18. Seventeen shades of expensive beige. （Aleksander）
SEVENTEEN SHADES OF EXPENSIVE BEIGE. (ALEKSANDER)
The snow has started again, softening Manhattan into blurred white edges and muted traffic. Tamara stands near the study windows in dark jeans and a cream sweater, her laptop balanced against one hip while she argues with someone named Maya through wireless earbuds.
“The brass samples are wrong,” she says, pacing slowly across the rug. “No, not warm brass. Satin. Otherwise the entire palette shifts yellow under evening lighting.”
I stay in the doorway and let her finish.
Focused Tamara is different. Sharper, more animated—alive in a way she isn’t when she’s thinking about Kalinin or the marriage or the choices that have been taken away from her.
She notices me eventually, pulls one earbud free.
“Maya, I’ll call you back.” Her laptop closes with a soft click. “You’re staring,” she says.
“I like watching you work.”
A faint color touches her cheeks before she looks away.
I move farther into the room. “We’re going to dinner at Igor’s place tonight.”
“Should I be concerned?”
“I don’t think so. Their cook is significantly better than what you’re used to.”
That earns me the smallest smile.
“Come out with me first,” I say. “I want to get you something to wear.”
Suspicion appears. “Out? Does that mean the house arrest is finished?”
“You’ll be with me, and I have a security detail.” I shrug into my coat. “Consider it a final walkthrough before Thursday.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Before the site visit?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Relief flashes openly across her face before she can hide it. “I’m down for going out. Less enthusiastic about the shopping part, though.”
“You need something for tonight.”
“I own appropriate clothes.”
“Still.” I glance toward the laptop tucked under her arm. “You also apparently own seventeen shades of beige.”
“I’ll have you know this sweater is The Row.” She gestures toward herself with mild offense. “And cashmere.”
“Forgive me. Your seventeen shades of expensive beige.”
“Speak for yourself.” She takes in my charcoal sweater and black trousers with deliberate judgment. “You dress like a luxury funeral.”
I look down at myself. “She’s getting funnier,” I mutter toward the ceiling.
“I’m saying this right now, Aleksander, so there’s no misunderstanding later.” She folds her arms. “I’m not going purse shopping.”
“I know. That’s why we’re not going to Bergdorf’s first.”
“First?”
“You’ll be fine, I promise.”
Twenty minutes later, Yuri pulls the SUV alongside Bryant Park. Tamara looks out the window, visibly confused.
“You brought me to a Christmas market?”
“I did no such thing. It’s January.”
“That feels like gaslighting.”
I laugh and open the door before she can start arguing semantics.
Tamara steps out beside me, boots crunching over fresh snow. Her scarf lifts in the wind before she catches it with one hand.
Yuri and two of my men remain behind us at a discreet distance. Tamara notices.
“Only three men?”
“They rotate perimeter coverage.”
“That statement is deeply unsettling.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I sincerely hope not.”
We fall into step beside each other as we move through the market. The city feels strangely softer in weather like this—muted traffic, steam curling from street vents, string lights reflecting against wet pavement.
A cluster of people spills across the walkway ahead of us, forcing the crowd tighter near the coffee stands. Her shoulder brushes my coat. Then she notices the firearm beneath the wool.
Discreet, but not invisible.
She steps away as the crowd clears, not dramatically. Just enough to remind us both of what I am.
“You hate shopping,” I observe.
“I hate performative shopping.” She picks up a dark blue mug, studying the glaze carefully. “This is different.”
“How?”
“Someone made this.”
I watch her move through the market after that. Wool mittens, paper goods, vintage prints, hand-poured candles—never once looking at labels. Always looking at craftsmanship.
Halfway through the third stall, I realize I’ve stopped checking sightlines.
I’m watching her instead.
The way she runs her fingertips lightly across textures before picking things up properly. The way she tilts her head when she concentrates. The way she unconsciously moves closer whenever crowds thicken around us.
