My pulse roars in my ears.
I turn to Luka.
“Go,” he says. “Now.”
And I run.
Chapter Thirty
KATERINA
The moment I step backstage, the applause is still ringing in my bones. My muscles are shaking, but it feels good too to end on such a high note, even if it means it’s my last performance here.
In my dressing room, the table is exactly the way I left it before I went onstage: makeup scattered, rosin dust still floating in afaint shimmer, my half-finished seltzer water and chamomile tea sweating at the edge.
His automatic order.
I trace my finger down the condensation on the glass.
I didn’t forget.His text read.
Of course he didn’t. He never forgets anything I tell him.
My throat aches.
I’m doing the right thing, I tell myself. I’m doing this for him.
But it feels less like a noble sacrifice and more like carving out a vital organ with a dull blade.
A knock rattles the door.
“Katerina?” It’s the intern again, the same one who knocked before my first show. She sounds breathless. “There’s someone here to see you.”
My stomach drops.
Maxim.
He probably came to gloat, or retrieve me like I’m his property, or deliver some final message from my father.
“This one's good looking too,” she adds.
This one?... good looking too?
“I don’t want to see—”
“He has… tulips?” She says, uncertain. “I think? I don’t know flowers. But they’re big. Maybe too big?”
My pulse practically jolts awake.
“Tulips? Are you sure?” I ask.
The intern leans back from the door, stretching her neck to peer down the hallway. “Yeah. I’m like… ninety percent sure they are tulips.”Tulips.Scottie.
I shut my eyes, hating the instant relief knowing that he came to see me even when I pushed him away, and the equal part of dread to somehow keep to what I told him… that this is over between us.
“Send him in,” I say, my voice barely holding together.
The intern brightens and steps aside. “He’s coming down the hall now.”
