Chapter Seven
KATERINA
The moment his mouth touches mine, the world tilts.
There is no rooftop and no skyline.
No cameras at the end of the aisle recording every angle for immigration and grandmothers, and mothers watching from Montana.
There is only heat and the soft, careful press of Scottie’s lips against mine.
He kisses me like he’s afraid to break me—gentle, tentative at first, all restraint and good intentions—but the effect is anything but gentle. The impact lands low in my belly, tingles of butterfly wings, building into a shockwave that radiates outward, stealing the air from my lungs.
His hands settle at my waist, large and warm even through the layers of satin and boning, fingers splayed wide like he’s anchoring me there. Or anchoring himself. I can’t tell which.
My fingers are stiff where they’re draped over his shoulders as I try to keep myself steady.
Before I can think better of it, they drift upward, over the collar of his tux, until my fingers touch the heat of his skin, and the sharp lines of his jaw, until I realize I’m cradling his face closer to mine.
I don’t know if I mean to hold him here, but I am.
My body decides for me. I don’t pull away.
A tiny sound slips out of me—more breath than voice, a soft, startled exhale that brushes his mouth.
He inhales as if it hits him straight in the chest.
The kiss deepens—not much, just enough.
This is supposed to be pretend—a performance and a necessary illusion to keep me in the US—but this kiss is completely unexpected—the ring was unexpected, he…was unexpected.
But there’s nothing performative about the way my pulse is hammering, or the way my knees feel unsteady, or the way his fingers flex against my waist like he’s holding on tighter.
For a suspended second, it’s just us.
No family. No papers waiting to be signed. No threats on the other side of the ocean. No rooftop full of teammates and a world that I still don’t understand but seems to be pulling me in with every day I’ve spent in Seattle.
Only, I need to keep my head about myself.
Scottie and I still don’t know each other.
We’re far from a love match, and this wedding is still temporary.
Stunning ring and all, this marriage has an expiration date as soon as my grandmother forces my father to relent in dragging me back to Russia to be married to whoever pushes my father’s narrative.
Luka clears his throat.
Loudly.
The sound cracks through the haze like a gunshot. I jolt. My fingers release Scottie’s jaw and settle against the lapels of his tux instead. His hands tighten reflexively, dragging me infinitely closer before he seems to realize it.
He pulls back slowly, as if he’s fighting his own muscles.
His lips brush mine one last time on the way out—an accidental ghost of a touch that feels more like a promise than a mistake.
He’s so close I can see the darker ring around his irises, the way his pupils are blown wide. His forehead is nearly touching mine, his breath catching in shallow bursts that match my own. There’s a stunned, dazed look on his face, as if whatever just passed between us wasn’t in the script either.
My lips tingle. My cheeks burn. I am acutely aware of every place we’re touching—the span of his palms, the brush of his chest against the bodice of my dress, the heat of his thighs where our bodies almost, almost line up.
I don’t think about pulling away. Instead, I’m thinking about how it would feel if he did it again.
The rooftop snaps back into focus. There’s cheering, loud applause, and someone whistles a catcall that makes my cheeks heat up to an inferno. I hear Peyton squeal, “Did you see that?” in a voice that carries embarrassingly well.
I’m used to living for the applause of a well-rehearsed performance, but this wasn’t that.
This was an unscripted and completely unexpected moment with a stranger…
whose huge diamond now encircles my finger like a claim.
Something I was worried about when my father was trying to marry me off to the Russian politician, but now that the claim is coming from Scottie, I’m surprised at how freeing that feels.
Juliet makes a delighted little noise that sounds suspiciously like, “That’ll play great on video,” and for one wild second, I want to laugh and hide and do it all over again.
Coach Haynes clears his throat, his warm, booming voice cutting through the chaos.
“By the power vested in me by the great state of Washington… and the internet,” he says, making a few people chuckle, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Husband and wife.
The words land like a physical thing in the space between us, tying us together.
They’re meant to be a formality. A legal device. A shield forged out of paperwork and witnesses and vows no one expects us to keep past the necessary timeline.
