10. Chapter 9
Zoltan Boros
Later that evening, Hargrove had his hand on Liv's elbow.
I watched from across the ballroom, my conversation with Senator Chen dissolving into background static.
The committee chair had cornered her near the bar, his posture angled to block her exit, and whatever he was saying made her chin lift in that specific way I had catalogued over weeks of kitchen counters.
That chin meant she was deciding whether to be polite about telling someone to go to hell.
"Excuse me," I said to Chen, already moving.
I did not run. Running would suggest panic. I crossed the marble floor at a pace that suggested I had somewhere important to be, which was technically accurate. Hargrove saw me coming and his expression shifted from patronizing to wary in the space of three steps.
"Boros." He released Liv's elbow. "We were just discussing your household arrangements."
"Were you." I positioned myself between them without appearing to do so, my shoulder creating a barrier that forced Hargrove to take a half-step back.
"Senator Chen was asking about the data-privacy provisions in the renewal.
Perhaps you could clarify the committee's position on Section 14B while I steal Miss Strauss for a moment. "
Hargrove's mouth opened and closed. He was not accustomed to being redirected so efficiently. I did not wait for his response. My hand found the small of Liv's back, the black silk warm under my palm, and I guided her toward the service terrace before either of us could reconsider.
The night air hit us like a reprieve. The terrace was empty, stone railings overlooking a city that glittered indifferently forty stories below. Liv exhaled and pulled away from my hand, turning to face me.
"I had that handled."
"I know."
"Then why did you charge across the room like I was about to be kidnapped?"
Because he was touching you. Because his voice dropped when he leaned closer and I could see the calculation in his eyes. Because three weeks ago I did not know how you took your coffee and now I cannot concentrate in board meetings.
"He was being inappropriate," I said instead. "What did he say to you?"
Liv's jaw tightened. In the low light from the ballroom windows, her freckles were barely visible, her eyes darker than usual.
"He suggested that my presence tonight might be viewed as evidence of poor judgment on your part.
Something about ambitious young women and the men who fail to see through them. "
The anger arrived like a system error, flooding pathways that were supposed to be controlled.
I had built algorithms designed to identify threats before they materialized.
I had constructed contingency plans for scenarios most people could not imagine.
But standing on this terrace watching Liv's expression, I understood that some threats could not be neutralized by preparation.
"I will have him removed from the committee."
"No, you won't." Liv crossed her arms. "That's exactly what Marcus wants. Drama. Retaliation. Something to prove you're unstable."
She was right. I knew she was right. The knowledge did nothing to quiet the impulse that wanted Hargrove's career to end before sunrise.
"You told Missy she could be a mechanic," I said.
Liv blinked. "What?"
"Last week. She was drawing in her journal and you asked what she wanted to be. She said she didn't know. You said she could be a mechanic if she wanted, or an astronaut, or someone who fixes broken things. She chose mechanic."
"I remember." Liv's arms uncrossed slightly. "Why are you bringing this up now?"
Because I stood in my daughter's doorway that night and watched her sleep with grease-stained hands from the toy engine you bought her.
Because no one has ever told Missy she could fix things.
Because I have spent years trying to protect her from disappointment and you walked in and gave her permission to want something in the space of a single conversation.
"She hasn't mentioned her mother in four days," I said. "That used to be all she talked about. Now she talks about carburetors."
Liv's expression shifted. The defensiveness faded, replaced by something more complicated. "That's not necessarily better. She should be able to talk about her mother."
"She should be able to talk about anything." I took a step closer. The cedar scent from my jacket mixed with whatever perfume she was wearing, something citrus and faintly floral. "You gave her that. I did not know how."
The city hummed below us. Somewhere inside the ballroom, a string quartet began playing something I should have recognized. Liv's breathing had changed, shallow and quick, and I was close enough to see the pulse jumping in her throat.
"Zoltan." My name in her voice did something to my chest that felt like a crack forming in load-bearing architecture. "This isn't why we're here."
"I know."
"The conduct agreement. Marcus. The committee." She listed the obstacles like a shield. "This is a business arrangement."
