15. Taylor
TAYLOR
By noon the next day, I have decided three things.
One, I cannot keep up with my Russian coworkers when they drink. Two, Mikhail has no intention of staying away from me. And three, Viktoriya knows it.
I have not yet decided that Nikolai won’t be calling me, but it does feel like a possibility. It’s only the next day, but I didn’t think he was the type to play games.
I stare at my phone as Viktoriya and I sit in our small break room. She waves a pirozhok under my nose, and I groan. “If I eat anything, I swear I’ll throw up.”
She shakes her red hair and coaxes in English, “No, no. It is good for a hangover. Bite.”
I sigh and take a bite. She nods for me to take the pastry from her, so I do reluctantly.
Mikhail pulls up a chair but doesn’t sit. I stop chewing and look up at him, his broad frame towering over me. He smiles, a sly smile that tells me he is all too aware of the effect he has on me. “How did the rest of your evening go?”
“Fine,” I say nonchalantly, picking at the pirozhok in my hand. Viktoriya nudges me under the table with her knee, and I knock hers back with mine.
“Did your prince call?”
I stop chewing. He waits. I swallow slowly. “Who?”
“I think he means Nikolai,” Viktoriya says with an instigating smile.
I go back to chewing. “No.”
His expression doesn’t change, but satisfaction passes through him anyway. I feel it. I see it in the slight relaxation of his shoulders, the tiny shift of his eyes. He smirks. “Better luck next time.”
My face burns. I put the pirozhok down because if I keep holding it, I might throw it at him. I stand, gathering my trash. “Right. Great talk.”
“Before you go.” He drops a stack of papers onto the table in front of me. It’s so thick, and the table is so shoddy, that the entire thing shudders. “I need you to look over this correspondence and return it to me after lunch.”
“Interns never handle correspondence,” Viktoriya blurts, then covers her mouth quickly when both Mikhail and I turn to stare at her.
I blink rapidly. “What is this?”
“A draft response to one of the international donors attending the regional education forum next week. I want your notes on the English phrasing. I need to know if it sounds…”
I read the first paragraph while he talks. It’s full of language about educational partnerships, economic cooperation, media optics, and public trust. I look up at him and raise my eyebrows. “You want to know if it sounds dishonest.”
He smiles flatly and points a thick finger at me. “Yes. Exactly.”
Viktoriya looks between us, failing to hide how entertained she is.
“Why is the Ministry of Education sending donor correspondence through your office?” I ask.
“Because Minister Dobrovaa and half her senior staff are working from this floor all week while we finalize the forum. You may have noticed the additional people.”
“I thought your office was just always full of terrifying women carrying folders.”
“Only during working hours.”
Viktoriya snorts into her coffee.
Mikhail taps the papers. “After lunch.”
I leave the break room before I can say something that gets me deported and before Viktoriya says something that makes me strangle her.
By Wednesday, I’m beginning to lose hope that Nikolai will ever call me and that I’ll ever have a shot at anything normal here.
I hadn’t even known if I wanted him to call.
If I really wanted that, I could have gone out with Petyr.
But I wanted the option. I keep checking my phone like I might will a notification into existence, and I’m staring at it when Olga Dobrovaa stops beside my desk.
She has been on our floor since Monday, moving between Mikhail’s office and the large conference room with the assured impatience of someone who has no intention of waiting for doors to be opened for her.
Today she is dressed in dark blue, her hair pinned neatly away from her face, a tablet held against her chest. “Governor Korolev wants you in the conference room,” she says.
I stare at her. “Why?”
“He did not invite me into his mind.”
Viktoriya coughs into her coffee.
Olga’s gaze shifts to her. Viktoriya studies her monitor with sudden, passionate interest.
The conference room is already full when I arrive. Men in suits. Two women with tablets. Olga seated halfway down the table beside a stack of forum schedules. Mikhail at the head, his expression unreadable, a pen turning slowly between his fingers.
Everyone looks at me. I stop just inside the door, and Mikhail gestures toward the table. “Sit.”
There is one empty chair. It is next to him. Of course it is.
I sit. For the next forty minutes, I take notes on a meeting I probably shouldn’t be attending. They discuss the public response to the education initiative, teacher recruitment, foreign funding, and an upcoming speech that apparently needs to sound “more human” without becoming “less disciplined.”
Olga argues that Mikhail’s remarks should lead with teacher salaries. One of the communications advisers wants to begin with infrastructure spending. Mikhail listens to both of them, says almost nothing, then asks me which one sounds more convincing in English.
The room goes quiet. I glance at Olga. She watches me with a calm expression that does nothing to reassure me. “Teacher salaries,” I say.
“Why?” Mikhail asks.
“Because international donors like believing their money is helping people, not buildings.”
One of the advisers makes a quiet sound of disapproval. Mikhail’s mouth curves. “There. More human.”
The discussion continues. Near the end, he gets a text message and when he reads it, it isn’t on the phone he normally uses. His face doesn’t change, but something inside him does. The air around him seems to harden.
