“Like a stone. Your bed is much too comfortable. I might refuse to leave.”
Andrea laughs as if this is a real possibility, then clambers onto one of the stools and taps a spoon against her cup. Mom kisses the top of her head before returning to the pot.
It’s peaceful. The kind of simple, ordinary morning that slips under my ribs and roots itself there—coffee brewing, birds calling from the pines, sunlight drifting across the table. I stand there absorbing it, letting it smooth over the jagged edges of the last few weeks.
I’m mid-sip when a knock sounds at the door. Not loud, but a little too familiar? My brows crease; I don’t know anyone well enough to have visitors so sure of themselves.
Andi hops off the stool. “I’ll get it!”
“No, baby. I’ll go.”
When I open the door, I’m prepared to see one of Mak’s men, maybe Dima or one of the river-watch guys dropping off paperwork or supplies.
I am not prepared to see Makari Medvedev himself standing there.
He looks… wrong. Not wrong in a worrying way—wrong in the sense that he is wildly out of place here, framed by the soft morning light and the smallness of my porch. Did I somehow summon him just by thinking of his hair? My eyes flick to it, glinting in the morning light.
His shirt is high-end linen, the kind that probably costs more than my monthly mortgage, and the sleeves are rolled to his elbows. His pants, tailored and dark, are streaked faintly with dirt. The expensive leather boots he favors are damp around the edges, and there are pine needles stuck to one of them. His hair is slightly wind-tossed, and he has that alert but unreadable look he wears when he’s pretending nothing in the world can surprise him.
He is also breathing harder than usual.
“Mak,” I say, startled. “Um, Mr. Medvedev. What are you doing here?”
“I walked,” he answers, as if that explains anything at all.
“Walked… here? From where?”
“Home.”
“That’s at least five miles.”
He glances past me as if the distance is insignificant. “It didn’t feel that far.”
I blink at him, utterly thrown. He is a man who owns cars that cost more than houses. He has drivers, helicopters, boats, and an entire network of people whose job is to make sure he doesn’t exert himself unnecessarily. And yet he walked five miles up a riverbank to see me.
“Did something happen?” I ask. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes.” He hesitates, which makes me wonder if he’s choosing his words carefully. “I wanted to check on a few things.”
He doesn’t specify what things. Maybe he doesn’t know how to say it without sounding obvious. The thought that he might have walked simply because he wanted to see me lands with a quiet thud in my chest.
He glances around, taking in the interior of the cottage—the curtains tied back with simple twine, the woven rug I got on clearance, the small couch that dips in the middle, the kitchen where my mother is invisible but audible. I feel my cheeks heat in embarrassment. Of course, the men he hired to move everything into the cottage saw all this—my threadbare life—but I didn’t thinkhewould.
Instead of judging, he looks almost thoughtful.
“It’s cozy,” he says finally.
I choke on a laugh. “Cozy?”
“Yes.” His gaze drifts to the bookshelf, then to the old ceramic bowl of river stones Andi collected last week. “It suits you.”
Heat rises in my cheeks. Compliments from him are rare. Compliments from him about my home are unheard of.
Before I can figure out what to say, Mom appears behind me, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“Oh,” she says, tilting her head as she takes in Makari—his expensive clothes, the dirt and damp from the river, the faint flush on his cheeks. “You must be the one Roxy’s told me about.”
He glances at me, eyes all steel and full of questions. My heart thuds in my chest; what if he thinks she’s talking about someone else? What if he thinks I’m seeing someone? I freeze. “Mom?—”
