer reached us, “you could stay.”
I froze.
“You and Vanya,” he continued, voice low, stripped of command and calculation. “No war. No Ferraro alliance. No politics. Just... us.”
I shook my head before hope could take root, before it could destroy me. “The Orlovs would never allow it,” I said softly. “Everyone here knows this marriage dissolves in three months. Extending it would look like a breach—an insult. They’d retaliate. Against me. Against my son.” I swallowed. “We’d be targets.”
He turned to face me fully now, closing the distance between us.
“And why,” I asked softly, “would we be extending a loveless arrangement?”
“Loveless?” The word hit him like a blade, revealing a crack in the carefully controlled surface he wore.
He stepped closer, the warmth of him chasing away the chill. “We’re strangers now, yes,” he said. “But every partner, every lover, starts that way. It’s only the second day, Pen.” His voice dropped, unguarded. “Who’s to say this can’t become real? A family. A real one.”
The night seemed to hold its breath.
Chapter 15
PENELOPE
“You think you can just... stop loving your late wife?” I asked quietly.
The question slipped out before I could stop it—too honest, too exposed. The skepticism in my voice surprised even me. I searched his face for anger, for offense. I found neither.
Moonlight washed over Dmitri’s features, softening nothing, revealing everything. He didn’t look away.
“I don’t think love works like a switch,” he said at last. His voice was calm, almost weary. “You don’t turn it off. You learn to live around it. Or it eats you alive.”
He paused, gaze drifting to the lake before returning to me. When his eyes found mine again, something raw surfaced there.
“But I have to move on,” he continued. “Eventually. The world doesn’t stop because I want it to. Men who stand still die.” His attention lingered on my face—too long, too intent. “And when I look at you... I see her. In the way you smile when you’re about to say something sharp. In the way you tilt your head when you’re thinking.” His jaw tightened. “The thought of letting you walk away in three months—of watching you disappear again—it’s torture. Pure torture.”
The words landed heavier than any threat he’d made that night.
I swallowed, forcing air into my lungs. “Yet it will happen,” I said softly, more to myself than to him. “It has to.”
He exhaled, a slow, burdened sound, as if years pressed down on his chest all at once. Then his gaze flicked past me, toward a discreet staff member lingering near the terrace doors.
“Bring a chessboard,” Dmitri said.
The man nodded immediately and vanished. Moments later, he returned with an elegant portable set—walnut board, ivory and ebony pieces polished to a gleam. He placed it between us and withdrew without comment, as if this too were part of the night’s expected rituals.
Dmitri sat, rolling his shoulders once before arranging the pieces with precise efficiency. There was no hesitation in his movements.
