13. Taylor
TAYLOR
Mikhail Korolev is not good at ignoring me. He doesn’t come to my desk or call me into his office again. He doesn’t say my name in front of anyone in that low, warning voice that makes my body tingle or look at the hem of my skirt for too long.
But he watches. He finds reasons to pass through the outer office far more often than a governor should.
When I bring a stack of translated intake forms to the central desk, the top folder begins to slide, and he catches it as he passes, placing it safely back without so much as a glance my way.
When I drop a pen and it rolls into the aisle, the toe of his polished shoe stops it.
He bends, sets it on the corner of my desk, and walks away before I can thank him.
When the scanner jams, Dima leans around me and slaps the left panel with the flat of his hand. It immediately begins scanning again. “How did you know that would work?” I ask, laughing despite myself.
“It responds to authority,” he tells me.
Across from him, Viktoriya looks up from her computer. “No. It responds to clownery. That’s why it likes you.”
Dima presses a hand to his chest. “You think I’m funny?”
“I think you’re a performer.”
“As long as you’re watching.”
Their eyes hold for half a second too long before Viktoriya looks back at her screen with the corner of her mouth tilted upward. Dima looks pleased with himself.
I notice Mikhail reflected in my monitor, standing near the central desk and speaking to a department head while looking directly at Dima’s arm braced along the back of my chair. His expression doesn’t change.
I have a feeling people notice, but no one says anything.
When five o’clock rolls around, I don’t notice.
I’m staring at my computer screen until the words blur, trying to force a piece of administrative Russian into my vocabulary and going over its etymology in my head when Viktoriya says in English, “You are going to burn a hole in the monitor.” Her English accent is staccato, her voice hardened.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Was I glaring?”
“With passion.” She stands and comes around the desk, her purse hanging loosely from her wrist against her thigh. “This is good. The computer deserves hatred.”
“No, I was just trying to figure out what this word means.”
I point at the screen, and she bends over my shoulder to squint at it, her hazel eyes narrowing. “Ah, yes. That word means it is five o’clock and you should come get a drink with us.”
I glance at the clock and sigh. “I know, but I was late today, and I think—”
“I pronounce your punishment over, American,” Viktoriya says, swirling her hands over my head like she’s knighting me.
I drop my head into my hands. “No, I don’t think it should be. I’m pretty sure I also broke the scanner.”
“Oh, no, I did that months ago. It works if you kick the side.” She smiles slyly without showing her teeth and loops her arm through mine, tugging me up from my chair and closing my laptop. “Come. We all go out after work. You need a drink. I can tell.”
Dima looks over the top of his monitor. “She diagnosed me with the same condition yesterday.”
“You have it every day,” Viktoriya tells him.
“That sounds serious.”
“It is terminal.”
He smiles at her in a way that makes her look down at her purse to hide her own.
I do need a drink. And a friend. Anya and I are still bruised from this morning.
If I go straight home, I’ll sit on my bed and think about Mikhail calling me Miss Hayes like he doesn’t know the taste of my skin and then telling me I should have used what happened between us as leverage like I don’t know the taste of his.
If I don’t go straight home, I’ll still think about it, but at least I can do it with a drink in my system.
Half an hour later, the place Viktoriya takes me to isn’t like the bar I frequent with Anya and Petyr.
This one is louder and warmer and packed with young professionals spilling out of loosened work clothes and into the relief of being off the clock.
Music pulses beneath the conversations. Glasses clink.
Someone shouts over a table near the wall.
The vibe isn’t desperate. It’s fun. I’d almost forgotten what a fun vibe felt like.
Viktoriya orders for both of us, and I let her, deciding that following her has already gotten me this far. “You’ll like it,” she promises, handing me a drink. “Sweet, but not childish.”
“That feels targeted.”
“It is.”
I take a sip and find that her targeted attack is correct.
She pulls me by the elbow to a table full of people I was introduced to earlier.
She introduces me again, and I know I’ll forget their names again, but I smile and say hello and repeat their names in my head to try and commit them to memory anyway.
Katya, a blond woman about my age with blunt bangs and silver hoops in her ears. Alina, tall and dark-haired, wearing a burgundy shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows.
Dima gives me an exaggerated look of offense when Viktoriya introduces him a second time. “I sit beside her,” he says.
