Connor
I'm standing close enough to count the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, close enough to see the tear tracks she tried to wipe away before anyone noticed, and this woman just looked me dead in the face and said yes without so much as a flinch.
I don't know what to do with that.
I straighten up and take a step back because I need the distance. I need to not be breathing her in while I try to figure out what the hell just happened in the last ten minutes of my life.
Ten minutes ago, I was in the kitchen with Iris, letting her beat me at an argument about whether the estate needs a new terrace.
She was winning, because Iris always wins, and I was laughing in a way I only ever do with her.
Then I heard the front door open, and my mother's voice shift into that soft, careful tone she reserves for people who are hurting.
I went to look.
And there she was. Standing in the foyer with her coat half on and her hands shaking and her dark hair falling out of whatever she'd tied it back in.
Beautiful. Not the polished kind of beautiful you see at the events my brother drags us to.
The wrecked kind. The kind that comes from running out of options and showing up anyway.
I didn't know who she was. I just knew I couldn't stop looking.
Liam appeared at my shoulder before I could say a word. He gave me that look he's been perfecting since we were kids, the one that says stand down, I've got this. We followed her and Ma to the conservatory and stood outside the door like a pair of eavesdroppers, which is exactly what we were.
I listened to her tell my mother that a seventy-three-year-old man with three dead wives wants her in exchange for passage through his territory. I listened to her voice shake and then steady itself. I listened to her ask if she was too late to marry one of us.
One of us.
Any of us.
She didn't care which one. She just needed a name and a ring and the protection that comes with being an Orlov wife. And something in my chest, something I've spent years keeping locked down tight, cracked open just enough to let in a thought I had no business thinking.
Me.
Pick me.
Which is insane. Because no one picks me.
Not like this. Not when there are other options, other brothers, men whose faces don't make women look away and then pretend they weren't looking away.
I know what I am. I've known since I was nineteen and a deal in Galway went sideways, and the man I was collecting from decided a broken bottle was a better negotiating tool than cash.
I won the fight. I beat him so badly they had to wire his jaw shut.
But he got my eye first, and no amount of winning changes that.
The jagged scar runs from my left brow, through the eye that used to match the right one, and down to the corner of my mouth.
The eye itself is still there. It just doesn't work anymore.
Milky and pale and wrong, like something dead left in a living face.
I stopped looking in mirrors years ago. I know what I look like. I don't need the reminder.
When Da was alive, he told me it was a badge of honor.
That it proved I was a survivor. Da was full of shit about a lot of things, but he meant that one, and I loved him for it.
It doesn't change the fact that I catch people staring and then not staring, which is worse.
The active effort to look normal around me.
The careful way women keep their eyes fixed on my right side, like if they just commit to the good half, they can pretend the rest doesn't exist.
Liam walked into the conservatory first. I stayed in the hall and listened to him be practical and measured and right about everything. Contact Diomid. Do this properly. Don't start a war.
And then Ma said Anya wasn't leaving, and I knew this was my window.
So, I leaned into the doorframe and threw the worst version of myself at her like a grenade.
If you're that desperate, you'd marry me.
It wasn't a question. It was a test. I wanted the flinch. I wanted to see what she'd do when she looked up and saw the full picture, the scar and the dead eye and the challenge in my voice. I wanted her to hesitate so I could tell myself I was right about everything I've always believed.
She didn't flinch.
She said yes.
Not maybe. Not I'd have to think about it. Not a polite dodge or a glance at my mother for rescue. Just yes, like I'd asked her if she wanted more tea.
Now I'm standing in my mother's conservatory, staring at a woman whose name I learned five minutes ago, trying to figure out if Anya Agapova is brave or reckless or just so terrified of the alternative that a scarred man with one working eye looks like a good deal by comparison.
That last one sits in my stomach like a stone.
"Connor." Ma's voice pulls me back. She's watching me with that expression I know too well. The one that's equal parts love and warning. "A word."
I don’t move as she stands and walks towards the door. I just keep looking at Anya, who keeps looking right back at me.
"Now, Connor."
I hold Anya's gaze for one more second. She hasn't looked away.
She hasn't dropped her eyes to the floor or shifted them to my right side.
She's looking at my whole face, both eyes, the scar, everything.
Her expression isn't pity or disgust or even the careful blankness I've learned to recognize as someone trying very hard to be polite.
She looks... steady. Like she's made her decision and she's not interested in second-guessing it.
I turn and follow my mother into the hall.
