4. Yaromir
YAROMIR
“Your left side is slow tonight.”
Alexei’s fist clips my jaw half a second later.
I grunt and shove him back hard enough to make him stumble across the mat.
The boxing gym is nearly empty this late at night. Just us, the sound of gloves hitting flesh, old music playing quietly through blown-out speakers, and sweat soaking through my shirt.
Usually, boxing clears my head. Tonight it’s doing the opposite.
Alexei pulls his mouth guard out and spits into the bucket beside the ring. “You’re distracted.”
“I’m not.”
“That punch says otherwise.”
I roll my shoulders, ignoring the ache settling into them. “You talk too much.”
He laughs under his breath and raises his gloves again. “Come on, then.”
We circle each other slowly.
Alexei has known me since I was nineteen and angry enough to break things for sport. He’s one of the few people alive who doesn’t flinch around me. Mostly because he’s too stupid to.
I throw another punch. He blocks it easily.
“There it is again,” he says.
“What?”
“That look.”
I hit him properly that time. His head snaps sideways.
“Careful,” I say calmly. “You’ll start sounding like my therapist.”
“You’d kill a therapist within ten minutes.”
“That’s generous.”
Alexei wipes sweat from his mouth and studies me for a second longer than I like. “This about your father?”
“No.”
“Dmitri?”
I don’t answer immediately. Which is answer enough.
Alexei’s brows lift slightly. “Interesting.”
I step back toward the ropes and pull my gloves off, irritation crawling under my skin. My hands ache pleasantly from impact. Better that than the other thing lodged in my head all night.
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A white dress with a pink stain near the waist.
I grab a towel from the corner and drag it across my face. “She’s not what I expected,” I say finally.
Alexei leans against the ropes. “Who?”
“Dmitri’s fiancée.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then a grin spreads slowly across his face. “Oh, this is excellent.”
I glare at him.
He ignores it completely. “You’re thinking about Dmitri’s fiancée while punching holes through the gym.”
“I’m thinking about the fact that Dmitri is getting married at all.”
“Sure.”
I throw the towel at him. Alexei catches it easily, laughing now.
“She seems…” I stop, searching for the right word. “Young.”
“She is young.”
“No, I mean—” I exhale sharply. “Empty.”
Alexei raises an eyebrow.
“She sits there with her perfect hair and expensive ring looking exactly like every girl Dmitri usually drags around,” I continue. “Pretty. Polished. Probably spoiled.”
“Blonde bimbo type?” Alexei asks dryly.
“Exactly.”
“And this bothers you because?”
“It doesn’t.”
He gives me a long look.
I hate that look. The one that says he knows I’m lying.
I walk toward the heavy bag near the corner before I punch him again for real. “She doesn’t fit,” I mutter.
“With Dmitri?”
“With any of it.” I hit the bag once. Hard. The chains rattle overhead. “She looked at me like she’d never seen a man before,” I say before I can stop myself.
Alexei bursts out laughing.
I turn toward him slowly. “Careful.”
“No, no,” he says, holding up his hands. “Please continue. This is the most emotionally invested I’ve seen you in years.”
“I’m not emotionally invested.”
“Right. That’s why you’re analyzing her personality after speaking to her for thirty seconds.”
I hit the bag again. Harder this time.
The truth is, I don’t understand why she’s stuck in my head. Women don’t stay there. Not like this. I sleep with them. Sometimes more than once. Then life continues.
But there’s something about Anya Sokolova that irritates me because I can’t place it. She looks shallow. She acts composed in that polished society-girl way. She’s engaged to Dmitri, which already tells me her standards are questionable.
And still?—
I remember exactly how she looked at me in that corridor.
Like she was trying not to.
Alexei hops down from the ring and walks closer. “What’s the girl’s name?”
“Anya.”
“Pretty name.”
I say nothing.
“She know who you are?”
“Yes.”
“When’s the wedding?”
“In two weeks.”
The words leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
Two weeks. Fourteen days until Dmitri puts a ring on her finger in front of half the city and pretends he deserves her.
Alexei studies me for another second before speaking carefully this time. “And why exactly do you care?”
I open my mouth to answer. Nothing comes out.
Because the truth is ugly. I barely know the girl. I know what she looks like in sunlight. I know the sound of her voice. I know she gets defensive when she’s embarrassed. I know she wears my mother’s ring and somehow manages not to look consumed by it.
And I know I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I left that restaurant.
Which is ridiculous.
I exhale slowly and reach for the water bottle near the bench. “It’s nothing.”
“That’s usually how obsessions start.”
I throw him another look.
Alexei laughs. “Fine. Keep pretending.” He heads toward the locker room, still smiling to himself. “Try not to steal your brother’s fiancée, Yaromir. Your father would finally have the heart attack we’ve all been waiting for.”
The door swings shut behind him, and the gym goes quiet. I stay there alone for another ten minutes, hitting the heavy bag until my shoulders burn.
It doesn’t help.
By the time I get home, the city is dark and wet from recent rain. My penthouse overlooks the river, all glass and black marble and silence. The kind of place people think powerful men want.
Most nights, I like the silence. Tonight it feels restless.
I pour myself a drink and loosen the collar of my shirt as I walk toward the windows. Below me, headlights slide through the streets in long white streaks.
Two weeks.
I take a slow sip of whiskey, and a stupid thought slips into my head before I can stop it.
What would she look like walking through my house instead of Dmitri’s?
The image arrives instantly. Anya barefoot on the dark wood floors. Blonde hair loose over bare shoulders. That careful composure finally gone. Looking at me the way she did in the corridor, only softer this time. Hungrier.
I grip the glass tighter.
Jesus Christ. I should not be thinking this way.
About her, or about any woman connected to Dmitri.
But my mind keeps returning to small details I shouldn’t even remember. The way her breath caught when I stepped close to her. The flush spreading slowly across her throat. The way she tried to argue with me while obviously nervous.
And underneath all that polish and attitude, something else.
Inexperience.
I noticed it immediately. Not innocence exactly. She’s too aware of herself for that. But there’s a hesitation to her reactions, a curiosity she doesn’t know how to hide yet.
It affects me more than it should.
I set the drink down harder than necessary and lean both hands against the kitchen counter.
For one moment, I imagine backing her against it instead.
Her white dress pushed up beneath my hands.
Her eyes wide from the size of me, the closeness of me.
That proud mouth finally breaking open on a gasp when I touch her properly.
Heat hits me low and immediate.
I close my eyes briefly.
This is insanity. I barely know her. But my body clearly doesn’t care. By the time I look down, I’m hard enough that it’s genuinely irritating.
I let out a quiet curse and drag a hand over my jaw.
All this over a girl who will belong to Dmitri in two weeks.
The thought should kill whatever this is. Instead, it makes something darker move through me.
Because Dmitri won’t appreciate her.
That much, somehow, I already know.