Like some part of her already assumes I’ll make space for her automatically.
The crowd thickens again near the center of the market. When someone brushes too close behind her, I put my hand lightly at the small of her back.
Tamara halts for a moment before her steps continue. I notice too much about the fact that she doesn’t move away from me. We stop near one of the outdoor coffee stands. Tamara wraps both hands around the paper cup after the vendor passes it over.
“You know,” she says, “this is significantly better than what I thought today would be.”
“What did you think today would be?”
“A forced march through luxury retail while someone aggressively suggested handbags at me.”
“That still might happen.”
A look of genuine alarm crossing her face makes me laugh.
Snow drifts lightly around us while people move through the park carrying shopping bags and coffee cups, careless in a way I almost envy. For a few minutes, nobody is shooting at anyone. I’d forgotten what that felt like.
Tamara glances sideways at me over the rim of her cup.
“What?”
“You’re less terrifying outside your apartment.”
“Our apartment.”
“Yes,” she says hesitantly, like she’s testing the weight of it. Deciding whether it’s safe to carry. “You almost look normal. Almost—”
Her fingers make a small gesture toward my side, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
Subtle. Quick.
The gun.
I laugh, and realize too late it’s relief more than amusement.
“Careful, trouble. You’ll ruin my reputation.”
A smile appears on her face, softer this time. Quietly devastating. We stand there for a moment looking at each other while snow drifts silently through Manhattan.
Then her phone buzzes.
“Maya?” I ask.
“Yes. I haven’t replied to her email fast enough.”
“Aren’t you the boss?”
Tamara snorts softly into her coffee. “My point exactly.” Then her expression shifts, becoming more thoughtful. “You really meant it, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“The site visit. Thursday. The security routes. Transportation. All of it.”
“Yes.”
She believes me a little. Not enough to say so.
“I kept waiting for you to change your mind.”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
Silence settles between us again. Tamara glances toward the second security vehicle parked across the street.
“They follow you everywhere?”
“Mostly.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s work.”
Her gaze drifts briefly toward the street beyond the market. “It’s claustrophobic. This is exactly why I didn’t want to stay in my father’s orbit.”
She stops herself there. Too late.
I study her for a moment. “What was it like?”
“What?”
“Growing up with him.”
The question clearly catches her off guard. For a second, I think she’ll deflect. Instead she looks down into her coffee cup.
“My mother used to say the worst thing about powerful men is that eventually people start organizing themselves around their moods.” She gives a small, humorless sound. “Schedules. Conversations. Entire rooms.”
Something about the way she says it feels like a lesson she absorbed before she understood what she was learning.
“She stayed home?” I ask.
Tamara nods once. “She used to paint before she married him.” Her mouth curves in a way that’s sadder than a smile. “By the time I was ten, I mostly remember her organizing charity dinners and pretending not to notice when men with guns appeared in the house.”
The words land heavily between us.
“And you?”
“I wanted something that belonged to me. That’s why I built the business.”
“And now?” I ask.
Despair flickers openly across her face.
“I didn’t want this, Aleksander.” Her voice softens. “I still don’t.”
People move through the market carrying coffee cups and shopping bags and ordinary lives while she looks at me like she’s trying to decide whether honesty is dangerous.
“I don’t want guns in my house,” she says in a voice so low I can barely hear her. “I don’t want a child growing up with security teams following him around. Learning how to read a room for danger before he’s old enough to drive.”
I hate how precisely she describes the life I was born into and the life she spent years trying to escape.
A flake catches in her hair and vanishes before I can decide whether to notice it. I take her empty coffee cup and toss both of ours into a nearby bin.
“Come on.”
“Where now?”
“You still need a dress.”
She groans softly. “Aleksander. I have nice dresses. Please—”
“You survived the bratva part. Now you survive Bergdorf’s.”
“I genuinely think I prefer armed security.”