Chapter 19
VIKTOR
After she’s gone, I stand in the hallway for a moment and do nothing.
I can still hear her footsteps fading. I can still see her face when she asked me if this was a breakup. I could have said no. I could have softened it. I could have done any number of things that would have made the look in her eyes less hard to carry.
I didn’t.
So I let myself feel that for exactly three seconds, then I go looking for my son.
I find Ethan in one of the smaller sitting rooms off the main corridor. He’s half sprawled on the sofa, jacket off, shirt open at the throat, one forearm over his eyes like the world has personally wronged him. Alina is standing by the fireplace, still dressed, still upright, still furious.
She turns the second I walk in. “I want that girl out of the wedding,” she says.
I shut the door behind me and look at her. “Then the wedding won’t happen.”
Her eyes narrow at once. “Don’t start.”
“I’m not starting anything. I’m telling you the truth.”
Ethan shifts on the sofa but doesn’t sit up. Good. Let him stay where he is until he remembers how to behave like an adult.
Alina folds her arms. “She has already caused enough damage.”
“No,” I say. “Your son caused damage. Camille caused damage. Sienna has been cleaning up after both of them since she got here.”
“That is not how it looks.”
I almost laugh. “Since when have you been interested in how things look?”
She gives me a sharp, humorless smile. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Let’s not do this here,” I say.
That only annoys her further. “Of course,” she says. “Let’s never do anything here. Or there. Or anywhere uncomfortable. That has always been your preferred method.”
I look at her for a second and say nothing.
She hears her own tone, but she’s too angry to step back from it now. “You only ever cared for yourself,” she says.
I could answer that. I could answer it well. We both know the shape of our marriage. What I was. What she was. What we allowed each other to become because it was easier than honesty and more useful than affection.
But I have no interest in digging up the corpse of my marriage at nine in the morning while my son sleeps off whiskey on the sofa.
So I say nothing.
That, predictably, enrages her more. “Look at him,” she says, gesturing toward Ethan. “This is what your household does to people. Secrecy, control, silence, women moving in and out of rooms like we’re all supposed to pretend not to notice. And now this.”
I glance at Ethan. He’s no longer pretending to be fully unconscious. His arm has shifted just enough for me to know he’s listening.
Good. Let him hear his mother speak plainly for once.
Before I can answer, the door opens.
Maksim walks in without knocking, stops just inside, and takes in the room with one quick look. Me standing by the door. Alina by the fireplace. Ethan half-conscious on the sofa.
His mouth moves slightly. “Well. This looks healthy.”
Alina turns to him. “Do not.”
He lifts one hand. “I was only observing.”
I say, “Ethan got drunk.”
Maksim looks at my son. “I noticed.”
“He was saying stupid things in the hallway,” Alina says.
That almost gets Ethan to laugh, but he thinks better of it.
Alina exhales through her nose and looks away. “He’s meant to be getting married in a matter of hours.”
“Then perhaps he should stop drinking like a university student after his first breakup,” Maksim says.
Ethan sits up at that and glares at him. “I’m right here.”
“I’m aware,” Maksim says. “It’s what makes the drinking more disappointing.”
Alina lets out a breath that’s almost a laugh, though there’s no real amusement in it. “You’re late.”
Maksim gives her a look as he sets his bag down on the table by the door. “I was dealing with an actual emergency. Forgive me for not rushing back sooner to supervise this one.”
The ease of it catches my attention.
Not the words themselves. The tone. Light, practiced, almost domestic in the way old habits sometimes are between people who have known each other too long.
“You called him?” I ask Alina who looks flustered for a moment but recovers quickly.
“Well he’s practically our family doctor.”
“I’m flattered,” Maksim says drily.
Alina folds her arms, but there’s less heat in it now. “He’s drunk.”
Maksim glances at Ethan. “Yes. I can smell that from here.”
“You could try sounding less pleased about it,” she says.
“I’m not pleased,” he says. “Only unsurprised.”
Again, that same ease.
I watch them for a moment longer than I mean to. They were never especially close when we were married. Civil, yes. Comfortable enough in shared rooms. But not this. Not this shorthand. Not this sense that neither one of them needs to explain the edges of their mood to the other.
The thought comes and goes. I’m too tired to follow it anywhere useful.
Maksim walks over to Ethan and looks down at him. “Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then do that and go throw water on your face.”
Ethan doesn’t move.
