Page 32 of Marrying the Pakhan

Neither of us moves for another few seconds.

Eventually I go inside. He stays out on the porch a while longer, and I don’t look back to see how long, because I’m not sure I trust myself with whatever I’d do if I did.

14

HARPER

I can’t sleep, so I get up around two, telling myself it’s just to check on Ginger, though I’ve checked on her every night for weeks without needing an excuse for it.

She’s fine, tangled in her blankets, one arm flung over the edge of the bed the way she sleeps most nights now. I straighten the comforter over her and step back out into the hallway.

Viktor’s there, leaning against the wall a few feet from his own door, a bottle of vodka in one hand, no glass.

“Are you drinking?” I keep my voice low. “It’s two in the morning.”

“It is.” He doesn’t sound remotely apologetic about it. “Couldn’t sleep either, I take it.”

“No.”

“Join me.”

I hesitate, glancing back toward Ginger’s door out of habit. “I have to be up for her in a few hours.”

“There’s help around for exactly that, if you sleep in. You’re allowed to, occasionally.” He says it simply, like this is obvious, and maybe it is, and I’ve just never let myself believe I’m allowed the occasional late morning.

I follow him instead of arguing further, and he detours through the kitchen for a second glass before leading me out through the back doors toward the pool.

The water’s lit from underneath, pale blue against the dark, and we sit at the edge with our feet in, drinks in hand, the vodka sharper than I expect on an empty stomach.

“Tell me something true,” he says, echoing the line from our first real dinner, months ago now. “Not for anyone else. Just for me.”

“You already used that line on me once.”

“It worked the first time.”

I laugh, and the sound carries out over the water. I tell him about my mother, about the year after our father left when Mia basically raised me herself, fourteen years old and suddenly responsible for a little sister neither of our parents had room for anymore.

“She never once complained about it,” I say. “Not that I heard, anyway. I used to think that meant it didn’t cost her anything. I know better now.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Raising Ginger. Realizing how much you can carry and still show up smiling for the person you’re carrying it for.” I trace a finger along the surface of the water, watching the ripples catch the light. “I used to resent her a little, honestly. For leaving when she did. Now I mostly just wish I’d told her how much I understood, before it was too late to say it.”

“She knew,” Viktor says. “People always know more than we give them credit for.”

“You sound very sure of that.”

“I’ve had to believe it, about a few people I lost the chance to say things to.”

Viktor’s quiet for a moment, turning his glass in his hand. “My father ran things before me. Badly, mostly. I spent my whole childhood watching him make decisions out of fear disguised as strength, and I promised myself I’d never run anything that way.”

“Have you kept that promise?”

“Some days better than others.” He looks at me, unguarded in a way I haven’t seen from him before, not at the club, not at the courthouse, not once. “I believe fear makes bad leaders and worse fathers. I’ve spent fifteen years trying to prove that to men who’d disagree with me violently if I said it out loud.”

“That’s not a small thing to believe.”

“No. It’s cost me more than I’d like to admit.” He sets his glass down on the tile beside him. “I didn’t expect to end up testing that belief on a six-year-old who isn’t even mine by blood. But here we are.”