But with Scottie’s hands still at my waist and the taste of his mouth still on my lips, they suddenly don’t feel formal at all.
They feel like a door closing softly behind a one-way ticket to Russia and a new, temporary life in Seattle.
Coach smiles, eyes twinkling. “Friends, family, teammates… I give you Mr. and Mrs. Easton.”
The crowd erupts.
Mr. and Mrs. Easton.
The name curls around me, unfamiliar yet somehow… soft. Not Popovich. Not Volkov. Easton. A name that doesn’t carry a trail of blood, dirty money, and purchased or forced respect through every room it enters.
Scottie’s fingers slide down from my waist, trailing over the flare of my skirt until they find my hand. For an instant, our palms hover a breath apart. There’s a choice there—one last fissure where I could pull back, remind myself this is temporary, transactional, something to endure, not inhabit.
I don’t move.
I let my hand fall into his.
His fingers close around mine, strong and sure, and the edges of the world blur.
We turn, and Scottie hoists our joined hands in the air like a victory.
The DJ starts playing something soft and bright.
People stand. Irina is crying openly at my side as she hands me back my bouquet to walk back down the aisle, pressing a handkerchief to her face.
Flash photography from the photographer Juliet hired snaps wildly, but I can’t quite figure out where she’s taking them from.
Luka looks somewhere between satisfied and deeply, deeply distressed from that kiss.
The guys are grinning, nudging each other.
The WAGs are glowing, eyes shiny with wide smiles.
We take our first step down the aisle together.
The soft fabric of my skirt slides over the white runner as Scottie walks me down the short aisle.
The breeze lifts my veil, tugging it lightly behind me.
The sun catches on the three and a half carat diamond on my finger, scattering light across the bouquet of tulips I’m still clutching, turning it into a spray of glittering sparks.
I can’t stop looking at the ring.
It pulls at me, heavy and insistent, a physical reminder of a choice I never expected him to make.
I wasn’t expecting a diamond at all. A band, maybe. Something discreet we could return to a jeweler or tuck into a drawer once this is over. Not this ridiculous, breathtaking thing that catches the light and announces itself from a hundred paces.
It’s expensive, over the top, meant to impress—something Maxim would probably have given me as a sign of control or to show off a press release for his run in office.
Except it doesn’t feel like a weapon in Scottie’s hands.
It feels like a gift. I hear his voice in my head, low and earnest at the arch:
I wanted you to have something nice. The one thing that’s real in this whole agreement.
I curl my fingers slightly, feeling the cool bite of the metal against my skin.
The camera at the end of the aisle records every step we take toward it.
Evidence to send to my grandmother. Proof for the immigration officer.
Something his mother will one day sit down and watch from a few hundred miles away and wonder what kind of woman her son has married and why she wasn’t there.
Guilt pinches low in my stomach. Luka tricked Scottie into this… in a way. A bet that Scottie never thought he’d actually have to pay.
Beside me, Scottie squeezes my hand, just once.
I glance up.
He’s watching the path in front of us, jaw set, a little muscle ticking there like the weight of what he’s doing has finally settled fully on his shoulders. But he feels my eyes and looks down, the tension softening.
“You okay?” he whispers, just for me.
No. Yes. Absolutely not. But… somehow I am.
“Yes,” I lie, because I don’t know how to explain that in this moment, with his hand wrapped around mine and thirty people cheering for us and the city stretching out in every direction, I feel more like myself than I have in years.
His thumb strokes over the back of my hand, light and unthinking. A simple touch sends a shiver up my arm.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I’m glad it’s you.”
I swallow.
He couldn’t mean that. Not really. He barely knows me. But the way he says it, like it’s simply true. No embellishment and no angle—the way I’m starting to realize is just the kind of person Scottie is.
The kind of man who doesn’t go back on a bet to a friend, who won’t let my brother pay for the penthouse that we’ll be living in until this is all over, who said that if Luka had just told him the truth, he would have agreed anyway to help me.
And when every single one of the women in the group has all told me some version of “Scottie’s a good guy”, I’m starting to believe that he’s even better than they say.