Chapter Thirty-One #3
Diane commandeers the jazz trio to play something she describes as “more fun, less funeral,” and they oblige with something swinging that gets three of Arkady’s cousins onto the lawn.
There’s food—proper food now, not just canapés but platters of smoked salmon and grilled vegetables and sourdough and something with burrata that makes Diane close her eyes in religious ecstasy.
Champagne flows for those drinking it. I stick to sparkling water with lime and pretend it’s a cocktail.
Midway through a conversation with Natalia about nursery colors, I see Stefan cross the lawn to Arkady.
He leans in. Says something short—two words, maybe three—and Arkady’s head turns toward the main gate.
The shift is imperceptible to anyone who doesn’t know him.
But I know him. I see his weight redistribute, his stance widen a fraction, the way his hand drops to his side and stays there.
Stefan nods once, then moves off toward the treeline, where two of Leo’s men are stationed.
Arkady catches me watching. Holds my look for a beat. Then gives me the smallest smile and picks up his glass.
I file it. The way I always file it. Another entry on the list of things that don’t add up, things that exist in the space between what Arkady tells me and what Arkady handles.
But the music is playing, and the sun is warm, and my sister is laughing at something Diane said, so I let it go. For now.
I eat too much. I laugh too loud. I let Diane take my photo from six different angles, and I don’t care that my bump is on full display and my cheeks are flushed and my hair has gone slightly wild in the breeze.
Arkady moves through the crowd with that taut, watchful energy he carries everywhere—a host who is also an operator, scanning the perimeter even while accepting congratulations.
But I see him relax, too. See the way his shoulders drop a fraction when he watches me laughing with Diane.
See the way he picks up Aleks from Fanny without being asked and holds him against his chest, one hand spanning the baby’s entire back, rocking slightly without seeming to know he’s doing it.
This man. This impossible, infuriating, beautiful man who told me he never wanted children and is now swaying with his son at his own engagement party while armed guards patrol the treeline.
I could cry. I might, later. Right now, I just want to be here, in this.
At four o’clock, the music dips. The jazz trio fades out mid-phrase, and the sudden quiet rolls across the garden like a dropped curtain. Conversations trail off. Heads turn toward the stage.
Arkady is standing at the microphone.
He looks—and I’m aware that I’m biased, that pregnancy hormones have permanently rewired whatever part of my brain handles objectivity—magnificent.
The suit fits him like it was stitched onto his body.
The late afternoon light touches the hard planes of his face and the ink at his throat.
He stands the way he always stands, occupying space with an authority that has nothing to do with height or width.
It has everything to do with the gravity of a man who has lived through things that should have destroyed him and chose, against every instinct, to keep building.
He taps the microphone once. The feedback shrieks briefly. He looks at it as though he’s considering having it shot.
“I’ll keep this short,” he says, and his voice carries across the garden without effort—the low, steady command of someone accustomed to rooms going quiet when he speaks. “I’m not good with speeches. Stefan can confirm.”
“Confirmed,” Stefan calls from the drinks table, and a ripple of laughter moves through the crowd.
Arkady waits for it to pass. Then he says, “I have found the woman of my dreams.”
The garden goes still. Even the wind seems to hold.
“I proposed to her privately,” he continues.
“In a way that was… insufficient. She deserved better. She deserves better than most of what I’ve given her.
” His jaw works for a second, a tiny involuntary adjustment, the only tell that this is costing him something.
“She came into my life when I wasn’t looking.
She stayed when she had every reason to leave.
She saw the parts of me I’d buried, and she didn’t look away. ”
I can’t breathe. Not in the dramatic, romance-novel way. In the actual, literal, my-lungs-have-forgotten-their-job way.
“So I’m going to do this properly.” His eyes find mine across the garden. Hold. “In front of everyone who matters.” He extends his hand toward me. “Mirabel. Come here.”
My legs carry me before my brain catches up.
The crowd parts as I move through it—people stepping aside with the quiet, instinctive deference of guests who understand that whatever’s happening right now is bigger than snacks and champagne.
Diane gives me a gentle push in the small of my back. Debra nods once, eyes bright.
I climb the two short steps to the stage. Arkady takes my hand. The distance between us collapses—inches and months and all the damage we’ve done to each other and the love that grew in the rubble anyway—and then there’s only him.