22. Cathy
22
CATHY
I get washed and changed, finding Ivan already in the kitchen when I arrive, sleeves rolled up, pulling ingredients from the fridge. He glances over his shoulder as I enter, his expression unreadable, but a faint smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Anya suggested I cook for you,” he says, holding up a handful of fresh herbs. “Traditional Russian food.”
“Did she?” I ask, raising an eyebrow, amused by the thought of Ivan in an apron.
Curious and intrigued, I find myself moving closer, glancing over the array of ingredients laid out on the counter—beets, dill, potatoes, and a variety of spices. I brush my fingers over a bunch of dill, its scent sharp and earthy. “I didn’t expect you to know your way around a kitchen.”
He shrugs, the faintest hint of a smile on his face. “I learned from my mother,” he says, his voice softening in a way that surprises me. “She loved to cook.”
His tone catches me off guard, and I can’t help but ask, “What was she like?”
He pauses, looking down at the potato in his hand. “She was gentle with me and Elena,” he says, a touch of warmth creeping into his voice. “She had a way of making the simplest things feel like treasures. She used to say cooking was her way of keeping us together, especially when things got difficult. My father was not a kind man.”
As he begins peeling the potato, I pick up a knife and start slicing beets beside him, feeling the silence between us deepen in a way that feels less like tension and more like shared understanding.
“She taught me how to make dishes like borscht and pelmeni,” he continues, his voice distant, as if he’s seeing her in his mind.
I glance over, noticing how his face softens slightly, a hint of vulnerability that he rarely allows to surface. It’s a stark contrast to the strong, unyielding man I know him as, and for a moment, I glimpse the boy he must have once been—someone sheltered, protected, by a mother who, in her own way, was his refuge.
“It sounds like she was an amazing woman,” I say softly, genuinely touched by the way he speaks about her.
He nods, a shadow passing over his face. “She was,” he murmurs, his gaze steady, but there’s a hint of something in his eyes—a pain that he quickly pushes back, returning his focus to the food. “Enough of that. You’ll ruin the borscht if you keep slicing the beets like that.”
I roll my eyes, smirking as I adjust my technique, earning a half-smile from him.
As we continue cooking, I find myself relaxing, even laughing as he describes foods he dislikes with a distasteful grimace. “No olives,” he declares, shaking his head. “They’re vile.”
“Really?” I ask, suppressing a grin. “The tough, terrifying Ivan Morosov is afraid of a little olive?”
“Fear has nothing to do with it,” he retorts, his eyes narrowing playfully. “They’re offensive.”
I laugh, the sound filling the kitchen, and to my surprise, he chuckles too, the sound low and rumbling.
It feels like a moment out of time, the mansion’s dark, foreboding atmosphere softened by our shared laughter, by the smell of food simmering, by the easy rhythm we’ve found in each other’s company.
When we finally sit down to eat, I take a bite, savoring the rich, savory flavors. “This is actually… delicious,” I admit, and he gives me a satisfied smirk, as if he expected no less.
“Good,” he says, leaning back with a gleam of amusement in his eyes. “In traditional Russian households, cooking a meal together is practically a promise.”
I snort, rolling my eyes. “A promise of what?”
He lifts an eyebrow, his gaze dark and teasing. “A promise to stay.”
“Oh, is that so?” I shake my head, but I can’t deny the flutter in my stomach at his words.
Just as I’m reaching for another spoonful, savoring the warmth of the dish, a heavy knock sounds at the kitchen door. Ivan’s face shifts instantly; the warmth fades, replaced by a steely resolve that feels like a slap. His jaw tightens, and he sets his spoon down, rising with a cold, calculated precision.
The door swings open, revealing Nik, his gaze sharp, his stance tense. He glances at me for a brief moment before his attention turns fully to Ivan. Whatever message he brings, I can tell from his demeanor that it’s serious, urgent.
“Ivan,” Nik says, his tone clipped. “We need to talk.”
Ivan doesn’t even look back at me. He’s already slipping into a different version of himself, the one I’ve seen before—the one that commands, controls, and brooks no softness.
He mutters something low to Nik in Russian, his words like steel, and the warmth of our shared moment evaporates. In an instant, he’s transformed, leaving the man who shared his past with me nowhere to be seen. They talk for a minute while I can only watch, understanding nothing.
“I’ll handle it,” Ivan says to Nik in English, his voice a sharp edge. Then, finally, he turns to me, his gaze unreadable. “Nothing to worry about. I have work to do.”
And just like that, he’s gone, leaving me alone at the table, the empty bowls and half-eaten plates suddenly feeling hollow. The weight of the silence presses down on me, and I feel an ache in my chest I wasn’t prepared for.
A few minutes ago, he’d been someone almost warm. Someone I could almost imagine knowing beyond the walls of this mansion. But now, I’m not sure which is real—the man who laughed with me over a meal or the cold, untouchable figure who just left the room.
I sit there, stirring my spoon absently through the remaining borscht, a bitter taste rising in my throat. It’s jarring, this shift in him.
One minute, he’s a man with a past, with memories he’s willing to share. The next, he’s a stranger again, locked away behind walls I have no hope of penetrating.
The question looms in my mind: Is this cold, calculating Ivan the real him? Or is there truly something softer beneath that armor, something real?
A part of me wants to believe in the warmth I glimpsed tonight, but as I sit alone in the dim kitchen, doubt settles in like a chill. I may have seen a crack in his facade, but it’s clear he’s in full control of when—or if—he’ll ever let me see beyond it again.