Chapter 4
* * *
Viktor cut into his steak and watched Josephine study the wine list as if it held information that could change her life. She’d been holding the same page for nearly a minute. The server had already taken their order. The decision was finished. She knew it, and so did he.
“You’ve looked at that list three times,” he said, setting down his knife. “Are you hoping a new bottle appears if you wait long enough?”
Josephine lowered the menu just enough to look at him. “I like being thorough.” Light tone, fingers tightening briefly against the edge of the paper. “Some of us don’t make every decision in under five seconds.”
“You decided already.”
“Maybe.”
“You did.”
A smile pulled at her mouth before she lowered the menu completely. “You know, most people don’t turn ordering dinner into an interrogation.”
“I haven’t started interrogating you yet.”
That earned a laugh, followed immediately by her reaching for her water. Viktor had noticed the pattern all evening — every time the conversation drifted toward something personal, she touched the glass. Every time she needed a moment, she took a sip.
The server arrived with their meals, a brief interruption. Josephine thanked him with an easy smile that came faster than any smile she’d given Viktor — polite, practiced, gone the instant the server walked away.
Interesting.
“What?” she asked.
He rested back in his chair. “Nothing.”
“That look means something.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re pretending not to analyze me.”
His mouth twitched. “You think very highly of yourself if you believe you’re the most interesting thing in this room.”
She narrowed her eyes. There it was again — the challenge, the pushback. Every conversation with her felt like testing a locked door just to see if it would open.
“That’s not a denial.”
“No.”
“See? Normal people deny things.”
“Normal people waste time.”
She shook her head and picked up her fork. “You must be exhausting to negotiate with.”
“I’ve been told worse.”
Josephine took a bite, buying herself time. Viktor watched her do it — not because he cared about the food, but because she did it every time he backed her into a corner. She answered questions. She just never answered the question being asked.
“You’ve been back in Georgia a few weeks now,” he said.
She nodded.
“And?”
“And what?”
“Has it been what you expected?”
She looked down at her plate. Not away — down. Another tell, one she fell into when she needed a second to think.
“It’s different,” she said finally.
“Different how?”
She shrugged. Another non-answer.
Viktor took a sip of his drink and let the silence stretch. She hated silence, like most people, and shifted in her chair after only a few seconds.
“You know,” she said, “I used to think Georgia felt small.”
“You used to travel constantly.”
“Yes.” The answer came quickly that time — a safe topic. Travel, ballet, work — anything that belonged to her career came easily. Anything personal turned slippery.
“Do you miss it?” Viktor asked.
“A little.” Honest, this time — he could tell because she didn’t dress it up, didn’t joke, didn’t deflect. She simply answered.
“A little,” he repeated.
She studied him. “You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Repeat things.”
“Sometimes people tell the truth accidentally.”
A quiet laugh escaped her. “You’re impossible.”
“Maybe.”
She pointed her fork at him. “See? Now you’re doing it — giving me my own answers back.”
Viktor looked at her hand around the fork. Her grip tightened whenever she got defensive; he’d seen it three times already. “You’re avoiding another question.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I answered your question.”
“No. You answered part of it.”
She leaned back — distance, another tactic. Not physical escape, just enough space to breathe. “Maybe I don’t want every conversation to feel like therapy.”
“Good. I hate therapy.”
The answer surprised a laugh out of her, and for a second she looked genuinely relaxed. Then she caught herself, and Viktor watched the change happen in real time — the laugh fading, the guard returning, the walls going back up.
“You notice too much,” she said quietly.
“Yes.” Most men would have softened it. He saw no reason to. She held his gaze, and neither looked away.
“You know that’s unsettling, right?”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you agree to dinner?”
Her breath caught — small, brief, almost invisible. She reached for her water again. There it was. The glass. Always the glass.
Viktor leaned back, one arm folded across the chair. “You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Touching the water every time you don’t want to answer.”
She froze with her fingers around the stem. The look on her face alone was worth the entire evening. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No.”
“You’ve been tracking my hydration habits?”
“I’ve been paying attention.”
