Disappear.
Appear again.
Then nothing.
I set the phone face down.
Irina notices. Of course she does.
“Dmitri?”
I lift my champagne and smile. “Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That he misses me.”
The lie is smooth. Perfect. Exactly the kind of lie women like us are trained to tell before we even understand why we’re telling it.
Lena’s expression softens. “That’s sweet.”
“Yes,” I say, looking past them toward the glittering water. “He can be.”
One of the phones on the table buzzes. I check, but it’s not mine.
Katya glances down, quick and casual, the way people look when they’re trying very hard not to look too eager. Her thumb slides across the screen, and for half a second, her face changes. A small tightening at the corner of her mouth. A flicker in her eyes. Then she turns the phone over and reaches for her champagne.
“Wedding nerves are normal,” Lena says, still watching me with that soft, sympathetic look I don’t like. “Even with Dmitri.”
“Especially with Dmitri,” Irina mutters.
Katya laughs a little too quickly. “Don’t scare her.”
“I’m not scared,” I say.
And I’m not. Not exactly.
I know Dmitri. I know his moods, his vanity, his charm. I know how he walks into a room and expects the air to move around him. I know how he kisses me when other men are watching. I know how he forgets promises and makes up for them with bracelets.
I know enough.
At least, I think I do.
Katya’s phone buzzes again. This time she doesn’t look at it. She simply places her hand over it, palm flat, as if she can silence the whole world by pressing down hard enough.
Irina is too busy flagging the waiter for another bottle to notice.
Lena is asking me about the flowers.
I answer automatically. White roses. Pale orchids. No lilies. Dmitri hates lilies. He says they smell like funerals.
My attention drifts to the pier beyond the restaurant terrace. A black car has stopped near the entrance.
Not unusual. Men in dark cars come and go here all the time. But this one makes the waiters straighten. It makes the hostess pause with her hand on a stack of menus. It makes two men near the bar lower their voices.
A driver steps out first.
Then another man.
