"I'm sorry, I can't," I say, keeping my voice light. "I have to work this afternoon."
It's not entirely a lie, though the real reason is the life growing inside me that I'm not ready to reveal. Irina's green eyes sharpen with assessment, and I see her mind working behind that beautiful face. She's calculating, measuring, trying to determine what I'm hiding.
"Of course," she says smoothly. "How responsible of you."
The menu is in French, and I struggle to decipher the options while keeping my expression neutral. Everything is obscenely expensive. I finally settle on what appears to be the cheapest salad, my pride stinging at the necessity of such calculations. Irina orders without looking at the prices, her confidence absolute.
"So," Irina says once the waiter departs, her smile perfectly calibrated. "Tell me how you and Roman met. It's such a romantic story, I'm sure."
The question feels loaded, though I can't identify the trap. "I was hired as his secretary. We worked together."
"How… conventional." Her tone suggests it's anything but. "And now you're marrying him. That's quite a leap from secretary to Pakhan’s wife."
The way she emphasizes "secretary" makes it sound like an insult. I force myself to meet her gaze without flinching. "Roman and I connected. Sometimes, these things happen quickly."
"Indeed." Irina takes a sip of her wine, her eyes never leaving mine. "And what do you think of his world? Are you prepared for what being the Pakhan’s wife really means?"
I think about the shooting in Roman's office, the body wrapped in plastic, the cleaners who erased evidence with terrifyingefficiency. The way Roman's men carry weapons beneath expensive suits, and the cold calculation in his blue eyes when he's handling "business".
"I understand what I'm walking into," I say carefully.
"Do you?" Irina leans forward slightly, and I catch a glimpse of something darker beneath her polished exterior. "Because from where I'm sitting, you look like a girl who got in over her head. A desperate woman who saw an opportunity and took it, consequences be damned."
The accuracy of her assessment makes my skin prickle with unease. But I've survived worse than Irina Titova's interrogation. I've watched my mother die, sent my brother away, drowned in debt that nearly destroyed me. I straighten my spine, channeling every ounce of the steel that's kept me alive this long.
"I love Roman," I say quietly. "And he loves me. Whatever else you think you know about our relationship, that's the truth that matters."
Irina's expression shifts, becomes something harder. "Love." She laughs, the sound bitter. "How naive. Love doesn't survive in this world, Eva. It gets crushed beneath the weight of violence and betrayal and the constant need to prove you're strong enough to keep what's yours."
Our food arrives, providing a momentary reprieve from the tension crackling between us. I pick at my salad, my appetite completely gone, while Irina eats with elegant precision. The silence stretches, heavy with unspoken hostility.
"You know," Irina finally says, her voice deceptively casual, "Lev and I have been together for five years. I've watched Romanbuild his empire, seen the women who've tried to get close to him, the ones who thought they could handle his world." She pauses, her green eyes boring into mine. "They all ended the same way. Broken, traumatized, or dead."
The words echo Lev's warning from weeks ago, and my stomach tightens with familiar dread. "I'm not like them."
"Aren't you?" Irina's smile is sharp. "You're young, inexperienced, completely unprepared for what's coming. Roman's enemies will use you against him. They'll hurt you to hurt him. And when that happens, when you're bleeding and terrified and begging for mercy, you'll realize that love isn't enough."
I set down my fork, my hands trembling slightly despite my best efforts to appear unaffected. "Why are you telling me this? What do you want from me?"
Irina's expression softens slightly, becomes almost sympathetic. "I'm trying to help you understand what you've gotten yourself into. Roman is dangerous, Eva. Not just to his enemies, but to everyone around him. The closer you get, the more you'll be destroyed by proximity to his violence."
"He would never hurt me."
"Not intentionally, perhaps." Irina finishes her wine, signaling for another glass. "But intention doesn't matter when bullets start flying, when enemies come for what's his, when the weight of his world crushes everything soft and innocent beneath it."
The lunch continues in tense silence, Irina's questions becoming more pointed, more invasive. She asks about my family, my background, and my plans for the future. Each answer I give feels like ammunition I'm handing her, information she'scataloging for purposes I don't understand. By the time we finally leave the restaurant, I'm exhausted and emotionally drained.
The SUV is waiting at the curb, Roman's security detail as constant as my own shadow. I slide into the back seat, grateful for the privacy of tinted windows. My phone buzzes with a text from Roman.
How was lunch?
I stare at the screen, trying to formulate a response that captures the unease churning in my stomach. Before I can type anything, another text arrives.
I'm having her followed. Tell me everything when you get home.
Home. The word still feels strange, foreign. Roman's estate isn't home. It's a gilded cage I've agreed to inhabit. But the thought of seeing him, of being in his presence, eases some of the tension coiling in my chest.
The drive back to the estate takes longer than usual, traffic snarled by construction. I watch the city pass by through the window, my mind replaying Irina's warnings, her thinly veiled hostility, the calculation in her green eyes. She sees me as a threat, though I can't understand why. What do I have that she wants? What am I taking from her simply by existing?