“She was distracted,” Viktoriya tells him, sliding into the seat directly across from his.
“I am memorable.”
“You are loud. Different thing.”
Dima watches her settle into her chair, his gaze lingering on her mouth when she brings her straw to it. She notices and nudges his shoe beneath the table. His smile is immediate.
They’re friendly in a cautious way. Curious but not rude. They ask about America, about my program, about whether Moscow is what I expected. I say yes because no seems too complicated. I don’t say that Moscow has been stranger, colder, more beautiful, and more personally destructive than expected.
When the others get up to dance to a song they all know that I’ve never heard in my life, like most of the songs played in Russian bars, Viktoriya sips from her straw and blinks her hazel eyes at me. She smiles, her teeth biting the straw, and says, “So.”
I sip my own drink and glance over at our dancing coworkers. “So?”
“You have made an impression on Governor Korolev. He was watching you all day.”
My stomach drops, and I nearly choke as heat crawls up my neck. “I think he watches everyone.”
Viktoriya laughs. “No. He sees everyone. Different thing. Oh, and speaking of the devil—”
The devil. I look behind me where she gestures with her chin. Over by the door, standing by himself, is Mikhail. He looks exactly as he did at the office: controlled, dark, expensive, and completely wrong for a place with sticky floors and neon signs.
He didn’t simply happen to choose this bar. Just like the night I met him, I get the feeling that men like Mikhail don’t happen anywhere.
My hand tightens around my glass, and I shrug. “So, he comes to these too, then?”
She takes another sip, watching him with open fascination. “He never comes out with us.” She tilts her head. “He is an enigma.”
“Maybe he already had plans,” I say, but Mikhail’s dark eyes find mine. Immediately. The room seems to narrow. I hate him for it. I hate that he can stand twenty feet away and make me feel like I’ve been touched.
I look away quickly, my cheeks hot, and Viktoriya lifts an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
“No. Not interesting.”
“You are a bad liar.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Then maybe become better. Or stop lying.”
I turn back to the bar too quickly. “He’s my boss.”
“Yes,” she says dryly. “This is what makes it interesting.”
Mikhail approaches from behind me. I know it in my bones. I feel him coming even though it’s much too loud to hear his footsteps. “Good evening,” he says, walking around the table. His brown eyes look at Viktoriya only long enough to say he did before flicking back to meet mine. “How are you both?”
“Fine, Governor Korolev,” Viktoriya says, a grin spreading across her face so wide her cheeks might split. “Happy you have decided to finally join us.”
“It has been a long day. I needed a drink.” Mikhail’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes as he pulls out the empty chair beside mine and sits at the table. His knee bumps mine, and a pulse jolts straight up my leg.
Everything in me wants to jump straight out of my seat. The music and lights around me, which seemed fun earlier, have turned into a suffocating blanket over my nose. Heat gathers between my thighs. Mikhail’s rings glint in the light as he loosens his tie by one brutal inch.
Viktoriya’s mouth opens slightly, and I realize for the first time that I might not be the only person in the office who realizes how attractive he is. “Do you want me to get you a drink, Governor Korolev?”
“You are not at work, Viktoriya. Relax.” He flashes a brief smile at her, then looks at me.
“Besides, that would usually be a job for an intern.” Heat swallows me whole, and Mikhail seems to notice because his mouth curves.
“But since you are off the clock as well, Miss Hayes, I will get it myself.”
Before he can say anything else, the others return from the dance floor in a wave of heat and laughter.
Katya drops into the chair beside Viktoriya and fans herself with both hands.
“Too hot,” she says, then notices Mikhail and freezes.
“Oh.” Dima stops behind her. Alina bumps into his back, then follows his gaze to our table.
For one second, everyone behaves like a teacher has walked into a classroom where the students were misbehaving.
Then Mikhail leans back in his chair like he hasn’t just ruined the natural order of their evening by existing in the wrong place. “Please,” he says. “Don’t stop on my account.”
No one moves. Viktoriya grins wider. “He means continue embarrassing yourself, Dima.”
Dima places a hand on his chest. “I never embarrass myself.”
“You dance like an uncle at a wedding,” Katya says.
Dima looks offended. “A cool uncle?”
“The drunk one.”