He waits.
That, apparently, is a yes.
“Do you actually have a favorite food? Because I asked you, genuinely, and you looked at me as if I’d threatened your family. But everyone has a favorite food. Even people who communicate exclusively through monosyllables and disapproval?—”
Dmitri’s composure slips for a second.
It’s small. A tectonic event in a landscape that has been geologically stable for decades. The corner of his mouth moves a hair in an upward direction, which, in the context of Dmitri’s facial vocabulary, is the equivalent of laughing until you cry.
I feel a surge of genuine triumph.I knew it. I knew there was more in there.
“So, there is a human being behind the?—”
The door opens.
Rolan fills it the way Rolan fills any doorway. He’s in his shirtsleeves, jacket gone, and his face is cold.
His eyes land on Dmitri first. Dmitri goes still.
What did he do?
I look between them.
Rolan doesn’t look at me yet. He’s holding Dmitri’s gaze with the fixed attention that I’ve watched him use on problems he’s deciding how to handle.
“Elizabeth.” My name in his mouth. AlwaysElizabethorMiss Calloway.“My office. Now.”
“I was having coffee?—”
“Don’t argue with me.”
I put down my mug and get up.
He walks beside me down the corridor. I look straight ahead and think about asking again. I decide against it, only to ask anyway. “What happened? You looked?—”
“We’ll talk in my office.”
He closes the door and turns.
“What did I tell you?”
“I’m not sure what you?—”
“What did I tell you?”
He moves toward me. My back finds the wall before I’ve consciously decided to retreat.
“I genuinely don’t know what I did.”
He stops close. Too close.
“You can’t make conversation with my staff.”
I stare at him.Seriously?“I was drinking coffee. Dmitri was drinking coffee. I couldn’t have said more than forty words.”
“I don’t care.”
“You never told me I couldn’t talk to the?—”
