His fingers linger for half a second at the clasp, then slide away.
I turn back around. His eyes move over me, from the emeralds resting against my skin to my face. Something dark and satisfied passes through his expression.
The necklace is not delicate on me. It changes the dress completely. The red silk, the green stones, the diamonds at my throat.
Yaromir’s hand comes to my waist. “Beautiful,” he says. Quietly. Not for the room.
For me.
My breath catches, and his thumb presses once at my side, like he feels it.
Across the room, Katya looks away.
Dmitri doesn’t. His stare is fixed on the necklace at my throat, his expression so tight it must hurt. For the first time all evening, I don’t feel like the woman he betrayed.
I feel like the consequence.
The rest of the auction passes in pieces. People approach us carefully. Some congratulate Yaromir. Some congratulate me with expressions that make it clear they don’t know whether they are offering blessings or stepping around broken glass. A few women compliment the necklace. I thank them, because I know how to be polite with a knife in my hand now.
Yaromir never goes far. Sometimes his hand is at my waist. Sometimes at my back. Sometimes he says nothing at all, but his body remains turned toward mine, making it clear to the room that any approach to me passes through him first.
By the time we leave, my face hurts from holding it together.
The lobby is colder than the auction hall, grand and echoing with marble floors, tall mirrors, and chandeliers throwing white light across the crowd waiting for cars. Men in dark coats speakquietly near the doors. Women gather their wraps. Security keeps a careful line between the guests and the press outside.
I’m almost relieved.
Then I see them.
Kirill Volkov stands near the center of the lobby with Galina beside him and Dmitri a few steps behind. Katya is not there. For some reason, that makes the moment feel worse, not better.
There’s no crowd between us now. Just the old Volkov family waiting under a chandelier, cold and still.
Yaromir’s hand moves to my back. “Stay beside me,” he says.
“I was planning to.”
His mouth barely shifts.
We walk forward. Kirill watches us approach. His face is controlled, but his eyes are not. They move first to the emeralds at my throat, then to Yaromir’s hand on me.
Galina looks at the necklace and her mouth tightens with open disgust.
Dmitri looks at my face. I don’t look away.
Kirill speaks first. “An expensive evening.”
Yaromir stops several feet away. “Not particularly.”
Dmitri’s jaw flexes.
Galina lets out a small breath. “Must everything be vulgar with you?”
Yaromir doesn’t look at her. “I was wondering the same thing when your son followed my wife into a locked bathroom.”
The air in the lobby changes.
Galina goes pale.
