Now, I wore a two-thousand-dollar dress while being driven through gates that must have belonged to some Frencharistocrat in the old country with a mobster at my side as a conspiracy raged on in the background of our lives.
“You ready for the show?” said mobster murmured, drawing me away from my thoughts.
“I am.” As Luigi pulled up outside the house, I toyed with Stan’s fingers. “It’s funny how we’ve been heading in the same direction for years without knowing it.”
Despite the stressful day, Stan didn’t seem all that fazed by it—I didn’t even want to wonder what that meant for his cortisol levels.
“I already told you what I think about that.”
Soul mates.
I might have rolled my eyes, but I didn’t have a chance to tease him because someone yanked open the back door before either of us could react.
“My goodness,” the woman shrieked. “You’re actually here!”
Stan tensed, his hand sliding into his sports coat, but he relaxed almost a millisecond later. “Sofia!”
The genuine joy in his expression made this whole trip worth it—conspiracies included.
A man wandered out from behind her, chivvying, “Sofia, for God’s sake, he could have shot you!”
Sofia shrugged off the guy’s hold. “Dmitri, do not push my buttons damn.”
Dmitri’s head popped over the woman’s shoulder to excuse, “She gets the curse words the wrong way around when she’s mad. You’ll get used to it.”
“Which is all damn the time when I’m with you!”
The odd curse placement had me huffing out a shocked laugh. Sofia spoke like something from a Brontë novel. Her cut-glass tones were so effortlessly British that it made her inability to figure out the appropriate syntax even more perplexing.
“Come, come,” Sofia continued, elbowing Dmitri in the side. “I’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”
Stan, clearing his throat, climbed out of the car. As his hand swept to the side for me, Sofia immediately clutched at him, hugging him tight.
I didn’t have it in me to be jealous. Not when he’d just reminded me that we were soul mates. But the hug was more than the embrace of a woman in love. If anything, it seemed grateful. Filled with relief. Warm. And that same thing I’d picked up on with him—hopeful.
They both wanted the friendship to continue.
“You saved me,” Sofia whispered, her arms clinging to him. “Dead To Me told me that you were behind my rescue. Thank you. Thank you!”
Stan patted her back then did the smart thing and sent me an apologetic look.
Dmitri grumbled, “Sofia, less touching.”
“Shut up, swine. I touch one man and you’re jealous, but that physiotherapist is all over you and I’m not allowed to complain?”
My brows lifted at the tea being spilled, especially when Dmitri blushed. “It’s their job to touch me!”
“Is it also their job to leer?”
I chuckled—I couldn’t help myself. “She has a point, Dmitri.”
Everyone stiffened at my insertion, but Sofia’s head whipped around. “Thank you! See, Dmitri? It is not just I who believes this.”
The other man groaned. “Not this again.”
“Yes, this again. You’re the one complaining about me hugging the man who saved me from my father!” She sniffed. “You should be hugging him too as far as I’m concerned.”
“Please, don’t,” Stan chortled, but he curved his arm around Sofia’s shoulders in a friendly way and then held out his hand for Dmitri. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Turgenev.”
