Katerina
The plan is simple, which means it fails immediately.
I’m supposed to leave the washroom first, walk back to my seat with whatever dignity remains after letting a man I met hours ago ruin me at thirty thousand feet, then Roman will wait a minute or two before following.
Very civilized. Very discreet. Very not what happens.
Roman opens the door a careful inch, looks down the aisle, and pauses.
“What?” I whisper from behind him.
His shoulders shift. That’s not an answer.
I rise onto my toes and peer around his arm.
A man is standing directly outside the washroom.
He’s maybe sixty, deeply irritated, and holding a small leather toiletry bag with the kind of moral authority only a passenger waiting for an occupied airplane bathroom can possess. His gray eyebrows lift when he sees both of us packed inside the tiny space.
For one horrifying second, nobody says anything.
Then Roman, calm as ever, steps out as if finding two people in one aircraft lavatory is a perfectly normal logistical arrangement.
The passenger looks at him. Then at me. Then back at him.
“I was waiting,” the man says.
Roman inclines his head. “Clearly.”
My face burns so hot I’m surprised the smoke alarm doesn’t go off.
I try to slip past Roman, but the space is narrow, my skirt is still slightly twisted, and my hair is probably screaming the truth louder than my mouth ever could. I clutch my coat around me like that will help.
The passenger’s gaze drops to my shoes.
One of them is not fully on.
I want to open the emergency exit and throw myself out.
Roman notices, of course. Because the man notices everything. Without a flicker of embarrassment, he lowers himself slightly and fixes the back of my shoe with two fingers.
In front of the waiting passenger. In front of God. In front of the entire aviation industry.
I stare at the ceiling while my soul leaves my body.
“There,” Roman says.
The older man clears his throat. “Congratulations on the marriage.”
I choke.
Roman’s mouth twitches. “Thank you.”
The passenger steps into the washroom, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, “Young people.”
“Oh my God, does everyone think we’re married?” I say, shaking my head.
“From our actions, pretty much.” He has the audacity to smile. “He’s a practical man. He made an assumption.”
I clutch his sleeve because the plane shifts, not because I want to touch him. At least, That’s what I tell myself. “This is not funny.”
“No,” Roman says, looking down at me with eyes that are far too satisfied. “It’s tragic.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
I should be offended. I am offended.
Unfortunately, I also start laughing.
It comes out small and breathless at first, then I press my hand over my mouth to stop it because the cabin is dark and quiet and full of people who, apparently, believe I’m a shameless newlywed.
Roman watches me with an expression I cannot name. The amusement fades first. Something warmer takes its place, though he hides it quickly.
“Come,” he says. “Before you create another scandal.”
When we return to our suite, I stop so abruptly that Roman nearly walks into me.
The seats are gone.
Not gone, exactly. But transformed.
The flight attendants have made them into beds. Actual beds.
Two wide, soft, cream-covered beds stretched out side by side with pillows arranged neatly at the head and thick blankets folded back.
A small lamp glows between them, casting everything in honey-colored light.
My shoes have been placed carefully beneath the ottoman.
My half-finished tea has vanished. The food trays are gone too, replaced by a new arrangement that makes my heart leap in a way no sophisticated woman’s heart should leap over sugar.
Dessert. Several desserts.
There is a little chocolate cake glazed so smoothly it looks like polished marble, a bowl of berries, a dish of something pale and creamy with pistachios scattered on top, two tiny fruit tarts, and a plate of dark chocolates dusted in cocoa.
I turn to Roman. “You ordered dessert?”
“You were hungry.”
“I ate half the menu.”
“And still looked at the chocolate like it had personally saved your life.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, delighted despite everything. “This is obscene.”
“The bed or the cake?”
“Both.”
He removes his jacket and places it over the back of the suite door. I try not to watch the movement, the way his shirt pulls across his shoulders, the way the open collar reveals the strong line of his throat. This is difficult because I now know exactly what he looks like when his control breaks.
A dangerous thing, knowledge. A delicious thing too.
I pick up one of the chocolates and bite into it.
Hazelnut.
I make a sound I regret instantly. Roman looks over.
I point a warning finger at him. “Don’t say a word.”
“I was not going to.”
“You absolutely were.”
“I was going to say you have chocolate on your mouth,” he says, leaning over. “And I wonder what you sound like when you have my cock in your mouth.”
