Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Hazel
L ily practically vibrates beside me as we walk hand in hand down the long stone corridor toward the great dining room.
She has not stopped grinning since I told her she was going to have dinner with her papa tonight.
She wears a dark green dress with a lace collar.
Her hair is in a tiny bun on top of her head, just like the grownups.
And she carries Max in the crook of her elbow, because some things cannot be left behind for big-girl dinner, apparently.
Meanwhile, I am wearing my only nice dress.
It is a white summer dress with an elegant green leaf print, midi-length, cap sleeves and it falls below the knee.
It is modest, but it isform-fitting through the bodice , and it brings out the green in my eyes.
I am also wearing my nicest flats, because I did not pack heels.
And yes, I’m wearing more makeup than normal, and I sprayed a tiny bit of my favorite perfume.
I hope he notices the fact that this dress makes my waist look small.
Oh jeez. Stop it, Hazel. Stop it. This is not a date. This is dinner with your boss and his daughter as part of your job. That is all. That is all.
But then why did he basically ask if I had a boyfriend?
And did I, or did I not, see an unmistakable hard line in his trousers when he was standing on the other side of his desk in his study? Am I imagining things, or is this Krovenian seriously attracted to me?
Does he feel like I do?
Because if that’s true, then this whole job just got ten thousand times more complicated.
Not only do I have to pretend I am not attracted to my employer — I have to ignore the fact that he feels the same way about me.
Because nothing has actually changed. I still cannot act on this attraction.
He is my boss. The Bellamy Group has a no-fraternization clause.
If I break it, I lose everything. My job, my completion bonus, my reference, my reputation, my future.
And what if he decides he doesn’t like me one day and fires me on a whim?
And most importantly — most importantly — I cannot do that to Lily.
I cannot be the nanny who is also sleeping with her dad.
I cannot blur those lines on a four-year-old who has already lost her mother and is hanging on to me with both small, cool hands.
The ethics of the situation are killing me.
I would hate myself. I should hate myself for even thinking this way.
I am here to do a job and I am going to do the job to the best of my ability.
Behave, Novak.
Behave.
Lily looks up at me. “You look pretty.”
“Oh, Thank you, sweetie. And you look pretty too.”
She squeezes my hand.
We reach the doorway of the great dining room. An elegantly dressed Krovenian staff member opens the door for us.
I stop breathing.
The room is transformed.
Candles everywhere. Tall ivory tapers running the length of the long table, candelabras on the sideboards, sconces flickering against the stone walls.
The huge stone hearth at the far end of the room has a fire crackling low.
The ancient table has been set at one end with only three places, close together at the head, the way you would set a table for a small intimate family meal.
White linen. Crystal glasses. Silver. A small bouquet of late-summer wildflowers in the middle, soft and unfussy.
The House Draven crest carved into the wood-paneled wall behind the head of the table looks down on the whole tableau like a quiet witness.
Two formally-liveried servants stand at attention against the sideboards.
Madam Petrova hovers near the doorway, perfectly composed, hands folded in front of her, watching everything.
Lily lets out the tiniest ohhhhh of wonder.
I echo her, silently.
And then it hits me, with a slow rolling thud. I am going to eat candlelit formal dinners in a medieval vampire hall with a crown prince and his four-year-old daughter every single night for a full year. What the actual hell have I gotten myself into.
And then I see him.
Viktor stands by the fireplace. One huge hand resting on the mantel. He wears dark trousers, a fresh dark shirt, the cuffs rolled to mid-forearm, top button still open. His thick hair is loose tonight, falling around his sharp jaw, slightly damp at the ends like he came straight from a shower.
He looks like the kind of Krovenian humans whisper about in horror stories.
The firelight catches the points of his fangs when his lips part slightly at the sight of his daughter. He looks dangerous, like he could take down a room of armed men without breaking a sweat.
To literally anyone else in the world, he must look terrifying.
To me, he takes my breath away.
He sees us in the doorway and pushes off the mantel and crosses the room, then bends to one knee in front of Lily. “You look very fine tonight,Lily . ”
“I have lip gloss.”
He grins. His eyes flick up to mine. They linger. “Hazel was very kind to let you.” He stands back up and eyes do not leave my face. Then, slowly, deliberately, they drift down over my entire body and back up to my eyes.
