Marina is exactly where I left her.
She sits with one long leg crossed over the other, a pale hand curled around the stem of her wineglass, her posture untouched by the fact that I disappeared for far too long in the middle of our first dinner. The image is elegant enough to frame. Composed. Refined. The kind of woman men like me are expected to choose.
But the moment her eyes lift to my face, something shifts.
It is subtle. A loosening in her shoulders. The faintest exhale. Relief, gone almost as soon as it arrives.
Interesting.
I stop beside the table and look at her for a second before I speak. I am still warm from Zatanna’s mouth, still carrying the scent of her on my skin, still half out of my mind from what almost happened in that bathroom. The contrast between that and this tablecloth, this wine, this perfectly mannered woman, is so absurd I almost laugh.
Instead, I say, “My apologies. I have to cut the evening short.”
For a heartbeat, Marina says nothing. Then her lips part around a soft, unforced laugh.
“To be honest,” she says, setting down her glass, “that’s a relief.”
I look at her more carefully.
Most women in her position would have covered the reaction. Smoothed it over. Pretended offense, if only for pride’s sake. But Marina only tilts her head and studies me with a kind of detached amusement, as if she knows exactly how strange this evening has been and sees no value in performing otherwise.
“No offense,” she adds.
“None taken.”
And I mean it.
Because now that I’m looking at her properly, I can see it. The intelligence behind the polished smile. The calculation beneath the beauty. She is not upset. She is assessing. Adjusting. Moving on.
That, at least, I respect.
She folds her hands neatly in front of her. “I agreed to this dinner because I was curious.” The candlelight catches in her earrings as she moves, throwing little flashes against her throat.
“Curious about what?”
She smiles then, a little slower this time, and I see the steel beneath the silk. “You.”
Of course.
I say nothing, and she goes on, apparently deciding honesty is the quickest route through this.
“You have a reputation, Mr. Vasiliev. A very dramatic one. I wanted to see how much of it was true.”
“And?” I ask.
Her gaze travels over me, measured but not flirtatious. Not anymore.
“I think,” she says carefully, “that you are exactly as dangerous as people say. Just not in the way they expect.”
That almost earns her a real smile. I glance once toward the terrace doors, my patience thinning now that the social performance is ending. Somewhere inside, Zatanna is supposed to be waiting where I left her. The fact that I cannot see her is beginning to needle at me in ways I do not like.
Marina notices. Women like her notice everything.
“You’re distracted,” she says.
“Yes.”
“By another woman?”
