Chapter 5
NATALYA
“Ifeel ridiculous,” I say to Ilya as we park the car.
I’d spent the day mourning my relationship with chips and booze and reality shows when she came over a few hours ago.
After I told her about the total disaster of a dinner between my father and my now ex-boyfriend, she went into best friend mode, taking my chips and bottle of vodka away. “Go take a shower. We’re going out.”
Now I’m sitting here in this very short red dress that Ilya pulled out of my closet with my hair curled and my makeup on and I just caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look good, but I also feel like I’m in costume. This is just not what I need right now.
“Relax,” says Ilya as she reapplies her lipstick. “It’s just dinner and you have to eat.” She turns and looks me up and down. “Which I have to say, we definitely do.”
Ilya is wearing a borrowed dress of mine. A little black, sleeveless thing that fits her a little loosely around the hips but looks good on her. She puts her lipstick in her bag and asks, “Ready?”
“Not really.”
“Come on, Nat. Look, your boyfriend just proved himself to be unworthy of your affections by spectacularly failing the one test you ever gave him. Trust me. He wasn’t worth your time.”
“Okay, but this…” I motion to the fancy Italian restaurant across the street with its red carpet and gold doors, valet workers rushing to park cars. “You want me to go out and catch a man twenty-four hours after breaking up with my boyfriend.”
“Of course not,” she said. “I want you to feel good about yourself, and nothing makes a girl feel better than watching men fall over themselves for you. We are going to walk into that restaurant tonight and turn every male head in the room. You need an ego boost, Nat. It’ll be good for you.”
I guess I see her point. I would like to feel something other than sadness for a couple of hours. Maybe being admired by strangers is the way to go.
“Okay,” I say after taking a big breath. “Let’s do this, then.”
We get out and walk across the street to the restaurant. It’s a nice, warm night tonight and just being outside is starting to lift my mood a little.
As soon as we walk through the doors, eyes are on us. The front area in front of the hostess stand has at least two couples and a small party of people waiting for their tables. Everyone looks at us, but all the men’s eyes linger.
It feels a little strange, but I kind of like it. Part of me felt like an old dishrag that was due for the trash after the breakup. It’s a nice reminder that I am a beautiful woman.
Ilya gives the hostess my last name and she nods, grabs menus, and immediately leads us around the barrier to the dining room. That’s a smart move, using my name. My father’s name still carries weight in certain places. I’ll bet she didn’t even make a reservation.
“The waiter will be with you in just a moment,” the hostess says before leaving us alone.
I look around us at all the diners in their finest clothes, eating off fine china and linen tablecloths…
and the eyes watching us, trying to act like they’re not.
A couple of younger men on dates happen to see us.
One of them gets noticed by his date and she immediately chastises him for it, causing his face to flush with embarrassment.
The other is a little more crafty. His eyes fall on us every time he takes a drink from his glass.
“This is actually kinda fun,” I tell Ilya. “I feel like we’re celebrities.”
“I mean, in a sense, you are. Lots of people know who your dad is.”
That stings a little and my smile falters.
“Oh, shit,” Ilya says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“I know. It’s not your fault.” Ugh. Stupid Andrei and his surveillance. “You know something, Lee? I keep thinking about how Andrei confronted my father. Like, as a retaliation for my dad looking him up.”
“It was a rotten thing for him to do.”
I shrug. “Wouldn’t have been so bad if he had done it because he was worried about me.
Wouldn’t have been bad at all if he didn’t decide to try and throw it back in my father’s face.
” I thought about that a little longer. “In fact, I think I could have forgiven it all if he’d done it because he was trying to protect me.
If he actually stood up to my father and maybe told him off. Put a little fear into him for once.”
Ilya snickers.
“What?”
“Who do you think Andrei is? I mean, wealthy parentage notwithstanding, he’s just a guy.” She lowers her voice and leans in. “He’s not Bratva. If you’ve been looking for somebody to put the fear of God into Vladimir Petrov, you have to know that guy isn’t living in a dorm on a college campus.”
That was valid. I slump a little in my chair. “Not that there couldn’t have been opportunities, either,” I say. “Since I turned eighteen, I’ve caught more than a couple of his associates checking me out.”
“Sheesh. Good thing your father doesn’t know.”
“Oh, I think he knows. Or at least he suspects. For all I know, anybody he ever caught has ‘disappeared’.” I let that drop, thinking about it for a moment.
“You know, that’s the weird thing about my father.
He says things like I’ll never be worthy enough for any man, yet he chases them all off if any of them show any interest. He acts like a psycho, jealous boyfriend. ”
“Oh, ew, Nat.”
“It’s true! Sometimes, I think that he thinks if he can’t have me, then no one can. That’s how he acts, anyway.”
She sighs and shakes her head. “I’m going to side on the hope that he’s just an overprotective father.”
I scoff. “Overprotective fathers love their daughters.”
Before she can respond, the waiter shows up and asks to take our orders. We order wine and a couple of pasta dishes and just as I’m contemplating ordering an appetizer, a sweet, musky smell interrupts my thoughts.
I look around and see him as the hostess is leading him to his table.
Tall with dark blond hair streaked with silver.
The gray suit he’s wearing fits him well, moving with the casual swing of his arm as naturally as if it were part of his body.
