Chapter 3
Katriona
The dinner is a performance, and I am a very good performer.
I've been seated between a heavyset man in his fifties who smells of cigar smoke and sandalwood, and a younger man with nervous hands who keeps adjusting his napkin.
Neither of them interests me. Across the table, two other women are engaged in the delicate choreography of auction dinner flirtation, laughing at the right moments, touching their hair, leaning forward to display carefully calculated angles of collarbone and throat and cleavage.
I don't flirt. I eat my soup, slowly and carefully, because my stomach has been unpredictable all day, and the last thing I need is to excuse myself to be sick in the bathroom of a mansion owned by some Russian criminal aristocracy or another.
The women beside me are younger than I am.
Twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. They have the buffed, expensive look of girls raised for exactly this kind of night, hair blown out, nails perfect, every word chosen to show good breeding and an easy yes.
One of them is telling the man across from her about her charity work with such fake modesty that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something I’d regret.
I don't judge them. I can't afford to. Every woman in this room has a reason for being here, and none of those reasons are simple.
But I notice the way some of them avoid looking at each other.
The way they assess the competition with quick, darting glances before returning to their performances.
There is a loneliness in this room that cuts across every income bracket, the loneliness of women who have been taught to see each other as rivals rather than allies.
Liv, a woman I met earlier who was upset in the hallway, catches my eye from three seats down and gives me a small, nervous smile.
I smile back. It costs me nothing and it gives her something, and in a room that operates on the principle of extracting maximum value from every exchange, that small rebellion feels important.
The second course arrives. Seared duck with something involving figs. It looks beautiful, but the smell of it turns my stomach. I breathe through it without anyone noticing, the way I’ve been breathing through nausea in public for years.
I cut a small piece and eat it. It stays down. I cut another.
"You're quiet," says the older man beside me. His name is Petrov, and he has the thick hands and sharp eyes of someone who has been weighing value his entire life.
"I prefer to listen before I speak."
"A rare quality." He studies me. "Most of the women who come to these dinners are eager to impress."
"I'm not here to impress anyone, Mr. Petrov. I'm here to make an informed decision."
His eyebrows rise. Across the table, I feel another pair of eyes on me and I know, without looking up, that it's the second Mostovoi brother.
Akyl. I identified him the moment he entered the reception room.
Leaner than the older brother, sharper in the face, with the kind of stillness that makes the air around him feel colder.
He has been watching me all evening. I felt his attention settle on me in the hallway when Liv and I returned from fixing her makeup, and it hasn't moved since.
I let him watch. I have nothing to hide except the thing I'm always hiding, and I'm better at hiding it than he is at finding it.
After dinner, the room shifts into what the broker calls "informal introductions," which is a polite term for the part of the evening where men circulate among the women and decide which ones are worth conversing with, and negotiating with.
I stay by the fireplace. The heat helps.
The cramping has been steady for the past hour, a low, persistent ache that radiates from my pelvis into my lower back and down my thighs, and the warmth takes the edge off it just enough that I can keep from screaming.
The nervous younger man approaches me first. He introduces himself as Emil, tells me about his property development business, and asks what I do.
"I'm a temp," I say. "Administrative work. Data entry. Filing. The kind of work that makes rich men's businesses run while they attend dinner parties."
Emil blinks. He is not used to women at these events being honest about their circumstances. "That's... refreshingly direct."
"Directness is efficient. I assume your time is valuable, so let me be equally efficient with mine." I set down my water glass. "I have some questions, if you don't mind."
"Questions?"
"About the terms of the arrangement. I'd like to understand what's expected."
He looks confused, then intrigued. "What would you like to know?"
"Healthcare access. Would I have access to private medical care as part of the arrangement?"
"I... yes, of course. Standard provisions."
"Living arrangements. Would I maintain any degree of personal autonomy, or am I expected to be confined to a household?"
"That's rather a strong word. You'd live with your husband, naturally."
"And children. What are the expectations regarding timing?"
Emil shifts his weight. He's uncomfortable. Men at these dinners are accustomed to being pursued, charmed, performed for. They’re not accustomed to being interviewed.
