Anya serves the first course which is a salad with goat cheese and beets. The smell hits me immediately, sharp and earthy, and my stomach lurches. God, Ihatebeets. I press my napkin to my mouth, breathing shallowly through my nose.
“Not hungry?” Dimitri’s voice cuts through the silence.
“I’m fine,” I manage.
“You said that yesterday. And the day before. You’re not fine.”
I force myself to pick up my fork, spear a piece of lettuce and bring it to my mouth. Chew. Swallow. Keep breathing.
“Tell me something,” he says casually, but there’s nothing casual about his tone. “This boyfriend of yours. The one you were seeing before our marriage. Does he know where you are?”
My fork clatters against the plate and I swear I stop breathing. “What did you say?”
“The intelligence report mentioned you’d been seeing someone. Leaving the house in the evenings, returning late. Clearly it was serious enough that you kept it secret from your family.” He takes a sip of wine, watching me over the rim of his glass. “So where is he now? Does he know you’re here? Is he trying to contact you?”
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. “I don’t—that’snoneof your business.”
Dimitri smirks. “Everything about you is my business. You’re my wife.”
“In name only,” I shoot back. Oh God, we were so careful. How did someone figure out I was seeing someone? “You made that very clear.”
“So who was he?” Dimitri presses. “Some civilian? Another family’s son? Someone you thought you could run away with?”
The bitterness in his voice surprises me, but I’m beyond caring at this point. I can’t tell him it was Alexei.
“There’s no one,” I say, which is technically true. Not anymore. Not since Alexei died and took my whole heart with him. “Whatever your report says, it’s wrong.”
His smile is cruel. “Liar.”
I set down my fork again, willing my voice to remain calm. “Why do you care? Why does it matter if there was someone? You don’t want me. You’ve made that abundantly clear. So what difference does it make if?—”
“It makes a difference because you’re mine now,” he interrupts, his voice dropping to something dark and possessive. “And I don’t share.”
The hypocrisy is stunning and I blink in surprise. “You won’t even sleep in the same house as me most nights. You can barely stand to be in the same room. But I’m supposed to be exclusively yours? That’s rich.”
“I come home every night for these dinners, don’t I?”
I roll my eyes. “To torture me, yes. What an honor.”
His jaw clenches. “Careful, Vera.”
“Or what?” The recklessness from last night is back, fueled by exhaustion and nausea and the crushing weight of everything going on in my fucked up life. “You’ll make my life more miserable than it already is? You’ll cut me off even more?” I narrow my eyes. “Tell me, Dimitri, what else can you possibly take from me?”
He stands, moving around the table again, and I should be afraid but I’m too tired to care anymore. Let him yell. Let him rage. At least it’s something other than this cruelty.
But he doesn’t yell. He stops a few feet away, looking down at me with something in his eyes I can’t read.
“I could take a lot more,” he says quietly. “Don’t tempt me.”
We stare at each other for a long moment. Then another wave of nausea hits me, so strong and sudden that I can’t hide it. I press my hand to my mouth, squeezing my eyes shut, fighting to keep everything down.
“What is wrong with you?” His voice has changed, the anger replaced by something else. Concern? No. Impossible.
“Nothing,” I gasp. “I’m fine. I just need?—”
I don’t finish the sentence. I push back from the table and barely make it to the bathroom down the hall before I’m violently sick.
When I emerge ten minutes later, shaking and sweaty and humiliated, he’s standing in the hallway, waiting for me with arms crossed against his broad chest.
