Chapter 17
Polina
I spend the week trying to outrun a man who keeps catching me anyway.
Not in person, on the street, or at my door.
He catches me in the gaps.
Between surgeries, while I wait for a call from pathology. In the elevator after a twelve-hour shift. In my kitchen, as the kettle starts, I remember the last time he stood there with his sleeves rolled up, acting like he belonged in my apartment.
I take every case I can.
A ruptured appendix comes in at six. A multi-car collision dumps three patients into trauma after lunch.
I take two and hand the third to Savin only because I need another surgeon.
A drunk man with a gash on his face calls me a bitch while I stitch him up.
I tell him I’ve been called worse by better men.
Savin notices on Tuesday, when he catches me outside recovery and invites me to a hospital fundraiser on Friday night to “blow off steam.” A charity gala with donors and board members. A room full of people who want doctors in formal clothes so they can clap for us between courses.
I tell him no.
He asks again on Wednesday.
I ignore him on Thursday.
By Friday, I’m too tired to come up with an excuse.
As I sign my last chart and scrub out, Savin is waiting near the locker room doors with his suit jacket over one arm and a look on his face that says he already knows I’m trying to back out.
“Don’t,” I warn.
He holds out his hands. “I haven’t said anything.”
“You’ve got that look on your face. Whatever speech you rehearsed, save it.”
He falls into step beside me anyway. “Just come for one hour.”
“That sounds less like an invitation and more like a hostage situation.”
“I’m not picky about methods.” He hooks a thumb toward the elevator. “Show up, drink something overpriced, let three donors thank you for being a hero, and then disappear if you want.”
“Why do you care so much if I go?”
“Because all week, you’ve looked like you’re waiting for bad news. I can’t fix whatever that is, but I can drag you into a room with food and intelligent conversation until you remember there’s a world outside trauma.”
I sputter my lips and reply, “You make this sound like I’m the one who needs charity.”
He shrugs. “Maybe you do.”
“One hour.” I hold up a finger. “I need to run home and change.”
His grin comes fast. “That’s all I need.”
“Do not make me regret this.”
“No promises.”
I go home, shower, and choose a black dress that hugs my body, skims my knees, and makes me look more rested than I am.
I leave my hair down, put on dark lipstick, and fasten my mother’s bracelet.
I try not to think about what she would say if she saw me standing here choosing a dress while a Morozov keeps pulling at my life from the edges.
The hotel ballroom is full by the time I arrive.
Doctors in formal wear always look faintly absurd. I know what their days look like. I know who threw up in whose shoes during residency. Seeing them with champagne flutes and wearing something other than scrubs feels like everyone is in costume.
Savin meets me near the entrance and hands me a glass.
“You clean up well,” he comments with a whistle.
“You look like a man who spends too much time in committee meetings.”
He puts a hand over his heart. “Cruel.”
He laughs and steers me toward a cluster of board members. I smile when required, shake hands, and answer questions about trauma volume, staffing needs, and donor priorities. A retired banker tells me he has “always admired medicine,” and I stop myself from asking whether he admires funding it.
Then, Savin is pulled away by the chief of surgery, and I end up seated beside Karpov from neurosurgery while someone on stage thanks a list of names.
Karpov leans toward me with a grin. “You look like you’d rather be intubating someone.”
“I’d rather be sleeping,” I admit with a chuckle.
He laughs and holds out his drink. “Fair.”
A waiter sets down a plate of canapés. Karpov picks one up, eyes it, and says, “I never trust food this small.”
“That one looks expensive and disappointing.”
Karpov points at me with the canapé. “Someone has strong opinions.”
“I have many. Most would get me removed from this ballroom.”
“That’s why you should stay.”
He starts telling me a story about a resident who fainted during a craniotomy after bragging all week about his stomach.
I laugh despite myself. Karpov is good company when he isn’t trying too hard.
He does voices. He imitates the resident perfectly.
I sip my champagne and relax my shoulders for the first time all night.
Then, the back of my neck prickles.
When I look up, Lev is standing across the room in a dark suit, watching me. I suck in a gasp, but I can’t look away.
He should not be here. He should not know where I am. And he definitely should not be looking at me like he walked into this room for me.
Every person between us disappears. Karpov says something, and I miss it. I’m too busy watching Lev mouth something in my direction.
Leave.
I stop breathing for a second, then force it back.
“Polina?” Karpov asks.
I tear my eyes off Lev. “I’m sorry, what?”
“You went pale.”
“I… I need the restroom. Excuse me.”
Karpov glances over his shoulder, following my line of sight, but Lev has moved. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No.” I set my glass down before I drop it. “I’ll be back.”
I stand too fast. The room tilts, then settles.
Savin spots me from across the ballroom and starts toward me with concern on his face. I lift a hand and mouth, “I’m fine.” He doesn’t look convinced, but he lets me go.
