7
Polina
I tell myself it’s reconnaissance.
Knowing the enemy’s son could be useful. If I ever need Dmitri’s help, having something on Lev Morozov puts me ahead. That’s the story I’ve been telling myself since I typed in the address and got into the cab.
It’s a good story. I almost buy it.
The restaurant is tucked onto a side street in a neighborhood where neither of our worlds have any reason to intersect. I didn’t dress up. Dark jeans and burgundy cashmere, what I reach for when I’m off-duty and not thinking too hard.
I will absolutely not think too hard tonight.
He’s already there when I walk in.
Lev stands near the entrance with his hands in the pockets of a charcoal jacket, and my stomach pulls tight when his eyes find mine. He looks nothing like a man who spent days in a hospitalbed. He looks just like the kind of trouble women make poor decisions about.
“Doctor.” The corner of his mouth curves, and his eyes slide down my body before he drags them back up with an appreciative grunt.
I resist the urge to cover myself as I reply, “Stop calling me that. We’re not in the hospital.”
“I know.” He still doesn’t stop smiling. “I just like it.”
The hostess seats us at a corner table in the back, far enough from neighboring diners that conversation won’t carry. He pulls out my chair before I reach it, and I sit without commenting because making a thing of it would be its own acknowledgment.
He orders wine without looking at the menu, and the sommelier nods and leaves.
“You’ve been here before,” I comment.
He sets down the menu and looks at me, and I chew on my bottom lip under his scrutiny. “Once. A while ago.”
There’s something in the way he says it, but the waiter reappears before I can pull at the thread.
The wine arrives, and when Lev fills my glass, his forearm skims mine where it rests on the table. It’s brief, but I feel it like a match struck against skin, a slow drag up the inside of my arm that I have no business feeling. I keep my eyes on the menu.
“I want to tell you something,” he says.
“Should I be worried?”
“Probably.” He holds his glass without drinking. “My name isn’t Luka.”
I keep my face neutral and wait, even though we both know I’ve known that since the moment I looked down at him in the trauma bay.
“Lev Vadimovich Morozov.” He says it without ceremony. “I have no interest in sitting across from you pretending otherwise.”
I let a few seconds pass before I give him anything back.
“Polina Ilyinichna Kozlov. In case you needed the full version.”
The smile that crosses his face then is different from every one I’ve seen since he opened his eyes in my ICU. There’s less armor attached to it. It suits him more than he probably realizes.
For a while, we talk like two people whose last names won’t set the table on fire. He asks about the Ring Road pileup he read about last month, and I tell him it brought in four critical patients and a surgery I can still feel in my forearms.
He listens without interrupting. Then he asks follow-up questions that are sharp enough to throw me off.
“You know medicine,” I observe.
“Enough to cause problems.” He refills my glass, his fingers brushing the base of mine on the stem before he sets down the bottle. The touch is gone before I can decide if it was on purpose.
