Chapter 3
NATALYA
Iglance at the time as I put on my high heels. In about five minutes, Andrei will be pulling up. I need to be the first person to greet him.
A week ago, I was relaxing by the pool with Ilya and joking about my father’s reaction to meeting my boyfriend for the first time. She had been right all along, of course. If Andrei and I are getting serious, then I need to take a chance and tell my father about him.
A few days after that, I got up the nerve to tell him. I caught him in his office one evening as he was discussing something with one of his men. The moment I appeared at his door, my father dismissed the man and asked me to come in.
“I just wanted you to know,” I said, “that I met someone at school.”
There had been no reaction on his face. He just stared at me with his icy blue eyes. “What’s his name?”
“Andrei. Andrei Burgov.”
He nodded slightly, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Strong name. You met him in school, you said?”
“Yes.” My throat felt like it was closing up at that moment and I almost just turned around and walked out. So, he’s been told, I thought. The hard part’s over.
And just then, I realized that telling my father was not the hard part. The hard part was going to be what I had to tell him next.
“I want you to meet him,” I told him. “It would be very important to me if I could invite him over to dinner so you can get to know him.”
He sat back in his chair, his steel glare looking me up and down. “Make the arrangements,” he said. “I’ll make myself available.”
I just stood there, my feet rooted to the floor. He cocked his head at me. “Is there anything else?”
“Give him a chance,” I made myself say.
“Excuse me?”
“Please, Papa. He’s a good person. Intelligent, kind, and… and good. Really, really good, and I need for you to treat him well.”
He scowled at me and said, “I always treat your boyfriends well, Natalya. It’s not my fault that you’ve developed a taste for weak men.”
“He’s not weak,” I replied. “He’s…” I cut myself off. There was no point in arguing that with him, so instead I just said, “Just, please, give him a chance. That’s all I’m asking for.”
He regarded me for a few moments, then he smiled. A rare sight. “Okay, Natalya. I will give him a chance.”
Now, I’m standing here looking at myself in the mirror. The black cocktail dress I have on is simple. Dignified. Short sleeves that stop mid-bicep, the collar low, but showing just a sliver of cleavage, a nice, velvety rose pattern around the waist, and a hem that stops right above my knee.
I couldn’t look more modest if I were wearing a nun’s habit.
I have my long red hair up in a nice, neat bun and I’m wearing a minimal amount of makeup.
In this light, the eyeliner around my eyes makes them look a little rounder than they are.
I hate the way I look without it, though.
Me sans makeup gives twelve-year-old. My face his oval-shaped, but I can see the remnants of the chubby cheeks I had when I was a child.
That and my big, innocent blue eyes are the reasons I’m always carded when I order drinks in restaurants.
It’s a good thing I’m not prone to freckles. That would make it so much worse.
I leave the pool house and make my way to the house, my heart pounding in my chest. I walk into the kitchen and I’m hit with the warm smell of dinner.
The cook is one of my father’s associates, Liliana.
She’s an older woman with a shock of white hair and has always been incredibly thin and frail looking, despite the fact that every time I’ve ever seen her she’s either eating or cooking.
She’s just pulling out a roast as I walk in and she glances over at me as she sets the pan down on the counter.
“There you are, Natashka,” she says as she walks across the kitchen to embrace me and kiss me on the cheek. She stands back and looks at my dress. “You look beautiful, my dear.”
“Thank you.” I glance around the kitchen, more toward the hall leading to my father’s office. “Where’s my father?”
“He’s still in his office,” Liliana says as she goes back to the roast. “He’ll be out once the table is set. Don’t you worry.”
I nod and glance at the clock on the wall. It’s seven already and Andrei’s not here. Oh, boy.
“It’s just turned seven,” Liliana says. “He’s not late yet. He will be here.”
I just nod. I’ve got a good mind to wait in the foyer just to see his lights as he pulls up. Instead, I walk around to the salad she’s prepared and I steal a grape tomato. “Thanks for cooking,” I say to her. “I know my father pays you and all but somebody ought to thank you for all this.”
“I don’t need thanks,” she says. “I owe your father my life. The least I can do is come over and make dinner for his family every once in a while.”
The doorbell rings and I stiffen. My heart leaps in my chest. “That’s him.” My legs are moving before I know it. I get to the foyer just as my father opens the door.