Oh my.
He steps closer, bends, and brushes his thumb against the corner of my lower lip.
It’s nothing. A tiny touch. A civilized touch.
But I’m wet again. Because oh God, I do want that massive cock of his again. And the thought of it in my mouth? Not so appalling.
His eyes hold mine for a second longer than necessary before he brings his thumb to his mouth and tastes the chocolate.
My throat goes dry.
“Hazelnut,” he says.
I look down at the dessert plate because if I keep looking at him, I may do something even the angry washroom passenger would not forgive.
Roman settles onto the edge of the bed beside mine, leaving a polite distance that feels ridiculous after what just happened. The beds are huge. The suite is large enough to pretend at privacy. Still, every movement seems to pull us toward each other.
My knee brushes his when I reach for the berries.
His shoulder grazes mine when he leans for the water.
His hand touches my wrist as he passes me a spoon.
Each contact is brief, almost accidental, and somehow more intimate than it should be.
I take a bite of the creamy pistachio dessert and glance at him. “Do you always fly like this?”
“When possible.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
“So mysterious.”
His mouth curves faintly. “You say that like you disapprove.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” I study him over my spoon. “You do not sound entirely Russian.”
He leans back against the pillows, one arm resting along the edge of the bed. “I grew up in the US.”
That surprises me. “Really?”
“For part of my life.”
“Where?”
“New York first. Then Boston. A few years in Chicago.”
“You say that as if you were being moved around like luggage.”
His eyes shift toward the window. Outside, the darkness presses against the glass, endless and soft. “At times, I was.”
There’s something in his voice that warns me not to push, which naturally makes me want to push.
For once in my life, I practice restraint.
“Did you like it?” I ask instead.
“The US?”
“Yes.”
He considers the question with more seriousness than I expect. “I liked the anonymity.”
“That sounds lonely.”
“It was useful.”
I lick chocolate from my finger and see his gaze drop before he can stop it.
The air changes again.
I pretend not to notice because if I do, neither of us will survive this conversation clothed.
“So,” I say, reaching for a fruit tart with far too much interest, “are you going to Moscow to visit family?”
His expression closes by a fraction.
It’s subtle. If I had not spent the last several hours studying him like a forbidden painting, I might have missed it.
“Something like that.”
I wait. He does not elaborate.
“You’re very generous with details.”
“You’re very hungry for them.”
“I’m curious.”
“Curiosity can be dangerous.”
“So can strange men who buy first-class tickets.”
“Yet here you are.”
I glance at the beds, the desserts, his open collar, the mouth that has been on mine and other places my body is still remembering in heated flashes. “Yes,” I say. “Here I am.”
For a few seconds, neither of us speaks.
Then he asks, “And you?”
I know what he means, but I buy myself time with another sip of water. “Me?”
“Why Moscow?”
The question should be simple. It’s not.
I look down at the plate in my lap. My appetite dims around the edges.
How much can I tell him?
The last thing I need is for him to hear Markov and start asking the kind of questions men like him probably know how to ask. Worse, he might recognize it. If he realizes I’m not only a runaway bride but the daughter of a mafia boss, he will look at me differently.
Or he will walk away.
I’m not ready to find out.
So I choose the version of the truth that’s safe enough to hand over.
“I was supposed to come with someone,” I say.
Roman does not move, but his attention deepens. “A fiancé?” The word lands badly.
“Yes.”
“And now you’re not.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
I laugh without humor. “He decided my stepsister was a better option.”
Roman’s face goes very still.
It should alarm me, how quickly the warmth drains from him. He does not look shocked. He looks... cold. As if somewhere inside him, a door has opened onto winter.
Then he says, very calmly, “The man is a fool.”
It’s not dramatic. It’s not said to flatter me. He says it like he’s stating the weather or naming something obvious that everyone else in the room has been too polite to mention.
I let out a small laugh. “You don’t know him.”
“I know he had you.” His eyes meet mine. “And yet decided to look elsewhere.”
Heat rises into my face before I can stop it. It’s ridiculous after what we have just done, after the way he touched me, after the way I let him, but somehow this feels more intimate. More dangerous. He’s not looking at my body now. He’s looking at the part of me that still feels discarded.
I look away first. “He would say it was complicated.”
“Men like him always do.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I have known many cowards.”