Katriona comes down the stairs at six in a deep burnt orange dress that I had Kasimir source after I watched her look at it on a screen for slightly too long last week. She doesn't know I arranged it. She thinks she chose it. In a sense she did, because I wouldn’t have known to find it if I hadn't been watching her face when she scrolled past it.
She's healing. I can see it in the way she moves down the staircase, one hand on the rail but not gripping it, her weight balanced instead of braced.
“Is this okay?” she asks, looking down at herself.
I take her in. The dress. The color in her face that wasn't there ten days ago. The way she's standing without protecting anything.
"You'll do," I say, which is the largest understatement of my adult life, and she knows it, because the corner of her mouth lifts.
"High praise."
"Are you in pain?"
"No. I took something an hour ago." She catches my expression. "The correct dose, at the correct time, before you ask. I'm an excellent patient."
"You're a terrible patient. You reorganized my office last week. The pantry yesterday…Kasimir is still pouting about it."
"I sat down for all of it. Mostly." She smooths an invisible crease on my lapel, a small possessive gesture she does without seeming to notice she's doing it. "Are your brothers going to interrogate me?"
"Volody will. He thinks he's subtle. He's the least subtle person I've ever met." I offer her my arm. "You don't have to win them over. You've already done it."
She takes my arm. "When did I do that?"
"Katriona. You comforted a stranger in a hallway the night of the dinner because you couldn't help yourself. My family operates on instinct about people. They decided about you weeks ago." I open the door. "Tonight is a formality."
The dinner is at Rovin's house, and it is louder and warmer than I expected considering why we’re here.
This is still strange to me. The house I shared with my brothers was, for most of our lives, a place of careful silences and the particular quiet that descends when everyone is calculating. Our father made rooms cold simply by entering them. We learned to occupy space the way soldiers occupy territory, with awareness and thorough knowledge of the exits.
Now there are five women at the table and the noise level is something my mother would not have recognized. Claudia at the head of the table beside Rovin. Volody is already too loud. Serikis refereeing some argument between Juliette and Dayan about a film none of them can correctly summarize.
And Katriona is in the middle of it, smiling.
I watch her. She has Liv on one side, still the most nervous of the women, and within ten minutes she's drawn the girl into a conversation that has her laughing instead of glancing at the exits. She fields Volody's interrogation with a dryness that delights him so thoroughly he nearly knocks over the wine. When Claudia mentions a name from the legitimate side of the business, Katriona asks a question so precise that Rovin's head comes up and he looks at her across the table with new attention.
She doesn't perform any of it. That's the part that undoes me. Every other woman I've watched at a table like this has been working, managing impressions, building a position. Katriona simply exists in the room and the room rearranges itself toward her, because she's interested in people and people can feel the difference between interest and strategy.
"You've gone quiet," Serik says beside me. "Quieter than usual. Which for you is essentially mute."
"I'm eating."
"You've eaten three bites. You've been watching Katriona the entire meal." He follows my gaze. "She's good, Akyl. She seems like a good fit."
I don't answer. I don't need to. Serik has always been able to read the things I don't say, which is occasionally useful and frequently inconvenient.
Across the table, Rovin taps his knife against his glass, and the table quiets, and the wedding conversation begins. The sequencing. The timelines. Who follows whom.
"After Rovin, we follow," I say when it's my turn. I'm looking at Katriona when I say it. "Within the month. I don't want a long engagement."
Katriona meets my eyes. "You haven't formally asked me."
"I outbid six men for you. Consider it implied."
"I don't accept implications."
The table is watching now. I hold her gaze and I let the moment stretch, because she's challenging me in front of my entire family and I have never enjoyed anything more.
"Then I'll ask you properly," I say. "Tonight. When we're alone."
