Chapter 1 #2
Konstantin draws out my chair and settles one hand at the narrowest part of my back as I pass.
The touch is permitted. Agreed to. It still catches low in my belly when his palm spans the green fabric with that much calm possession.
Warmth comes through the knit, traveling toward the base of my spine. I sit before it can affect my balance.
"You're good at this," I say.
He takes the chair beside mine rather than the one across from me, close enough that cedar slips into every breath. "I have attended dinner before."
"Is that what we're calling this?"
"For the next nine minutes."
A waiter fills a clean glass for me. I lift it without drinking as Konstantin's fingers settle lightly around my wrist, his thumb finding my pulse so he knows exactly how fast it's going. When he strokes once, the shiver travels along the tender inside of my forearm.
Conversation around us drops so suddenly that I look toward the entrance arch.
An older man stands under it, iron-gray hair combed straight back from a heavy face.
Beside him waits a young woman in ivory silk, her posture flawless except for the hand closed hard around the clasp of her small gold bag.
I know that grip. I see it in my chair every day of the week.
Whatever she feels about Konstantin, she has dressed it beautifully.
Two men remain behind them, one watching the doors while the other reads the tables.
Konstantin gets to his feet, his hand returning to my back, and every face near the entrance turns toward us. I rise beside him and register, about a second too late, that I agreed to ten minutes without asking what sort of family conducts a courtship under guard.
The older man crosses the room looking as though my presence has already offended him. I've met his type in cheaper suits.
"You brought someone," he says.
"I did." Konstantin sets me half a step in front of him, his hand at my waist where everyone can see it, leaving me to decide whether the arrangement makes me cherished or displayed.
"This is Nora."
I've got his first name and nothing else. He gives the newcomers my name as though it has always belonged here among the crystal.
The woman in ivory studies me. Relief loosens her fingers from the bag until her father turns his head. She closes them again. The small movement confirms the only part of Konstantin's story that matters to me.
"Your family said you were unattached," the older man says.
"My family speaks too freely."
"A girlfriend can be dismissed."
Konstantin's hand warms my side. "She won't be dismissed."
The older man's gaze travels over me without bothering with courtesy. I know that look. I get it from patients who decide a woman in scrubs is too young to be explaining inflammation to them. So I smile at him.
"You doubt him." The fingers at my waist press once, and the signal goes all the way down my spine.
"I doubt performances," he replies.
So do I. Mine has already become dangerously enjoyable.
Konstantin turns me toward him. His eyes drop to my mouth and come back. He doesn't move any closer. My hand stays exactly where it is instead of tapping his wrist.
I lift my face to him.
His hand leaves my waist for the back of my neck, broad fingers curving beneath the escaped lock of hair. He bends slowly through deepening cedar until his breath reaches my mouth.
Then he kisses me.
The first press is firm, almost courteous, yet I feel the shape of his mouth with startling clarity. His lower lip drags softly over mine, all that pressure held in reserve inside a clean little lie he could end before either of us forgets there's an audience.
I catch his lip between mine.
Konstantin goes still for one beat. Then his hand tightens at my neck while his mouth opens over mine.
The kiss deepens without ever losing its patience.
His thumb strokes under my ear. My fingers find the smooth wool of his lapel, closing around it.
When his tongue touches mine, my nipples tighten under the soft knit.
A heavy pulse builds between my thighs, fed by the pleasure of being held as though he has wanted this a great deal longer than five minutes.
When he lifts his head, I have to reconstruct from scratch why we are standing here. His pupils have widened, leaving the gray a pale rim, and my lipstick has left its mark on his mouth. A disreputable part of me is delighted by the sight.
The older man watched all of it without moving. I dislike him on principle.
"A mistress proves appetite," he says. "My daughter's honor requires more."
The woman in ivory turns her head sharply toward her father, and I can't tell whether the anger is for herself or for me.
Konstantin keeps his hand at my neck. "What do you require?"
"Name the woman you intend to marry. Give your family's word before witnesses. Then my daughter may withdraw without insult."
My hand comes off his lapel. Heat drains from my face while the room turns cold around me.
None of this was mentioned at my table.
I turn to look at him. He holds my eyes. The dining room goes so quiet that I hear a spoon touch a saucer several tables away.
"Nora is the woman I intend to marry," he says.
My mouth opens. The breath behind it has forgotten what words are for.
The woman in ivory takes the exit Konstantin promised her without hesitating for a second. "Then I wish you happiness."
Her father looks at Konstantin with such open hostility that the elegant dining room suddenly feels flimsy and unsafe. At the edge of my vision, the broad man reaches inside his coat.
I step out of Konstantin's hand. "You intend to what?"
The first shot arrives as a crack far too violent to be a dropped plate.
I flinch. A crystal sconce bursts above the older man. The flash goes through the candlelight, taking my sight with it. Somewhere inside the glare a woman screams while the servers drop behind tables in their white jackets.
Konstantin is already moving. His arm closes around my waist and wrenches me backward against his chest. A second shot punches through the window beside us. Cold pours through the broken pane with the snow, carrying the bitter smell of burned powder.
"Down." He takes me with him to the floor.
Stone slams into my hip. My teeth close on my tongue until copper coats my mouth. For one bewildered instant, my brain hands me Grandma's last instruction in her brisk little text.
Then order dessert.
Above us, wine soaks through the linen and spills over the edge in a dark red sheet.
The gunfire batters the room from more than one direction now, so relentless I can't get a whole breath in.
Plates break near the entrance. Men shout.
The woman in ivory crawls behind the stone base of a serving station.
I try to lift my head. Konstantin's palm closes over the back of my skull and puts it down. A bullet tears through the chair I had been standing beside and throws wood across my bare shoulder.
The ruined seat makes the danger real. Someone in this room is trying to kill the people at this table.
And a minute ago, in front of witnesses, I was claimed as one of them.
Konstantin drops over my back, one thigh braced beside each of mine.
His chest covers my shoulders, with his forearm shielding my head.
Beneath the table his heat surrounds me.
The floor shudders with running feet. His heart slams against my spine, hard and fast. That frightens me more than the noise.
"Stay under me," he says against my ear.
Above us, the table comes apart.