KATERINA #2
Vika smiles at that, nasty and pleased. “She warned me away from him.”
Irina lifts one brow at me. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“How kind,” she says again, this time with more edge. “You’ve always been so public-spirited.”
I fold my arms. “He’s not what she thinks he is.”
“That sounds very dramatic,” Vika says. “Should I be frightened?”
“Yes,” I say.
For a second, neither of them speaks.
Then Irina says, “Katerina, you’re in no position to make demands where men like Roman Sokolov are concerned.”
The same reminder that I should be grateful for interest, grateful for attention, grateful that I’m still marketable at all.
My temper flares too fast to hide. “And Vika is?”
Vika opens her mouth, but Irina answers first.
“Viktoria knows how to behave.”
I laugh. Actually laugh. “That’s what we’re calling it?”
Irina’s eyes sharpen. “What exactly are we calling your behavior?”
Before I can answer, Papa steps into the room. He looks from Irina to Vika to me and understands enough immediately.
“What is this?”
Vika gets there first, because she always does. “Katerina is upset about Roman.”
Papa’s eyes shift to me. That makes my stomach tighten. “And why,” he asks, very calmly, “is Katerina upset about Roman?”
I know that tone. It means he thinks there is useful information in the room and intends to pull it out without anyone noticing the extraction.
I say, “I’m not upset about Roman.”
Vika laughs.
Papa ignores her. “Then why are you warning your sister away from him?”
“Because she doesn’t understand him.”
Irina makes a soft, dismissive sound. “And you do?”
There are too many answers to that. None of them safe.
So I say nothing.
Papa watches my silence for a second too long. Then something changes in his face. Not recognition exactly. More like a thought settling into place.
“Well,” he says, “that’s useful.”
I go cold. “What is?”
He looks at me as if I’ve asked something childish. “I’ve been thinking.”
That’s never a comforting sentence from him.
“About Arkady?” Vika asks quickly, and I hear the eagerness in it at once.
Papa turns to her. “No.”
The word lands like a slap. Vika goes still.
Papa looks back at me. “Arkady is safe,” he says. “Predictable. Limited.”
I already hate where this is going.
“But Roman,” he continues, “is a serious man.”
No one speaks.
Irina frowns first. Vika second. I just stare at him, because the shape of the thought is arriving too fast to stop.
Papa says, “He would be a much better match.”
The room goes silent.
Vika’s mouth opens. Irina actually blinks. I think my heart may have missed a beat entirely.
“For who?” Vika says, though she knows.
Papa doesn’t even look at her. “For Katerina.”
My first feeling is shock. My second is fury. My third is the hottest, most humiliating one of all.
Hope.
It rises so fast I want to claw it out of myself.
Because this is my father. He’s not seeing romance. He’s seeing leverage, danger, strength, usefulness.
And still, some traitorous part of me hears the words Roman would be a much better match and flashes back to the corridor, his mouth on mine, his hand at my waist, that low roughness in his voice right before he stepped away.
I bury the reaction at once.
Papa is still speaking.
“Roman is difficult, yes. But difficult men are often better husbands than weak ones. They require less managing.”
Vika makes a sharp noise. “You cannot be serious.”
Papa turns his head slowly. “Why not?”
“Because—” She stops herself, too late. The protest was too quick, too emotional.
Irina recovers before anyone else. “Sergei, that’s absurd.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.” She gestures toward me like I’m an invoice with water damage. “Katerina has children.”
“She also has my name. And Roman,” Papa says, “is not the kind of man who frightens easily.”
I can’t listen to them discuss me like this for one second longer. “I’m standing right here.”
Papa looks at me. “Yes. That’s why I’m saying it plainly.”
I step toward him. “You don’t get to decide this.”
That almost amuses him. “I don’t?”
For one horrible second, I can hear my own pulse.
Papa knows nothing definite. I know that immediately. He’s testing. Prodding. Reading.
Still, it’s enough to make the room unbearable.
I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Stay out of my life.”
Papa’s mouth hardens. “Then stop behaving as if your life has nothing to do with this family.”
There is no point staying after that. Not one.
I turn and walk out before anyone can stop me, before Vika can start asking questions with that bright, sharp voice of hers, before Irina can sneer, before Papa can calmly rearrange my future into something he thinks looks cleaner than the mess I made of it.
Behind me, I hear Vika say, “This is insane.”
And Papa answer, “No. This is better.”
I keep walking. Up the stairs. Past the portraits. Past the nursery door. Past the part of me that wants to sit on the floor and shake.
By the time I reach my bedroom, I’m breathing hard. Not from the stairs. From the simple, terrible fact that my father has looked at Roman Sokolov and seen possibility.
And Roman, if he wanted to, could destroy every one of us.