Chapter 35 Laszlo
Laszlo
It’s been three days of my sitting on this question, and now I want to ask it before it drives me mad. I stare at Galina over coffee in the dining room.
She looks up. “What?”
“Shall we return the wedding dress?”
“Do you want to get your money back?” she asks seriously.
I snort. “It’s not about the money, but we aren’t going to use it, are we?”
She puts her cup down carefully. “No. I’m not exactly planning to pop it on for Sunday lunch.”
“Then we return it.”
“You are weirdly practical about this.”
“I’m practical about everything.”
“That is complete bullshit.”
I smirk. “Most things.”
She studies me over the rim of her mug. Morning light is coming through the glass I trust more than I used to. My wife is wearing a blue dress, her hair loose, my ring on her finger. Calm. Beautiful. Alive.
I still catch myself checking that last part.
She tilts her head. “Is this really about the dress?”
“No.”
“Thought so.”
I sit back in my chair and look at her properly. “I’m asking whether you want another wedding.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Another one.”
“A proper one.” I shrug. “Church. Guests. Reception.”
She stares at me for a beat, then lets out a laugh that escapes before she can stop it. “What, exactly, brought this on?”
“It just occurred to me, you might want a do-over.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No do-over.”
“You sure?” I ask.
“Yes.” She smiles, small and certain. “I married you. That part is done. I don’t need flowers and a priest to make it more real.”
Some part of me was waiting for her to say yes, I want another chance, yes, do it properly, yes, fix it. As if the first one was lacking because I didn’t give her a church, a veil, and a crowd.
But she looks at me like she means every word, and something in my soul settles.
“Keep the dress. Maybe in about thirty years, we can renew our vows, and you can wear it then.”
“I’m flattered you still think I’ll be able to fit in it in thirty years,” she says with a smile she hides behind her mug.
“Doesn’t matter if you don’t. We just burn it on a bonfire and call it a celebration.”
“I like the way you think.”
“And I love that you like it.”
She sits back and sighs. “So what happens now?” she asks. “Not about the dress. About everything.”
I pick up my coffee and drink. The question is bigger than it sounds.
“Now we live,” I say. “Carefully.”
“That’s vague.”
“It’s accurate.” I set the cup down. “I’m not risking you. Yelena is safe with her kids in a new country, Petrov’s family aren’t exactly grieving too hard, Karpov hasn’t made a move yet against us, or the Baranovs, and our mystery shooter is elsewhere. We live, moya zhena, but we do it carefully.”
“I can live with that.”
“Good, because everything I do now, I do it for you.”
“Don’t be so mushy,” she murmurs, but I can see how that pleases her.
“Mushy.” I nearly choke on the word. “Hardly. I’m stating facts. You happen to be the most important one.”
She rolls her eyes, but the colour rises in her cheeks, and I file that away because making Galina blush is a rare enough achievement that it deserves cataloguing.
Leonid materialises in the doorway with the timing of a man who has been hovering for exactly the right amount of time to interrupt without appearing rude. “Mrs Voronova has a delivery.”
Galina frowns. “From who?”
Leonid produces a box wrapped in dark paper with the kind of understated elegance that screams expense. He sets it on the table beside her plate. “Grisha has already scanned it.”
She looks at me. I shrug.
She pulls the paper off and lifts the lid. Inside, nestled in tissue, is a hat. A structured, beautifully made black wool fedora with a subtle silk band. She lifts it out and turns it over in her hands.
“What is this?” she asks, giving Leonid a knowing look.
“Your new bulletproof hat,” he replies, not looking at her. “Much more suitable than that atrocity you had on the other night.”
She grins, and it lights up her whole face. “Oh, Leo,” she purrs. “You do care.”
“I care about fashion,” he says primly and turns on his heel and stalks out, but I can see he is pleased nonetheless.
She placed it on her head and asks, “Well?”
I take her hand and kiss her knuckles. “Perfect. Now I know when you go out, your head will remain intact.”
She pulls the fedora off and sets it on the table beside her plate, running her thumb over the silk band with a half-smile that tells me she is already planning to wear it everywhere just to see Leonid’s satisfaction.
“He’s growing on me,” she says.
“He’d be horrified to hear that.”
“Exactly why I enjoy it.”
I watch her for a moment, this woman who has been mine for less than a week and has already rearranged the architecture of my entire existence. She sits at my dining table like she has always been here, and the strange thing is, it feels like she has.
My phone buzzes. I glance at it. Baron.
I answer on speaker. “Yeah?”
“Lunch. Today. Bring your wife.”
“Why?”
“Because I am an old man who has not yet had the pleasure of dining with his new niece, and because your aunt will skin me alive if I don’t produce her within the next two days.”
I look at Galina. She grins.
“Fine,” I say. “One o’clock?”
“Twelve thirty.” He hangs up, and I sit back, content for the first time in my life.