Uncertainty. Not about Volody, not about the situation in the broad strokes, but about whether she belongs here. Whether the other women will accept her or whether this dinner will confirm what some part of her suspects, that she's different from them, separate, less.
Claudia sees it before I do. She always does.
"Liv," she says, stepping forward with the warm, deliberate grace that I've watched her deploy at political functions and charity galas, the social skill that was trained into her and that she now uses for her own purposes rather than her father's. "I'm so glad you're here. Come on in, and let me show you the house. The library's my favorite part."
She takes Liv's arm with a naturalness that makes it look unrehearsed, and Liv's shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. Volody catches my eye and gives me a look that says, very clearly,keep her.
As if I needed the instruction.
Dayan arrives last. He's holding the door open for a woman I haven't met, and his hand is hovering near her elbow without quite touching it.
The woman is Amelia Foxhall, a British aristocrat’s daughter who I was surprised to see at the auction. She's smaller than theothers, with brown hair cut around her shoulders, and a face that is striking in its expressiveness.
"Sorry we're late," Dayan says. His expression is the same controlled mask he always wears, but his voice has a texture to it that I haven't heard before.
"You're not late," I say. "You're Dayan. This is on time for you."
Amelia looks at me with the same careful assessment I've received from every woman tonight. I wonder what she sees. A man in an expensive shirt and tailored trousers, with a controlled expression and a reputation that precedes him like a weather warning.
"Mr. Mostovoi," she says. "Thank you for having us."
"Rovin," I correct. "If you're going to be family, we drop the formalities."
The wordfamilychanges the atmosphere in the room. I feel it ripple through my brothers, through the women, through Claudia, who has returned from her house tour with Liv and is standing near the kitchen entrance with one hand resting on the doorframe. She heard it. She's watching me with that knowing expression, the one that says she can see the man underneath the discipline, and she loves what she finds there.
We move to the dining room.
Greta has outdone herself. The table is set for ten, which is more people than have ever sat at it simultaneously. White linen, heavy silverware, candles in low holders that cast warm, shifting light across the walls. The food is already on the table, family style, because I told Greta I didn't want courses. I didn't want the formality of served plates, the choreography of waitstaff, the performance of a meal. I wanted a table where people pass dishes to each other and reach across for bread and argue about wine.
I wanted a family dinner. An actual one.
The seating arranges itself organically, which is its own kind of revelation. At the auction dinners, placement is strategic. Here, my brothers drift toward their habitual positions. Akyl to my right. Volody at the far end, because he needs space the way fire needs oxygen. Dayan in the middle, quiet and watchful. Serik beside Volody, where he can moderate the chaos.
The women settle beside their men, and then something happens that I didn't anticipate.
Juliette picks up the wine bottle and pours for Katriona, who is seated next to her. "Red okay?" she asks.
Katriona nods. "Thank you."
"I'm Juliette, by the way. Serik's." She saysSerik'swith a directness that makes my brother look at her with visible surprise. She catches his expression and shrugs. "What?” she asks. “I am. Let's not pretend we're at a networking event."
"I like her," Claudia says from beside me, and she says it to the table, not to me.
Juliette raises her glass toward Claudia. "Likewise. You're the one who walked up to Rovin at the dinner and told him you werechoosing him? You’ve got brass…"
"That's a generous summary. I believe the word 'negotiation' was involved," I counter.
"Negotiation," Akyl repeats with amusement. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"What would you call it?" Claudia asks.
"A hostile takeover."
The table laughs. All of it, brothers and women, and the sound fills the dining room in a way that I have never heard it filled. I've had meetings in this room. Business dinners. Conversations with men who smiled with their mouths and calculated withtheir eyes. I have never heard laughter like this in these walls. I didn’t know how much I needed it.
The food helps. Greta has made lamb, roasted until the outside is dark and crisp and the inside pulls apart with a fork. There are potatoes with rosemary, salad with a sharp and citrusy dressing, bread that's still warm. Volody serves himself twice before the plates have completed a full rotation around the table. Liv pokes him in the ribs and tells him to let other people eat, and Volody looks at her with the naked delight of a man who has found someone willing to poke him, literally and figuratively.
I eat. I watch.