Olga notices. I know she notices because her eyes move from Mikhail to his phone and stay there for longer than necessary. They follow his scarred knuckles as he slips it back into his pocket.
Then Mikhail returns his attention to the meeting as though nothing happened. At the end, as everyone stands, he asks me for my notes. When I hand them to him, his fingers graze mine. I know it’s on purpose, and it still makes my stomach jolt.
Olga walks past us without speaking. The look she gives me is brief. It is not unkind. But it is knowing.
On Thursday, Olga brings me another folder.
This one is sealed. Actually sealed. A red tab stretches across the front beneath a typed label I only understand half of. She places it on my desk and keeps one hand resting on it.
“Governor Korolev asked that you review the English-language portions.”
I look from the folder to her. “Why didn’t he bring it himself?”
Her gaze remains on my face a second too long. “Perhaps he thought that would attract attention.” Behind her, Viktoriya suddenly becomes very interested in reorganizing her pens.
“No,” I say.
Olga pauses. “No?”
“I don’t know what this is, but no.”
The corner of her mouth moves. Not quite a smile. “You should tell him.”
I hate everyone.
Mikhail’s office door is open when I reach it. He’s behind his desk, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his forearms, speaking low into the phone. When he sees me, he gestures for me to come inside and close the door.
I stay in the doorway.
He finishes the call without taking his eyes off me. “You are blocking the hall, Miss Hayes.”
“Good. Witnesses.”
His mouth almost moves. Almost.
I hold up the folder. “What is this?”
“A briefing packet.”
“For whom?”
“For me.”
“Then why do I have it?”
“Because I want your notes on the English-language portions before Monday. Olga was supposed to relay that message. Did she not? I will have to talk to her about that.”
“She did.”
“Then why are you making me repeat myself?”
I glance down at the sealed tab. “Am I supposed to have access to this?”
“Not ordinarily.”
“That was not the answer I wanted.”
“You asked the wrong question.”
“What is the right question?”
“Whether I trust you.”
Outside his office, phones ring. Someone laughs near the central desk. Inside, Mikhail sits perfectly still, watching me like I have walked into a room with a sleeping animal and started poking it with a stick.
I step inside and close the door halfway. Not all the way. His eyes flick toward the gap. He says nothing. I take a deep breath. “This is exactly what I asked you not to do.”
“I’m giving you work.”
“You’re giving me work above my position.”
“Yes.”
“Work that people will notice.”
“Yes.”
“Work that makes it look like I’m getting special access to you.”
His gaze drifts over my face. “You are.”
My stomach tightens. “That is not funny.”
“I’m not telling a joke.”
“No, you’re doing that thing where you say something outrageous in a calm voice and expect everyone to accept it because you’re terrifying.”
“Does it work?”
“Yes. That’s why it’s annoying.”
This time, he does smile. A real one. Small and brief and devastating. I hate that too. I put the folder on his desk. “Give this to someone else.”
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“You keep finding reasons to bring me into this office.”
“Because you’re useful.”
“You have an entire staff of useful people.”
“None of them are you.” The sentence lands between us, quiet and heavy. I look at the darkened glass wall, at the people moving beyond it as shadows, and then back at him.
“I’m not interested in a relationship with you.”
For a second, he only looks at me. Then he leans back in his chair. His eyes move over my face slowly. “Being close to a politician could help you, you know.”
There’s that voice again. Calm. Reasonable. A blade laid flat on a table.
I stare at him. “With what?”
He shrugs. “Anything. Everything.”
“That is an awful thing to say.”
“It’s true.”
“It sounds like what you really mean is that not being close to one could hurt me.”
Silence. Absolute silence. My stomach drops. Because he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t correct me. He doesn’t say, no, Taylor, of course not. He simply watches me with that unreadable expression, and suddenly the office feels much larger and much smaller at the same time.
“Why didn’t Nikolai call me?”
His gaze sharpens. He feigns ignorance, but not well. “Who?”
“The guy from the bar. Nikolai. Did he not call because of you?”
“You are very cocky. Sometimes, men get a woman’s number just to prove they can.”
My face burns. “That is not an answer.”
“It is true.”
“It’s a dodge,” I say, and when his mouth curves faintly without commentary, I grab my notebook from the desk and turn to leave. “I’m going back to my desk.”
“That is not where I assigned you.”
“I don’t care,” I scoff.
Behind me, his chair scrapes against the floor.
Before I reach the door, his hand closes around my elbow, and he pulls me around to face him.
The contact goes through me so violently that for one humiliating second, I forget to be angry.
I remember his hand over mine in the dark.
His mouth at my temple. His voice saying good girl.
My body blushes beneath his hand, and my lips part as our eyes meet, the front of my white blouse brushing his shirt.
Then I remember where we are. At work. In daylight. With an open door and my future on the other side of it. I look down at his hand and then back up at him. “This isn’t a movie,” I say quietly. “Let go.”
His hand opens immediately. I feel relieved, but deep down, I feel disappointed too. I don’t know who this Taylor is that I’m becoming.