Shit. I steel myself as the door opens. Andrei, wearing a beautiful dark blue suit, stands on the other side of my front door. He looks so handsome. He’s got a fresh hair cut, tapered on the sides and a little long at the top, and he’s clean-shaven and very neat looking.
He looks like the first time I met him on the quad, this sweet boy with a nice smile who had to get up the nerve to talk to me.
“Mr. Petrov, I presume?” he asks. My father nods and steps aside.
“Come in,” he says. He steps in and sees me. His smile broadens. I take Andrei by the hand, kissing him on the cheek.
“You made it,” I say to him. I turn to my father, who’s just standing and staring at us. “Dad, this is Andrei. Andrei, this is Vladimir Petrov, my father.”
Andrei sticks his hand out to my father, who looks at it, then shakes it. I see Andrei wince from my father’s grip. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
“Likewise.”
They stare at one another awkwardly for a second and Andrei says, “Something smells really good. I’m starved.”
Before I can agree, my father says, “The table still needs to be set. Natalya, help Liliana while I speak privately with your boyfriend.”
I glare at my father, giving him my best silent signal to remind him to be nice. He barely acknowledges me. “Papa, I can make us some drinks while we wait—”
“Nonsense,” he says, then he turns around and starts walking toward his office. “This way, Andrei.”
Andrei looks at me tentatively but then lets go of my hands and follows my father. My stomach sinks into my shoes as he turns the corner.
No matter what he says, you should keep things going with him. That’s what Ilya said to me, and she’s right. Whatever my father is planning on saying to Andrei, I’m not going to let him ruin this.
I go into the kitchen and help Liliana with the food and set the table. It takes less than five minutes, maybe, but it feels like hours. I keep looking over my shoulder.
Finally, my father and Andrei return. He doesn’t look beat up or like he’s been crying. In fact, he looks just fine. He walks up to me and greets me with a kiss on the cheek before regarding the spread in front of us. “This looks really good.”
We sit down at the table, Andrei next to me and my father at the head of the table. I’m dying to know what happened in my father’s office. Hopefully, Andrei will tell me when all this is over.
“So, Natalya neglected to mention what you were in school for,” my father says as we make our plates.
“I’m in medical school,” he says. “I’m studying to be a thoracic surgeon.”
He nods. “You have to have good hands for that. Take care of them and all that.”
Andrei chuckles nervously. “Yes,” he says. “I guess that’s true.”
No smiles on my father’s face. He cuts himself a slice of roast then gives Andrei a cursory look. “Is there a lot of money in that field?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I’m not in it for the money. I’ve been interested in thoracic surgery since high school.”
“Is that right?” My father raises his eyebrows. “So, you have no interest at all in making money? How do you expect to support my daughter with no money?”
“Papa,” I say, “he never said he wasn’t going to make any money. Just that it’s not his primary motivation.”
“I understood him,” he says, giving me a warning glare. “I know that people like to say that they do a thing for the love of it, but no one really means that. This world turns on the dollar. I think you understand that, given your family ties.”
I blink, a little bit of terror igniting in my stomach. I never told him about Andrei’s family.
Andrei looks a little uncomfortable as well. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, your uncle is a senator, correct? Was caught drunk driving last year if I remember correctly? And his wife. Natalya, you may not know this, but Andrei’s aunt was arrested last year for money laundering.”
All I can do is sit here, stunned. I can’t believe he looked him up.
“My family is working through their issues,” Andrei says. “Every family has problems, after all.”
My father nods. “I suppose that’s true. I have to wonder, though, what kind of person you are with those kinds of relatives.”
Andrei just smiles craftily at him. “I’m no more a reflection of them than Natalya is of you or of your family. We’re all our own people.”
I can’t tell whether that’s a good answer or not. My father has turned back to his plate of food.
Andrei takes my hand under the table and squeezes it. Maybe this will work out after all.
This has probably been one of the most stressful dinners I’ve ever had. I’m helping to clear the table while my father walks Andrei out and my mind drifts. The worst-case scenario keeps playing out.
He was cold to Andrei all evening. When he did speak to him, it was to criticize or to belittle him in some way.
He didn’t explode or threaten Andrei directly, though.
Maybe my father was testing him. If that’s what it was, I think that Andrei’s passed with flying colors.
He addressed every veiled attack with grace and without getting visibly upset.