20. Say it again. （Tamara）
SAY IT AGAIN. (TAMARA)
“Is that Khaite?”
Katya circles me slowly, assessing the emerald silk with open approval while balancing a champagne coupe in one hand.
“Aleksander picked it,” I admit. “Disturbingly, my husband seems to know more about fashion than me.”
The word still catches strangely in my chest.
Husband.
As if repetition alone might eventually make it feel less surreal.
Katarina appears beside us with a second glass. She is softer than Katya, quieter too, though there’s something watchful underneath the kindness. “Aleks has always had excellent taste.”
Katya smirks. “Especially when he’s emotionally compromised.”
I shake my head and don’t comment, taking a sip of champagne. Across the apartment, Aleksander stands near the fireplace speaking with Vasiliy and Igor, one hand loose in the pocket of his charcoal trousers.
Even from here, he feels contained. Dangerous in the way winter ice is dangerous, smooth enough that you forget what sits underneath.
Across the room, Aleksander looks up. He doesn’t smile. He only holds me there for one second too long before Sofiya, Igor and Katya’s daughter, appears beside him, tugging insistently at his sleeve.
The severity in his expression softens.
I blink.
The little girl launches into an animated explanation involving her tablet and what appears to be a horse wearing sunglasses. Aleksander crouches beside her without hesitation, listening with absolute seriousness while she gestures dramatically at the screen.
“Yeah,” Galina, Vasiliy’s wife, comments dryly beside me. “That part gets people.”
I tear my eyes away from Aleksander with effort. “What part?”
“The terrifying men being unexpectedly gentle with children thing.” She takes a sip of wine. “Very manipulative of them, honestly.”
I laugh before I can stop it.
Galina is beautiful in a cool, understated way. Auburn hair twisted into a low knot, black silk dress, sharp green eyes that look like they miss very little.
Katya follows my gaze toward the living room. “You know what’s strange?” she says thoughtfully. “Aleks almost never watches people.”
“What does that mean?”
“He watches rooms,” Katya clarifies. “Entrances. Exits. Problems.”
I think about the way he scanned the market this afternoon, the way his attention moves through any space before it settles.
“Tonight he’s been watching you,” Katya finishes, her mouth curving faintly.
As if summoned by the observation, Aleksander glances up again from Sofiya’s tablet. Right at me.
Warmth crawls slowly up my throat. “I’m beginning to understand why none of you are normal,” I mutter into my glass.
Katarina laughs. “Normal is overrated.”
“That feels like something people say before ending up on Dateline.” A strange sense of familiarity relaxes me by a fraction. “Were all of you dragged into this world?”
The women exchange a look that answers me before anyone speaks.
“Some more willingly than others,” Galina says finally.
Katya leans lightly against the kitchen island. “The beginning wasn’t easy for any of us.”
“That’s putting it diplomatically,” Galina murmurs.
“But,” Katarina’s expression softens as her attention settles on Nikolai across the room, “people can surprise you too.”
The quiet certainty in her voice catches me off guard.
“Besides,” Katya adds dryly, “Aleksander is probably the least alarming option in this entire room.”
Before I can ask what that means, Aleksander straightens from beside Sofiya and starts walking toward us. His attention lands on me, steady and focused. Suddenly I’m far too aware of the emerald silk against my skin.
“Ladies,” he says. His hand finds the small of my back. Katya notices everything, obviously.
“So,” she says innocently, “we were just discussing how terrifying all of you are.”
Aleksander’s hand shifts slightly against my spine. “And what conclusion did you reach?”
“That the women are significantly more frightening,” Galina answers before anyone else can speak.
“Correct,” Vasiliy says from somewhere behind us.
Galina lifts her glass toward him without turning around. “Good answer.”
Laughter ripples through the apartment, and for one strange moment, the evening feels almost normal.
Then Igor appears in the dining room doorway. “Dinner before my daughter starts charging people late fees,” he announces.
Sofiya gasps dramatically. “Papa.”