Maksim looks at him for another second. “Or don’t. But if you’re still on this sofa in ten minutes, I’ll be tempted to treat you as a patient, and neither of us wants that.”
That gets him up.
Slowly. Unhappily. But up.
Ethan stands with a muttered curse and presses a hand to the back of his neck. He looks like hell. Not tragic hell. Self-inflicted hell. The sort I’m too old to find interesting.
Alina watches him and says, more quietly now, “You need to sober up.”
He doesn’t answer her.
He doesn’t answer me either when I tell him, “You will not speak to Sienna again today.” Or ever. But I don’t say that part out loud.
His head comes up at that, some flicker of resistance surfacing again. “Father—”
“No.”
He closes his mouth.
Good.
Maksim steps aside and nods toward the door. “Go.”
This time Ethan goes.
Alina smooths a hand over the front of her dress and steps back from the chair. “I have a few things to take care of,” she says.
It’s aimed at both of us, but she’s looking at me when she says it. Not warm. Not cold either. Just controlled in the way she gets when she’s angry and refusing to show how much.
I nod once. “Of course.”
She looks at Maksim. “Make sure he drinks the coffee this time.”
Maksim lifts his cup slightly. “I’m a doctor, not a nurse.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
For the first time that morning, something almost like amusement passes between them. Brief. Familiar. Too easy.
Then Alina leaves.
The door closes behind her, and for a second the room is quiet except for the soft clink of Maksim setting his cup down.
Then he looks at me and says, “What was that about?”
I know what he means.
Not Ethan. Not the wedding. Not even Alina’s temper.
The whole thing.
My friend knows me too well.
He looks at me over his coffee and says, “Start from the beginning, because I’m clearly missing half the story.”
I lean back in the chair and look toward the bathroom door Ethan disappeared behind a minute ago. “You are.”
Maksim waits.
I say, “I met her on a flight.”
He blinks once. “A flight.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds promising already.”
“It wasn’t meant to be anything.”
“That’s usually when it becomes something.”
I ignore that.
“There was a mix-up with boarding passes,” I say. “She ended up in business by accident. First time flying. Nervous. Trying very hard not to show it.”
Maksim says nothing, but I can already see where his mind is going.
“I moved her into a private cabin,” I say.
“Of course you did.”
“She was panicking.”
“I’m sure that was your only motive.”
I give him a look.
He lifts one hand. “Fine. Continue.”
“We spent the flight together.”
“And slept together.”
“Yes.”
Maksim exhales softly through his nose. “You really do make efficient use of travel.”
I continue before he can irritate me further. “I never got her full name. When we landed, she was gone before I could find her again.”
“And then she turns up here.”
“Yes.”
“At your son’s wedding.”
“Yes.”
That finally gets the full weight of his attention.
He sets the cup down. “That part you might have led with.”
“I’m getting there.”
He gestures for me to go on.
“When she arrived, she was the replacement planner. Her friend had a family emergency. Sienna took the job at the last minute.” I pause. “Neither of them knew I knew her. I didn’t know she knew Ethan.”
Maksim is quiet now. No teasing. Just listening.
“At the rehearsal dinner, he and Camille humiliated her in front of everyone,” I say. “I stepped in. That was the first time she realized who I was. Or rather, who I was to him.”
“And that was a surprise.”
“Yes.”
“For both of you?”
“Yes.”
He leans back. “Go on.”
“She followed me out later. We spoke. Then everything else started surfacing a little at a time. Ethan’s history with her. She said she just knew him a little. The pregnancy. The fact that she was hiding it. The fact that he was still trying to get under her skin.”
Maksim watches my face and says, “And when did you find out she’d been with Ethan?”
“At the rehearsal dinner, I suspected something.” I let out a breath. “And I just found out the entire truth this morning after Ethan got drunk.”
Maksim whistles under his breath. Then he says, “Father and son. That’s fucked up even for you.”
I almost smile. Almost. “It wasn’t exactly planned.”
“No,” he says dryly. “That would somehow be worse.”
The bathroom door opens. Ethan comes out looking like a man who has not improved in the last five minutes. He’s paler now, face damp, hair pushed back with wet hands, but the anger is still there. Worse, maybe. Less sloppy now. More settled.
I look at him and say, “Go to my room. Sleep it off there. You’re not to be seen downstairs until I say so.”
He stares at me. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Maksim, from beside the fireplace, says, “It’s good advice. Which means you’ll probably ignore it.”
Ethan doesn’t even look at him. His eyes stay on me.