“Silvia, she specifically said she didn’t want to see you because you slept with her boyfriend,” Ivana says with a dramatic eye roll, barely pausing between words.
“Oh, shit,” scoffs a guy across the table—I think his name is Jacob. “Aren’t you a Lesbian?”
“I am,” Silvia snaps, shoving a huge bite of steak into her mouth like she’s starving and offended all at once. “And I didn’t sleep with him. He just ate me out.”
I blink.
Next to me, Maksim and Igor start snickering like two kids caught in the back of a classroom. Their shoulders shake with barely suppressed laughter, and I can’t tell if it’s because of the absurdity or the boldness. Probably both.
“That’s such a shitty thing to do to your sister. You do know that, right?” says Valarie. She’s Jacob’s older sister—I remember Davika whispering that to me earlier while introducing her as ‘the sharp one’.
Silvia doesn’t flinch. She tilts her head, her Russian accent dropping deeper, more pointed. “Aren’t you clocking thirty, Valarie? Shouldn’t you be married or something?”
The table goes dead silent.
The kind of silence that stretches and burns at the edges of your ears. Tension gathers like static. I feel it in my teeth, behind my eyes. My hand clenches slightly, but Alex’s warm palm is already on my thigh, where it’s been resting since lunch started. His fingers give a small, reassuring squeeze. He doesn’t even look at me. It’s like he knows how overwhelmed I am. Or maybe he’s just trying to keep me from bolting.
“Here we go again,” mutters Anton from the head of the table. His voice is low and resigned, and when our eyes meet, I quickly look away. He’s… unnerving. Not in a bad way. But there’s something carved and unreadable in his face. That sharp, almost painfully symmetrical jaw, his dark almond-shaped eyes that seem like they see too much. And the strikingly handsome face of his. He looks more like Davika than any of the others, only colder—like a statue come to life.
“I just bought my first yacht two days ago,” Valarie says suddenly, her voice all sweetness but with a serrated edge. “Sono, I don’t want to get married. I have other important things to do.”
The silence breaks again, not with laughter this time, but with murmured “good for yous” and soft chuckles. Just like that, the tension thins out. Conversations pick up again, smoother now, less like a battlefield and more like a family catching up. Plates clink. Glasses are refilled. The air feels lighter.
Alex barely speaks. Only when he turns to me, his voice low and steady, asking, “You okay?” or “Eat some more,” do I hear him. But his hand stays on my thigh the entire time, his thumb occasionally brushing over the fabric, grounding me. It’s like he’s watching for even the slightest flicker of discomfort in my face, ready to shut the world out the second I feel unsafe.
And I… I’ve never had someone look at me that way before.
That kind of attention used to scare me. Still does, a little. But with him, it’s different. It’s not just possessive. It’s protective. Quiet. Steady. His gaze says: You don’t have to pretend to be okay around me.
Sometimes I answer his questions with a nod, or a subtle shake of my head. I don’t need words between us. He understands me anyway.
Then—
“Shasha,” a deep voice rumbles behind us. I turn in my seat, startled.
Roman, Alex’s grandfather, stands tall behind us, his sharp eyes glinting with age and authority. He carries the kind of presence that makes everyone straighten their backs instinctively. But when he speaks, it’s not cold—there’s warmth beneath it, like embers under steel.
“Do you mind if I have a word with your Lucas?” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Because from the way I’m seeing it, you look like you’ll murder anyone who so much as breathes near him.”
Heat floods my face, blooming across my cheeks and down my neck.
Alex turns to me, brow furrowed slightly as he scans my face. You okay with this? His eyes seem to ask.
I swallow, then give a slight nod.
Still, he doesn’t look away. Not yet. He’s searching, maybe waiting to catch even the smallest crack in my expression. I smile, even if it’s tiny. Just enough to say I’ve got this.
Roman nods. “Let’s go for a walk,” he says, already turning away.
I squeeze Alex’s hand and rise to my feet.
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks, voice even softer now, just for me.
I lift my hands and sign, I’m sure I’ll be alright.
But what I don’t sign is the other part—the part where I wish I had the courage to lean down and kiss him in front of all these people. To let them see that I’m his. To show them what he means to me.
Maybe one day.