Aleksander’s hand remains at my back as we move toward the dining room, guiding and careful.
Dinner unfolds slowly after that. Too much food. Too much wine. Conversations overlapping across the long table while snow drifts beyond the windows and Shostakovich plays in the background.
For a few minutes, it could be any other Manhattan dinner party. People arguing about Ukraine, a recent New Yorker piece about museums laundering private money into public virtue, whether Bulgakov is overrated or simply overassigned by men who like hearing themselves explain allegory.
Katya has strong opinions on all three. Galina corrects someone’s translation from across the table without looking up from her wine. Katarina points out that everyone always reaches for Solzhenitsyn and Bulgakov before remembering Russian women have been documenting collapse for generations.
“And before that,” Galina says, “Dostoevsky’s wife was transcribing his manuscripts while everyone else decided genius happened alone.”
Vasiliy says something in Russian.
Galina lifts her glass without looking at him. “Careful.”
It could be any dinner party, really.
If you ignore the guns.
Aleksander mostly listens, occasionally speaking near my shoulder and refilling my wine before I notice it needs it.
Under the table, his hand brushes mine once. Accidental enough to ignore. Then stays.
I stare at my wine glass. Around us the table continues—Vasiliy saying something about Gessen and the psychology of post-Soviet obedience, Katya countering with Ioffe and a history built around women who kept functioning, Katarina laughing. It all becomes background.
I turn my hand over slowly and lace my fingers through his. His thumb moves against my knuckles in response.
I chose that. He didn’t take it.
The conversation around us continues uninterrupted, but suddenly I’m aware of everything. The warmth of his hand. The roughness of his skin. The steady weight of him beside me.
Aleksander glances toward me. “You okay?”
The question is quiet enough that no one else hears it. Somehow that matters too.
“Yes,” I say.
For a second, his eyes hold mine. Across the table, Katya catches the movement and smirks into her wine glass.
I ignore her deliberately.
Because she’s right.
The apartment is quiet when we get back. I’m hanging up my coat when I feel him behind me, just there in the way he always is now.
I turn.
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, and something low in my stomach tightens in response.
“You’re beautiful.” The words sound almost reluctant, like he tried not to say them and failed anyway.
Heat climbs slowly up my throat.
His hand lifts to my jaw, thumb brushing once along my cheek before he tilts my face upward.
His mouth touches mine—warm, controlled, infinitely more tender than I expected.
A fraction of a kiss. Then another one, more demanding.
He tastes like wine and winter air, and when a small sound escapes me, he hisses between his teeth.
My hands slide into his hair, then his mouth brushes against mine again. Deep. Slow. Devastatingly thorough.
His other hand closes around my waist, pulling me closer. My chest arches up into his as my hands glide behind his neck.
“I think about you all the time,” he says, his teeth grazing down my neck. “About doing this.”
The words stop me more effectively than his mouth could have. My fingers tighten at the back of his neck. I should make a joke. I should step back. I should remember every reason I should keep my distance.
Instead I lift on my toes, trying to draw him closer.
“Sasha.” It’s barely a whisper, a name that slips out before I understand I’ve given it to him.
His eyes close briefly, forehead lowering against mine as a rough breath leaves his chest.
“Jesus Christ.”
The words sound dragged out of him, heat rushing to my face.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Don’t.”
His hand tightens once against my waist before easing again with visible effort.
“Don’t apologize for that.”
For a second, neither of us speaks. Then, quietly, “Say it again.”
My pulse stumbles. “Sasha.”
Something flashes across his face so quickly, I almost miss it. Whatever it does to him, he has to fight it.
We stare at each other, suspended. And then—impossibly—he steps back. His thumb traces once along my jaw before his hand falls away entirely.
“Goodnight, Tamara.”
His voice is rougher than usual.
I stare at him as he walks away down the hallway, broad shoulders disappearing into shadow.
My pulse is unsteady, mouth warm from his.
Somewhere beneath all of it sits the terrifying realization that I wanted him to stay.