"These are unusual questions for an auction dinner," he says.
"These are practical questions for a woman considering a permanent arrangement with a stranger. If the men at this dinner want wives rather than decorations, they should expect their potential wives to negotiate terms."
I say it calmly, in the even voice I’ve built up over years of fighting my own corner in doctors’ offices and benefits appointments and every other room where a woman in pain has to stay polite while she explains, for the hundredth time, that she isn’t making it up.
Emil excuses himself shortly afterward. The heavyset Petrov takes his place, and I ask him the same questions.
He answers with more confidence and less discomfort, because he’s older and understands that pragmatism is its own kind of attraction.
But I can tell he isn't the one. His eyes don't settle on me with any particular interest, and he moves on to the blonde beside the window after ten minutes.
I stand alone by the fireplace while the pain pulses and I press my hand against my side, quickly, two seconds of pressure before I release it and smooth my expression.
"You're asking the wrong questions."
The voice comes from my left, and I turn to find Akyl Mostovoi standing six feet away. He has approached without making a sound, which should be impossible for a man of his size, but he moves the way a predator would.
Up close, he’s sharper than his photographs. Hard angles, dark eyes under heavy brows, a jaw that looks built to intimidate. The navy suit fits him too well, the way good tailoring sits on a man when you can tell exactly what it’s covering.
"I'm asking exactly the right questions," I say. "I'm the only woman in this room asking any questions at all."
"You're asking about terms and provisions. Healthcare. Autonomy. Living arrangements." He tilts his head. "Those are contract questions. You're negotiating before you've selected a counterparty."
"I'm establishing minimum requirements. The counterparty is secondary to the conditions."
Something shifts in his expression. A fractional adjustment, so small I almost miss it. "That's an unusual approach."
"I'm an unusual candidate."
"I know." He says this with a certainty that tells me he's already read whatever file the broker assembled on me. "You're here because you need medical treatment you can't afford."
He says it without judgement or pity, and without the careful sympathy I've received from every doctor, clinical assessor and well-meaning friend who has ever told me they're so sorry and then done absolutely nothing to help.
"Yes," I say, and my voice doesn't crack, because I have had years of practice at keeping my voice from cracking.
"What's the condition?"
I could deflect and give him the sanitized version, the one I've been using at this dinner, about "health concerns" and "ongoing treatment." But this man already knows, and lying to someone who already knows the truth is a waste of energy I don't have.
"Severe endometriosis with adenomyosis. It's spread through my pelvic cavity. I need excision surgery from a specialist. The surgery is sixty-five thousand dollars and saving would take years, by which time the damage will likely be irreversible."
I watch him process this. His expression doesn't change, but something behind his eyes does.
"And you came here to trade marriage for treatment."
"I came here because I would like to live," I say.
"I'm not here for diamonds or status or the thrill of being chosen by a powerful man.
I'm here because my body is failing and the systems designed to help me have failed me too.
The only currency I have left is myself and even that will be rendered useless without this treatment. "
The silence between us is dense and heavy. Around us, the dinner continues. Crystal clinks. Voices murmur. The fire crackles behind me, and its warmth is the only thing keeping the pain from showing on my face.
"I have three conditions," I continue, because stopping now would be a weakness I don’t have time for. "I keep control of my own medical decisions. I am never hidden away or treated like an inconvenience. And whatever arrangement is made, I am treated as a wife, not property."
His chin lifts slightly. The movement is almost invisible. "Those are reasonable conditions."
"They're non-negotiable."
"I said reasonable. I didn't say negotiable." The corner of his mouth moves, and I realise with a small shock that Akyl Mostovoi is almost smiling. "I'll find you after the formal proceedings. Don't leave."
He turns and walks away. I watch him go and feel the strangest sensation underneath the cramping, nausea and exhaustion.
Hope. Fragile and unfamiliar and terrifying.
I crush it immediately. Hope is a luxury I abandoned three years ago, when the diagnosis came and the money didn't. When the world continued turning as though a woman slowly being consumed by her own body was not a matter of urgency.
I stand by the fire and wait while the pain hums through me like a current I learned to carry without letting it show.