"What are you doing?" Ma keeps her voice low, but there's heat in it. She pulls me far enough from the door that Anya won't hear.
"Solving a problem."
"You're not solving anything, you're being impulsive. You heard her story, you saw a beautiful girl in trouble, and you decided to play hero."
"I'm not playing hero." I lean against the wall and cross my arms. "We all have to marry. Council's orders. Liam made that clear enough when he dragged me back from Dublin last week. So what's the difference if I marry her or some stranger Liam lines up for me?"
"I understand the expectations of you, son. But I won’t let you test a woman because you have misplaced insecurities about your looks."
Her words cut right to the meat of the matter.
“You expected her to recoil from you so you could prove your own ridiculous belief of yourself right, and it’s just backfired because you read her wrong.
I won’t let you marry Anya if all she is to you is some stupid game for your ego.
Or some ludicrously warped ‘proof’ that no woman could love you because of a scar. That’s not how I raised you.”
I watch her as she gathers herself, takes a deep breath, her nostrils flaring as her chin dips with the exhale. It’s rare ma loses her shit, but I can see the signs that she is on the edge of that right now…because of me.
“Ma…I…”
“You nothing,” she shuts me down with a look that tells me to tread no further. “You’ve just made your bed Connor Orlov, and invited Anya into it. You treat her right or her brother will be the least of your problems.”
"Liam's calling Diomid right now. It'll be handled.
" I look at her. "Ma. She needs this. And I need a wife.
The math isn't complicated." I shake my head with resignation, partially from being called out, and partially because really, neither Anya nor I have a lot of choice in the circumstances we’ve found ourselves in.
“You could ask Rafferty if he is interested,” I add, but we both know Rafferty is hiding out trying to dodge the marriage being set up for him.
Ma studies me the way she studies everyone, like she's reading the parts I'm not saying out loud. I hold still and let her look because there's no point hiding from Saoirse Orlov. She's been seeing through my bullshit since I was old enough to produce it.
"You like her," Ma says quietly.
"I don't know her."
"But there’s something there..."
I don't answer, which is an answer, and Ma knows it. She sighs, the long, slow kind that means she's already given in but wants me to know it cost her.
"If Diomid agrees," she says. "And only if Diomid agrees. This goes through Liam and through proper channels. You don't get to barge into my conservatory and claim a girl like she's a prize at a carnival."
"I didn't claim her. I offered. She accepted."
"Connor."
"Ma."
We stare at each other. After a moment, she shakes her head softly in resignation, and I know I've won this round.
I push off the wall and walk back into the conservatory. Anya is exactly where we left her, perched on the edge of the sofa with her hands wrapped around a teacup that's probably gone cold. Iris is hovering in the doorway, eyes wide, clearly dying to know what's happening.
I catch Iris's eye and she mouths what the hell at me.
Anya looks up when I sit down across from her.
The same steady gaze. The same refusal to flinch.
Up close, in the lamplight of the conservatory, she's even more beautiful than she was in the foyer, and I have to remind myself that beauty isn't the point.
The point is that the Council wants marriages and Diomid's sister needs a husband who won't kill her.
The bar is underground and I'm still barely clearing it.
"So," she says. "Connor."
"Connor," I confirm.
She nods and takes a sip of her tea. Cold, judging by the face she makes, but she drinks it anyway. "Are you going to ask me anything? Or did the eavesdropping cover it?"
Something pulls at the corner of my mouth.
She's got a bite to her. I didn't expect that, not from a woman who walked in here shaking and desperate.
But the desperation is settling now, hardening into something sharper, and I realize that what I mistook for fragility is actually just a woman who had to hold herself together long enough to get through the door.
Now that she's through it, the spine is showing.
"You said yes without thinking,” I say, “but I know the position you’re in, and I want you to know that Rafferty isn’t married yet either. So, there you have options, is what I’m trying to say."
She sets the teacup down. "No. You offered, I accepted. I’ve made my choice. Unless you’ve decided you don’t want a bride with as much baggage as I have."
She's looking at me again with those gold-flecked eyes, steady and unflinching, and I think, fine. I'll be the better option. I'll be the lesser evil.
"Liam's calling your brother," I say. "If he agrees, this happens.
If he doesn't..." I trail off because I don't know how to finish that sentence.
If Diomid doesn't agree, she goes back. She becomes the fourth Mrs. Kuznetsova, and I marry whoever the Council throws at me while spending the rest of my life remembering the woman who said yes without flinching.