Then carried me here. To their bed. The bed 'where Elena slept beside me,' he'd said. The room he abandoned the night she died.
And now he's gone again.
I sit up slowly, wincing. My nightgown is still in the studio. I'm naked in his sheets, sore and used and stupid enough to believe last night meant something.
I smell like us. Like sex and sweat and the moment I gave him something I can never take back. I shower under water hot enough to hurt, trying to wash away the scent, the memories, the feeling of his hands on my body.
I can't.
The soreness reminds me with every movement. The bite mark on my shoulder—visible in the mirror—reminds me. The way my legs shake climbing out of the shower reminds me.
The moment I gave him my virginity, my trust, my heart—and he left me a note calling it, calling me, a mistake.
I wrap myself in his sheet and slip back to the guest room—my room, where I apparently should have stayed. By 8:00 AM, I'm dressed in simple clothes, armor against what's coming.
I make my way downstairs to the formal dining room, following the scent of coffee and my own stubborn pride.
He's sitting there. At the head of the table, reading a newspaper like nothing happened. Three-piece suit despite it being Thursday morning at his own home. Coffee poured. Breakfast waiting.
He doesn't look up when I enter.
"Good morning," I say, my voice steadier than I feel.
"Ms. Morozova." He turns a page of the newspaper.
The formality is a slap. Ms. Morozova. Not Sonya. Not 'little ballerina.' That professional distance, after he was inside me four hours ago.
I sit down. Pour coffee with hands that only shake slightly. The soreness between my legs intensifies when I sit—a constant, throbbing reminder of what we did. Of what he's now pretending didn't happen.
He finally looks up. Those ice-blue eyes meet mine, and I see something crack in his carefully controlled expression.
I notice his turtleneck. Black, expensive, completely covering his throat and collarbone. In October. The scratches I left last night—hidden beneath the fabric.
He notices me noticing. His jaw tightens.
We eat in silence. Both hyperaware. Every time I shift in my chair, I feel the soreness. Every time he moves, I imagine the marks I left on his skin. The physical evidence of what we did.
At 9:00 AM, Sergei arrives. He takes one look at us—the tension, the careful distance, the way neither of us will quite meet the other's eyes—and something shifts in his expression.
"Pakhan," he says carefully. "We have news on Anton Kozlov."
I go still, my coffee cup halfway to my lips.
"He's been spotted in New York City. Manhattan, specifically. Multiple confirmed sightings near Lincoln Center over the past forty-eight hours."
The cup slips from my fingers. Shatters on the marble floor. Coffee spreads like blood.
I can't breathe.
Lincoln Center. Lincoln Center where the Metropolitan Opera performs. Where New York City Ballet dances. Where Juilliard trains the next generation of performers.
The place where Anton wants his finale.
The room spins. I'm back on the Mariinsky stage, feeling his hands release me mid-air. The fall. The crack of my ankle—loud enough for two thousand people to hear. His face in the wings afterward, satisfied, like he'd completed a masterpiece.
"Sonya." Maksim's voice cuts through the panic. Suddenly he's beside me—when did he move?—his hands on my shoulders. "Breathe."
I can't. Can't get air past the terror closing my throat.
