Lena squeezes my arm and turns to say something to the housekeeper, Galina, who is seated beside her and has been crying on and off since the ceremony. Galina has worked for the Rudakov family since before I was born. She's the closest thing I have to a grandmother, and she's been trying to catch my eye all afternoon, her face a wreck of pride and grief and something that looks a lot like sadness.
Across the table, Kira leans forward and catches my attention. Anton's wife is pretty, with the kind of smile that says she's been exactly where I am and survived.
"The first week is the hardest," she says, keeping her voice low enough that the men don't hear. "After that, you find your rhythm. Or he finds his. Either way, it gets easier."
"Did it?" I ask. "Get easier for you?"
Something softens in her face. "It got different. Better-different, eventually. Anton is..." She glances at her husband, who is deep in conversation with Artem. "He's more than what I expected. They usually are, the Orlov men. They just take a while to show it."
I nod with a small smile. Kira is being genuine, I can tell. She's not performing for the family or trying to sell me a version of this life that doesn't exist. She's telling me the truth as she experienced it.
I look past Kira to where Anastasia is sitting. Yevgeny's other sister. She hasn't spoken to me once. She's barely spoken to anyone. She sits with her wine glass untouched and her posture perfect and her gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance, like she's physically present but checked out of everything happening around her.
She doesn't approve of this match. I caught that at the ceremony. The pinched mouth, the flat eyes, the way she looked through me when Ruslan walked me down the aisle. I don't know if it's personal or political or something else entirely, but the distance she's keeping is deliberate and precise.
I recognize it because I do the same thing. Put yourself in the room so no one can accuse you of absence, but keep every part of yourself pulled back behind the walls where it's safe.
Whatever is going on with Anastasia, it's not about me. It's something older. Something she's been carrying for a while.
At the far end of the table, Yevgeny is standing with Artem and Elena. Elena is holding the baby, a round-cheeked boy with dark eyes who is currently grabbing fistfuls of his mother's hair and shrieking with delight. Artem is trying to detach his son's fingers without making him cry.
Yevgeny reaches over and takes the baby.
I watch it happen without meaning to. One second he's standing with his hands at his sides, all control and composure, and the next he's got a baby in his arms and the entire architecture of his face has changed. His jaw is still sharp and his eyes are still watchful. But there's something underneath now, something warm and unguarded that he doesn't seem to know he's showing.
He rocks the baby gently. The shrieking stops. The little hands land on Yevgeny's shirt instead, gripping the fabric with that stubborn infant strength. Yevgeny looks down at his nephew and says something I can't hear and the baby stares at him with huge, serious eyes.
My chest does something I don't authorize.
It's not the baby. I'm not wired to melt at the sight of a man holding a child. I've seen too many men use gentleness as a mask, performing softness in public while their hands do different things behind closed doors.
But Yevgeny isn't performing. I can see that. The way he holds the baby is natural, unconscious, like he's done it a hundred times and doesn't think about it anymore. He's not looking around to see who's watching. He's not angling for an audience. He's just holding a baby.
He looks up and catches me watching.
I don't look away. Looking away is what the obedient bride would do, the one who smiles and blushes and pretends she wasn't staring. But something in his gaze holds me there. That same steady, seeing quality he had at the altar. The quality that says he already knows something about me that I haven't told him.
He doesn't smile. He just holds my gaze and the baby grabs at his jaw and he lets him, and for one unguarded second I see something in his expression that makes my pulse kick.
Want.
He wants me. And he's not trying to hide it, but he's not pushing it either. He's just letting me see it, the same way he let me see that he knows. Like he's laying his cards on the table one at a time and waiting for me to decide what to do with them.
I'm the first to look away, blinking back to the conversation that Kira is having with Lena. Something about European history. Jess is watching them with fascination.
The reception winds down slowly. My brothers leave first with Galina. Ruslan shakes Yevgeny's hand at the door and I watch the exchange from across the room. It should be simple. A handshake between two men who've completed a transaction. But Ruslan holds on a beat too long, and there's something in his face I haven't seen before, though I’m not sure what.
I make my way quickly to the door to say goodbye and Ruslan gives me a nod of acknowledgment. Like I've done my part and now I'm dismissed.
My younger brothers follow without a word. Galina hugs me so tight I can feel her ribs through her dress. She whispers something in Russian against my hair that I don't fully catch, something about being true to myself, and then she lets go and walks to the car without looking back.
Jess finds me in the foyer shortly after. She's been hovering at the edges all afternoon, too aware of her outsider status to push in but too loyal to leave.
"You okay?" she asks quietly.
"Yes. I’m fine, thank you."
"You don't look fine. You look like you're mapping this place and the people in it."
