Then keep walking, annoyed at myself for saying it… and more annoyed that I want him to hear it.
28
Mary
The first thing I notice is how still he is.
Dima.
Leaning against a black Range Rover like he’s been carved out of shadow and told not to move until someone dies.
I can’t see who’s inside. Can’t see if there’s anyone at all. The windows are tinted so dark they might as well be painted, and my stomach does that annoying swoop it saves for bad ideas.
I slow halfway to the car, because what do you even say to a man who looks like he’s waiting for the order to pull a trigger?
“Hi,” I manage. My voice sounds like I’ve forgotten which octave to use.
He opens the passenger door. No one’s inside. For some stupid reason, I’d half-hoped to see Anton there. Like maybe he’d decided to show up himself. My feet stall. Not quite ready to close the space between us.
I stand there like an idiot, clutching my purse. “So… grocery shopping?”
Nothing.
“With you?”
Still nothing.
“Because Anton said—”
One eyebrow. That’s it. Just the slightest lift of one dark eyebrow, and somehow it says more than most people manage in entire conversations. It says:Get in the car, Mary. Stop talking. You’re wasting oxygen we might need later.
I climb in. The seat swallows me whole, soft leather and cold air that smells faintly like mint and gun oil.
Dima slides into the driver’s seat with the kind of fluid motion that makes you realize he’s not just big; he’s precise.
The engine purrs to life, and then—
Music.
Not what I expected. Not death metal or Russian rap or whatever the hell I thought men like him listened to. It’s classical. Piano. Something complicated and sad that makes my chest tight.
“Rachmaninoff?” I guess, remembering my college job at Tower Records, where they made us memorize the classical section because no one else would work it.
He glances at me. Just a flick of those arctic eyes, but there’s something there. Surprise maybe. Or approval. Hard to tell when someone’s emotional range runs fromstonetoslightly different stone.
“Piano Concerto Number Two,” he says.
Four words. A record.
“It’s beautiful.”
He doesn’t respond, but his fingers tap the steering wheel in perfect time with the melody. Not random tapping; deliberate, like he knows every note. Like he’s played it before.
“Do you play?” I ask because apparently, I’ve decided silence is my enemy today.
“No.”
“But you—”