Butterflies take flight in my belly.
“You look beautiful.”
“Thank you. So do you…I mean, you look…nice…you also look. Jeez. I’ll stop talking now.”
The corner of his mouth twitches.
I find myself wishing the ground would crack open and swallow me whole.
Lily, oblivious to the small structural collapse happening inside my body, pulls us both toward the table.
The head porter is waiting to seat us. He approaches me with the kind of polite expression that says I have a job to do. He gestures toward the far end of the long mahogany table — about thirty feet away from where Viktor and Lily are about to sit.
I automatically take a step in that direction.
“No.” Viktor’s voice cuts across the room. Sharp. Final.
The porter freezes mid-step.
“She sits beside me,” Viktor orders.
I blink.
“Tradition dictates that the three of us should be spread across thirty feet of mahogany so that we may shout pleasantries at one another through five courses. I have already decided we are breaking tradition tonight. If we are breaking it, we will break it well. You both sit beside me.”
I hear a small choking sound from Madam Petrova that might be a laugh.
The porter’s eyes widen but he recovers his composure with a speed that suggests this is not the first impossible thing he has been asked to do in this household tonight. He rearranges both of our place settings at lightning speed.
I walk to my new seat with my cheeks on fire.
The staff is going to be gossiping about this for weeks.
I sit down.
Viktor’s knee is six inches from mine under the table. I take a long, slow breath through my nose.
Behave, Novak.
The next surprise is when I look down at my place setting and discover that I havefive forks.
Beside me, Lily, in her tiny chair on Viktor’s other side, also stares down at her own array of forks. Her tiny brow furrows. She reaches one small hand out and touches one of the smaller forks experimentally, like she is trying to see if it will tell her what it is for.
Viktor catches the look on both of our faces. “Do not worry,” he offers, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I will teach you both how to correctly use the utensils.”
He picks up the outermost fork and holds it up. “You begin with this one. The outermost, first. Then work inward as the courses are served.”
“There are five, ” I say.
“Because there will be five courses.”
“Oh wow,” I whisper.
The first course is served by a silent porter. We are each served a delicate summer soup with a tiny herbed roll on a small plate beside it.
Lily eyes her soup with deep suspicion.
“Try one bite,” Viktor tell her.“If you do not like it, I will ask the kitchen for something else.”
Lily considers. She picks up her smallest spoon and dips it carefully into the soup. She lifts the spoon to her mouth. She takes one tiny, tentative bite.
She considers, then announces, with the dignity of a small queen, “It’s good.”
I almost cry at all the talking she’s been doing already this evening. It’s the most she’s talked since I arrived.
The conversation begins gently after that.
Viktor asks Lily about her day. About her morning lessons.
She responds to all of his questions. Viktor is enraptured.
He is sitting at his own dining table, listening to his daughter speak in full sentences, with light in her eyes, in a way I suspect he has not heard since her mother died.
Then the main course arrives. It’s a roast with herbs and a small bowl of dark tart sauce on the side, served on warm plates. The smell of it floats up and makes my mouth water before I have even picked up the correct fork.
“Where did you grow up, Hazel?” Viktor suddenly asks me.
I pause, mid-bite. The personal question catches me off guard. I take a sip of my wine for courage, then answer, “Was born and raised in a small town in Ohio. It was a nice place to live, the kind of place where you knew everyone.”
His eyes are on my face. “And your family?”
“Oh,” I begin to babble. “I grew up there with my parents and my older brother. But my mom died when I was about Lily’s age, of cancer.
None of us live in that town I grew up in anymore though, sadly.
Nowadays my brother lives in Cleveland and my dad, weirdly, is working in Dubai of all places.
He’s a lawyer and so is my brother.” I smile up at him.
“They both think I’m crazy for going into Early Childhood, instead of Law School. ”
“I’m sorry that you lost your mother so young. Tell me,” he says, “why did you choose Early Childhood Education?”
The question is so simple I do not have a polished answer for it. I think for a moment and then tell him the plain truth. “Because I like having a job where I can spend each day thinking about how I can make a difference in the life of a child and then acting that out.”