His arms and torso are covered up, but there’s a tattoo of a lion’s paw on his neck that clearly belongs to a bigger tattoo.
He’s with one of his people, a slightly shorter man with short, dark hair and wearing a black suit.
His suit is nice, but it doesn’t fit nearly as well.
I can see his muscles bulging through the fabric as he lifts his hand to scratch his temple.
They both sit and my eyes turn back to my high school crush.
Anton Romanov. When I was sixteen, he was everything.
Outside of a few crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the laugh lines that crease his face when he smiles at the waiter to thank him, he looks the same.
Well, that and the well-trimmed and maintained beard he’s sporting.
The fantasies I used to have about this man…
“Earth to Nat. Come in, Nat.”
The sound of my name brings me back. I look across the table at Ilya, who has her eyebrows lifted in question. “He asked if you’d like anything else?”
“No,” I say, closing the menu. “Thank you.”
We hand over the menus and the waiter leaves. Ilya immediately looks over her shoulder to see where I was so distracted.
“Don’t start,” I say.
She turns and smiles at me, her lips tight. “I’m not going to say anything… other than that it’s really wild that on the day after you break up with your boyfriend, you end up seeing your teenage dream across the room.”
“Stop,” I say, playfully slapping her hand. “There is no universe where Anton Romanov would ever look twice at me. He knows who my father is.”
Ilya shrugs. “Your father’s not his boss, though.”
“Oh, my God, Lee.”
She stifles a giggle, then, “Okay, let’s play devil’s advocate for a minute.
There’s an old adage that goes, ‘the fastest way to get over one man is to get under another one.’ What if that other one were Anton Romanov?
I mean, think about it. He’s perfect. He’s in the game, so he’s not going to care what your father does.
He’s older, so he probably knows his way around a woman’s body—”
“I am not getting into a relationship with a Bratva,” I hiss at her. “My father would hit the roof.”
“So what if he does at this point? You know, he’s never going to approve of anyone you ever end up with. Why bother acting like he ever will? You might as well just see whoever you want to see, however you want to see them.”
Again. Valid. I chew on my bottom lip and think about it, looking over at Anton’s table. He’s in the middle of a conversation, a slight smile on his face, and I swear I spot a dimple. Ugh, this man is so gorgeous.
“Can we please change the subject?” I ask. Ilya nods, relenting.
“Okay.” She thinks for a minute. The waiter returns with our drinks. She waits until he leaves and says, “So, there’s this club I’ve been thinking about checking out.”
“Oh? A new club opened up?”
She shook her head. “It’s not new. In fact, it’s really underground. Most people don’t even know about it.”
I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “How do you know about it?”
She smirks. “Rodney told me about it.”
I blink. Rodney, her ex-boyfriend before the last one, hadn’t been spoken about since I left for college. “You’re still talking to him?”
She shrugs coyly. “Off and on. We’ve been hooking up every now and then.”
“Oh, Lee. You said you’d never get back with him. In fact, you told me to knock you out if you ever even thought about calling him.”
“I’m not back with him,” she scoffs, then a little softer, “We’re just fucking. Anyway, this club, it’s called the Firebird. It’s, like, an S&M sex club or something. You can go there, have drinks, get it in—”
“Wait, wait. The Firebird’s a strip club. One of my father’s associates owns it.” She stares at me as she drinks her wine, waiting for me to put it together. “Wait. Are you telling me there’s a secret sex club in the Firebird?”
“That’s what Rodney says. I want to check it out. You should come with me.”
I laugh. “Oh, I don’t think so.” I drink from my wine glass and I notice Ilya’s smile fades.
“You know what the absolute worst thing about your dad is?” she says. “It’s that he locked you away from living.”
“Whoa, hold on a second.”
“No, no. You hold on. Nat, in high school, we used to call you ‘inmate’ because you were so afraid of your father that you never did anything with any of us. And when you went to college, I remember thinking, ‘Great! Maybe now that she’s away from her father, she’ll live a little.
’ But you didn’t. You still just stayed a stick in the mud. ”
“Hey, I did things,” I say defensively. “I went to parties and all that.”
“Nat. You were in college for four years and only fucked one guy. That’s not living.”
She takes another drink of wine and I’m just staring at her with mild offense. “Okay, so…” I stammer. “So, you think I ought to just… go out there and have lots of sex?”
“Among other things, yes. That’s exactly what I think you should do.
” She reaches across the table and touches my hand.
“Look, all I’m saying is that life is too short to live in a cage.
Go on a trip to Paris or climb Mt. Everest. Fuck a guy you just met.
But enough sitting around and sulking about the warden. You’re an adult, Nat. You’re free.”
She’s right. I hate to say it, but she’s absolutely correct. What would it be like if I could do whatever I wanted without worrying about what my father might do?
“I’m going to go to the ladies’ room,” she says. “Think about it, though. You’re young and beautiful and most importantly, a grown woman. Time to start acting like it.”
I watch her get up and leave. As I drink my wine, I consider what she’s trying to say. I’ve lived my life in a tarnished golden cage my whole life and for what? Just for my father to treat me the way he does? I set my glass down and accidentally knock over my fork. Dammit.
I lean down to pick it up and when I sit back up again, I see Anton walking toward my table.