My pulse hammers in my throat on the way to the coatroom, and the attendant barely looks up when I arrive. I start to ask for my coat, then stop because Lev is there, close enough to touch, close enough that my body goes hot with both anger and need.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss.
“My father’s men followed you,” he whispers.
I stare at him. “What?”
His eyes flit toward the ballroom doors. “You need to leave now.”
“You don’t get to appear out of nowhere and give orders. Why are your father’s men at a medical fundraiser?”
“They’re not here for the fundraiser.” He looks over my shoulder again, then back to me. “They’re here because I made mistakes, and now they’re looking into you.”
The answer isn’t enough, and he knows it.
The coatroom attendant clears her throat. “Do you need your coat, Doctor?”
Lev pulls a folded bill from his pocket and sets it on the counter without looking at her. “She does, and then, should someone ask, you did not see us.”
The attendant’s eyes flick to the bill, then to me. She sees my face, his suit, and the part where I am not backing away from him even as I glare.
“The service corridor is through that door,” she explains. “Kitchen staff exit is faster than the front.”
Lev nods. “Thank you.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Lev takes my coat and turns to me. I jerk it from his hands and shove my arms into it. “Touch me, and I’ll break your fingers.”
His mouth almost curves. “You can try.”
I want to slap him. I also want to drag him into the corner and kiss him until he stops talking.
He catches my wrist before I can move past him and pulls me toward the service door.
“Lev—”
“Fight with me in the car.”
I let him pull me because he is right, and I hate him for that.
The corridor beyond the coatroom is narrow and lined with stacks of banquet chairs. Lev keeps me close behind him, with one hand at my wrist and one at my back when we turn corners.
We hit the kitchen doors and shove through. Heat, noise, and motion slam into me all at once. Cooks shout. Metal pans crash. A dishwasher curses at a server blocking his path. Nobody looks at us twice until a chef in a white jacket steps in front of Lev.
“Hey. This area is staff only.”
Lev doesn’t break stride. “Medical emergency.”
The chef looks at me, then at Lev’s hand on my back. “She looks fine.”
Before Lev can answer, I snap, “I’m a trauma surgeon, and I said move.”
The chef sneers but steps aside.
Lev catches my eye as we pass. “That was obscenely hot.”
I nearly choke. “Are you insane?”
“Yes.” He opens the next door and ushers me into a stairwell. “Keep moving.”
Once we’re through the kitchen, we take the stairs two at a time. He keeps hold of my hand the entire way down. My heels are a bad idea, so I kick them off on one of the landings and carry them. Lev looks at the shoes, then at me.
“Good girl,” he praises before he can stop himself.
I glare at him and wave my heels. “Say that again, and I’ll stab you with one.”
His mouth curves for real this time. “There she is.”
He pushes through the final door into the service alley.
A black car idles at the curb, and Ruslan stands beside the rear door in a dark coat.
His gaze sweeps over me first, then Lev. “What’s she doing here?”
Lev opens the car door. “Drive.”
Ruslan looks at my bare feet and the heels in my hand. “Nice shoes, Doctor.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter.
He snorts and gets behind the wheel.
Lev guides me into the back seat and slides in after me, shutting the door with a thud that makes me jump. Ruslan pulls away from the curb before I can even set my shoes down.
Only then do my hands start shaking.
I stare at them, furious.
Lev sees it. He reaches for me slowly, giving me a chance to refuse. His hand settles on my knee, then moves higher, up my thigh under the edge of my coat, warm and steady and far too intimate for the state I am in.
“Look at me,” he prompts.
I do.
“You’re okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you’re with me.”
“Do not make that sound comforting after the shit you pulled last week.”
He strokes his thumb once over my thigh, and my breath catches hard enough to make me blush.
Ruslan’s eyes meet mine in the mirror for half a second. “I can’t hear anything over the road, so if you two want to bite each other, do it quietly.”
“Drive the car,” Lev orders.
“I am driving the car.”
I should move Lev’s hand, put space between us, and ask questions until he gives me real answers.
Instead, I grab his wrist and hold him there.
His eyes darken.
“Polina.”
“Don’t talk.” If he keeps using my name in that voice, I’m going to climb into his lap while his driver watches traffic.
Lev leans in and kisses me anyway.
It is quick and hard and filthy, landing atop the fear and anger and part of me that still goes weak when he touches me. I taste champagne and the mint from his breath and all the things I shouldn’t want from him.
I pull back first and rest my fingers on my lips.
“You’re impossible,” I whisper.
His hand stays on my thigh. “You still came with me.”
I look out the window at the city sliding past and hate how true that is.
My pulse refuses to settle. My skin feels too tight. The shape of his hand burns through my coat, and the truth sits in my lap with my shoes and my shaking fingers.
This could get us both killed, and I still don’t want to walk away.