She smiles into her glass. “Your reputation?”
“Exactly.”
The sun lowers. The pool ripples. Somewhere behind us, the staff has lit lanterns along the path to the beach.
She sets her drink down and asks, quieter now, “What about you?”
I look out at the water.
I should give her something easy. My grandfather, the business, Moscow, discipline, schools, expectations. Facts without blood in them.
Instead, I say, “I was born into something I didn’t choose and got too good at surviving it.”
She doesn’t push. Not right away. That restraint may be the kindest thing anyone’s done for me all week.
We sit there in the warm air with the waves breaking in front of us, and I let her shoulder brush mine without moving away. When she shivers slightly as the breeze turns cooler, I stand, go inside, and bring back the light blanket from the sofa.
She looks up as I drape it over her legs.
“You know,” she says, “for a terrifying criminal, you have surprisingly decent bedside manner.”
I sit back down beside her. “That is not a phrase I wanted attached to me.”
“It is now.”
I look at her. She looks back.
I should be sleeping.
Instead, I’m standing barefoot in the dark of the villa living room with a ring in my hand and no business being here.
Moonlight spills across the floor in silver bands. The ocean beyond the glass is all sound and shadow, waves folding into shore, then dragging back again. Everything in the room is quiet except for me.
And the ring.
It sits heavy in my palm, colder than it should be in this heat. Old gold. A family stone set in a severe band my grandfather had commissioned long before I was born. It belonged to my grandmother first, then sat in a vault for years waiting for the “right” woman. As if women can be judged by pedigree and timing and whether they fit neatly into a plan drawn up by dead men.
I brought it here. I don’t know why.
Or rather, I know exactly why and refuse to admit it.
I tell myself I only brought it because I need to be prepared. Because a man in my position does not move toward a proposal without the proper symbol in his pocket. Because one week is one week, and if I am going to marry, I’m going to do it decisively.
All true.
None of it the truth. Because all I can think about is her.
Zatanna laughing in the water this afternoon.
Zatanna in that black swimsuit, sun on her shoulders.
Zatanna curled into the lounge chair after dinner with her head tipped back and her mouth soft with sleep and trust.
Zatanna saying my life sounds like it hurts and meaning it.
I close my hand around the ring until the edges bite. This is madness. I should be thinking of logistics. Contracts. Timing. Strategy. A wife on paper.
Instead, I am standing in the middle of the night staring at a family heirloom and seeing only dark eyes and stubbornness and a woman who was never supposed to matter enough to make this impossible.