"I know."
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
Because I cannot stop. Because I have spent weeks trying to file you in a category that makes sense and you refuse to fit.
Because my daughter drew a picture of our family and you were in it, and I should have been concerned about attachment issues but instead I felt something I have not felt since Eva died.
I kissed her.
Not carefully. Not with the measured approach I applied to everything else in my existence.
I backed her against the stone railing and kissed her like the conduct agreement had already burned, like Marcus and the committee and every rational objection existed in a dimension I no longer inhabited.
She made a sound against my mouth, surprise or protest, and then her hands were in my shirt and she was kissing me back with the same lack of caution.
Her fingers found the buttons at my collar.
My hand curved around the back of her neck, tilting her head to deepen the angle.
The black silk dress bunched under my other palm where it rested at her hip.
She tasted like champagne and something sharper, defiance maybe, and I wanted to catalogue every detail but my brain had stopped functioning at its usual capacity.
"We shouldn't," she said against my lips, not pulling away.
"Correct."
"This is a terrible idea."
"Also correct."
She kissed me harder, and I stopped caring about correctness.
Time became irrelevant. The string quartet finished one piece and started another. The city lights blurred at the edges of my vision because I could not look at anything except her face, her closed eyes, the way her breath caught when my thumb traced the line of her jaw.
I had kissed women since Eva. Careful encounters with appropriate partners, arranged by circumstance and mutual understanding. None of them had made me forget my own name.
"Tell me what you want," I said against the line of her throat.
"Stop asking. Start doing."
I could work with that.
I kissed her—nothing tentative about it, a kiss that settled an argument. She tasted of the wine from dinner and something beneath it that was only her, and when I drew back her breath was ragged, fingers knotted in my open shirt.
I went to my knees on the cold stone.
Her sharp inhale was satisfying. The white-knuckle grip she took on the ledge was better. I pushed her dress to her hips, hooked the thin fabric at her thighs, drew it down and away.
"You're going to—"
"Yes." I spread her wider, looked up at her face—flushed, eyes black in the dark, watching me like she couldn't look away. "Unless you'd rather I didn't."
She didn't tell me to stop.
I put my mouth on her.
The sound she made was low and torn out of her, and her fingers fisted in my hair.
I learned her by degrees—what made her gasp, what made her moan, what made her pull hard enough to sting.
I worked her slow and exact until her thighs shook against my shoulders and the cool air did nothing to settle the heat coming off her.
"Zoltan—"
"Not yet." I pushed two fingers into her, felt the clench, kept the slow rhythm of my tongue. "You come when I tell you."
Half curse, half plea. I took my time regardless—building her, easing off the second she climbed too high, mapping exactly how far she'd go before the edge.
I didn't spare a thought for the city watching or anything but the way her composure was burning off into something raw and unrehearsed and real.
When I finally let her, she arched back against the night, my name breaking loose like a secret she hadn't meant to surrender.
I rose while she was still trembling, freed myself, dragged her to the edge of the ledge.
"Look at me."
Her eyes found mine—dark, dazed, still riding it out.
I pushed in slow. By degrees. Watching her face take me, the stretch register, the shift from overwhelmed to adjusting to wanting more.
"More." A demand.
I gave her more.
The first thrust was measured. The second, less.
By the third I'd given up the pretense that this was something I could pace or control.
Her legs locked around me and I took her there against the edge with the whole indifferent city glittering below, and she met me drive for drive, and when she said my name this time there was no question left in it.
I came harder than I had in years, buried deep, her nails carving half-moons through my shirt.
Then—A door opened somewhere behind us. Footsteps on stone, then an abrupt halt.
I pulled back. Liv's eyes flew open, wide and slightly unfocused. Her hands moved first — practical, quick — smoothing the fabric of her dress back over her hips while I stepped away and dragged my zipper up. The click of it was impossibly loud in the silence.
A waiter stood in the service entrance, tray balanced on one hand, expression carefully blank in the way that suggested he had seen more than he intended and would absolutely tell someone about it later.