Kira
Three days into my marriage, and I've learned the following things about my husband:
He drinks his coffee black. He leaves for work before seven and comes home after dark. He sleeps on the left side of the bed, on his back, and he doesn't move all night. He owns more books than clothes. He keeps his study locked when he's not in it. And he watches me when he thinks I'm not looking.
That last one I'm not supposed to know. But I feel it.
The weight of his gaze on the back of my neck when I'm cooking.
The way his eyes track me across a room and then snap away the second I turn around.
He watches me like he's trying to find answers to a complex question, and it makes my skin warm in ways I don't want to examine too closely.
We haven't had sex since the wedding night.
He comes to bed late. Lies on his side of the mattress with that careful distance between us. Doesn't reach for me. Doesn't mention it. In the mornings, I wake up to find his hand on my hip or my waist, like his body reaches for me in sleep even when his mind won't allow it while he's awake.
I don't mention that, either.
Instead, I do what I know how to do. I make his house a home.
It needs it. The bones are beautiful, the dark wood, the high ceilings, the wide windows that let in pale autumn light, but it's been neglected in the way that only a home without a woman's touch can be.
I start with the kitchen. I reorganize the cupboards so the things he uses most are within easy reach.
I stock the pantry with staples and the refrigerator with fresh produce from a market I find twenty minutes from the house.
I learn which pans are good and which ones need replacing, and I make a list.
Then the living room. Fresh flowers on the side table. A throw blanket on the sofa because the house runs cold in the evenings. Books restacked with their spines aligned. The curtains pulled back properly to let the light in during the day.
The guest bedroom gets new linens. The bathroom gets fresh towels. I find a closet full of cleaning supplies and put them to work.
I meet the housekeeper on my second morning. Darya. She's in her fifties, broad-shouldered, with silver-streaked hair pulled back in a tight bun and a face that doesn't smile easily. She arrives at eight, looks me up and down in the hallway, and says, "So you're the wife."
"I am," I say. "I'm Kira."
She grunts. Not unfriendly, but not warm either. Assessing. "He told me you'd be here. Said to let you do what you want with the house."
"I'd like to work with you, not over you," I say. "You know this house better than I do. I'd appreciate your help."
Something shifts in her expression. The hard edge softens, just a fraction. "The kitchen drain sticks," she says. "And the upstairs hallway light has been out for two weeks. He won't call anyone about it."
"I'll take care of it," I say.
By the end of the second day, Darya is showing me where Anton keeps the extra firewood and telling me he hasn't eaten a proper meal in months. "Lives on coffee and whatever he can eat standing up," she says, shaking her head. "It's no way for a man to live."
I make dinner that night. Nothing complicated. Roasted chicken with herbs from a pot I find on the back porch, potatoes, a simple salad. I set the table properly. Two places. Cloth napkins. A candle, because the dining room feels too stark without one.
Anton comes home at eight thirty. He walks through the door, shrugs off his coat the way he always does, and stops.
I watch from the kitchen doorway as he takes in the dining room. The table set for two. The candle. The smell of food that's been cooked slowly, with care, by someone who wanted him to come home to something warm.
His jaw works. He doesn't say anything for a long moment.
"You cooked," he says finally.
"I did. Are you hungry?"
He looks at me. That searching look again. Like he's waiting for the performance to crack so he can see what's underneath.
"Yes," he says.
We eat together. He doesn't talk much, but he eats everything on his plate, and when I get up to clear the dishes, he stops me.
"Sit," he says. "I'll do it."
"You don't have to."
"Please, Kira. Let me."
I nod and sit back down, then watch him carry plates to the kitchen, rinse them, stack them in the dishwasher. His movements are efficient but unfamiliar. Like a man who hasn't done this in a while and is remembering as he goes.
When he comes back, he stands in the doorway and looks at me across the table with the candle flickering between us.
"Thank you," he says. "For dinner."
"You're welcome."
He nods. Turns to go. Stops.
"The hallway light," he says without looking back. "Darya told you about it?"
"I called someone. They're coming Thursday."
A pause. "You didn't have to do that."
"I hope I’m not overstepping."
He shakes his head no, then he walks away down the hall toward his study.
I blow out the candle and sit alone in the dining room for a while, listening to the house settle around me. It's starting to feel different already. Less hollow. Less cold. Or maybe that's just me, filling the empty spaces with something warm because it's the only way I know how to survive.
On the third morning, I'm in the kitchen making coffee when I hear Anton's voice from his study. The door is cracked open, and I don't mean to listen, but the hallway carries sound and his voice is sharp in a way I haven't heard before.
"Tell the council I've done what they asked." A pause. "I married her. It's done." Another pause, longer. "That's none of their concern." His voice drops, cold and precise as a blade. "If Gregor sends someone to my house, I will consider it a threat. And I will respond accordingly."
Silence.
Then the sound of something hitting wood. His fist on the desk, maybe. Hard enough to make me flinch.
I pour two cups of coffee. Walk to his study. Knock on the cracked door.
"Come in," he says. His voice is controlled again. Flat.
I push the door open. He's standing behind his desk, one hand braced on the surface, his phone lying face down beside it. His jaw is tight and there's a tension running through his shoulders that looks like it could snap bone.
I don't ask what the call was about. I set the coffee on his desk.
"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes," I say.
He looks at the coffee. Then at me.
"You heard that," he says. Not a question.
"The door was open. Your voice was raised."
His eyes narrow. He's waiting for me to ask. To push. To demand an explanation the way someone with less training would.
I don't. I hold his gaze, steady and calm, and let the silence sit.
"Ten minutes," he says finally. And something in his expression shifts.
I nod and leave the room, pulling the door shut behind me.
In the kitchen, I crack eggs into a bowl and whisk them with a steady hand, and I think about the way his voice sounded on the phone. Cold. Lethal. A man who would burn down the world if it pushed him far enough.
And then I think about the way he looked at the coffee I brought him. Like no one has ever walked into a room where he was falling apart and simply handed him something warm without asking for a single thing in return.
I'm starting to understand something about Anton Orlov.
He doesn't need a trained wife. He doesn't need someone who knows how to set a table for twelve or remove wine stains from white linen or smile on command.
He needs someone who stays. And I can do that too. More, I want to do that.