The street below is dark except for the lamps burning along the driveway and the headlights of a black Mercedes idling by the curb. Lev’s car.
I can see the faint glow of his phone through the windshield.
My heart starts to beat faster. “I’ll come down,” I say.
“No. I’ll come up.”
The line goes dead.
For a moment, I stand in the center of my bedroom with the blouse hanging from my hand and the open suitcase at my feet.
Tomorrow, I’m supposed to fly to Russia.
Tomorrow, I’m supposed to become real to his family. Not just a name. Not just the Markov daughter Andrei Morozov approved from a distance. Not just the girl in photographs beside Lev at charity dinners and engagement parties.
His fiancée. His future wife.
My stomach pulls tight.
I place the blouse in the suitcase, then remove it again because my hands need something to do. I smooth the fabric once. Twice. Three times.
Downstairs, the doorbell rings.
I hear Marina, our housekeeper, moving through the hall. A murmur of voices follows, low and polite. Then footsteps on the stairs.
I turn as Lev appears in the doorway.
He looks beautiful, as per usual.
That’s the cruelest thing about him. Even now, with his blond hair slightly windblown and his black coat open over a white shirt, he looks like every foolish promise I ever believed. Clean jaw. Pale eyes. Mouth made for apologies he never means.
His gaze drops first to the suitcase.
Then to me.
“Katya.”
I fold my arms over my stomach. “You’re scaring me.”
He steps inside but does not come close enough to touch me.
That tells me everything before he says a single word.
“Don’t do that,” I whisper.
His expression flickers. “Do what?”
“Stand there and look at me like I’m a wounded animal. What’s wrong?”
My body knows before my mind does.
The room tilts, just a little.
He drags a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”
“Oh, how noble of you,” I snap, already fighting to hold back my emotions.
“Katya.”