She stared at him, then laughed again — longer this time. “That’s somehow worse.”
“Probably.”
“You admit that?”
“I admit a lot of things.”
The amusement in her smile faded gradually, not completely — just enough that the conversation slowed, neither of them rushing to fill the silence. She traced one finger along the base of the glass before setting it down.
“You really watch people that closely?”
“Not people.”
Her eyes lifted. The restaurant seemed quieter for a moment — not silent, just distant. She held his gaze. He held hers right back.
“That’s a dangerous answer,” she said.
“It wasn’t intended to be safe.”
For several seconds neither moved. She broke eye contact first, not dramatically, just enough — looked down and adjusted her fork even though it didn’t need adjusting. Another nervous gesture, another attempt to regain control. Viktor watched it happen and understood more than she meant him to.
She wasn’t afraid of him. Wasn’t afraid of dinner. Wasn’t even afraid of the attention — if anything, she liked it more than she wanted to admit. What unsettled her was the possibility of someone staying long enough to see through every distraction, every joke, every graceful change of subject.
She looked back up. “You’re staring again.”
“I know.”
The corner of her mouth curved despite herself, and Viktor felt the same pull he’d been fighting since she sat down across from him.
She challenged him, deflected him, dodged him — then looked at him like she wanted him to keep trying anyway.
And for the first time all evening, Viktor was certain of one thing: Josephine Collins wasn’t afraid of being pursued.
She was afraid of what happened if she stopped running.
* * *
Josephine stepped onto the river walk beside Viktor, coat folded over one arm, dinner still sitting too warm beneath her skin.
The restaurant lights faded behind them as they followed the paved path along the water, a few couples ahead of them, traffic staying low beyond the trees.
She’d suggested the walk because sitting across from him had started to feel too contained.
Moving made it easier to breathe — even with Viktor matching her pace with the same calm precision he brought to everything else.
He walked on the side closest to the street without mentioning it. She noticed anyway, glancing at him sideways. “Do you always position yourself like that, or is this part of your ongoing campaign to be difficult? I’m starting to think you do half of this on purpose.”
“Only half?” His expression stayed controlled, but his eyes held on her face a second longer than necessary. “If you object to where I’m walking, say so.”
“I object to the fact that I noticed.” She turned her attention to the water — slow, dark under the evening lights — and focused on the path instead of the man walking close enough to brush her sleeve. “You make small things feel deliberate.”
“They are deliberate.” He didn’t apologize for it, which irritated her more than denial would have. “You prefer pretending otherwise.”
She laughed under her breath, kept walking. “You really do not believe in letting a woman have a harmless illusion.” She shifted her coat to her other arm and felt his gaze follow the motion. “Most men would at least pretend they were being casual.”
“I have no interest in being most men.” His voice stayed even, but the words settled against her with quiet force. “And you have no interest in casual, no matter how often you reach for it.”
She should have snapped back immediately.
Instead she let several steps pass between them while a group moved by from the other direction.
When the path cleared, she looked ahead.
“Touring made casual easy. Every city had an expiration date, every hotel room a reason not to get comfortable.” She heard the honesty in her own voice and almost regretted it.
“You learn to keep things light when you’re always leaving. ”
Viktor didn’t answer right away, his pace steady beside her, giving her room to continue or stop without making either choice obvious.
That was worse, somehow. She’d expected him to press — he pressed everywhere else — but he only listened, and his silence made it harder to hide behind the version of herself people usually accepted.
“I liked parts of it,” she said, looking toward the water again. “The work, the discipline, the theaters, the feeling there was always another place to go.” She gave a short, dry laugh. “I know that sounds restless, but it made sense at the time.”
“It does not sound restless.” He kept his eyes ahead, refusing to soften the moment into something she couldn’t stand. “It sounds familiar to you.”
She glanced at him — not the response she’d expected. “You’re not going to tell me that sounds lonely? That seems like the obvious line.”
“I did not bring you here to say obvious things.” His shoulder brushed near hers as the path narrowed, and he adjusted just enough to avoid touching her. “If you want to call it lonely, you can.”