Chapter Twenty-Nine
SCOTTIE
The theater is already buzzing when Luka and I slip into the nosebleed section of the top balcony, exactly where I got our tickets.
“Hoping we can see her from all the way up here,” I mutter, clutching the ridiculous bouquet of tulips I bought from the florist in Seattle who ships them in from an indoor grower, since they’re out of season, being that it’s the end of October now.
He jerks his chin toward one of the fancy upper boxes. “Turns out we have a good view of something else. That’s where our answers are.”
I follow his gaze.
Her grandmother.
Sitting like a queen in the center of the box, gloved hands folded, two men in black stationed behind her like sentries. She’s not watching the crowd… she’s watching the stage.
Waiting.
My phone buzzes.
KitKat: You forgot to turn off the automatic order of seltzer water and chamomile tea. It just arrived in my dressing room. Tonight is my last night.
I type back before I can stop myself.
Me: No, I didn’t forget to cancel it.
A long pause. She doesn’t reply.
Luka bumps my shoulder. “You good?”
“No.”
“Good,” he says. “You’ll need that.”
The lights lower, the theater goes still, and then the music starts.
I’ve never seen her perform before. Not in person. Not like this.
She steps into the spotlight as if she’s made of light herself. Long limbs, a line so perfect I physically feel my breath leave me.
She doesn’t look like the woman who told me she didn’t love me in a hallway.
She looks like the woman who whispered “take me to bed, Scottie,” with her mouth against mine.
She looks like the woman I married. The only woman I’ve ever been in love with. The woman who’s breaking right in front of me and too far away to touch.
“Holy shit,” Luka whispers beside me, leaning forward. “I’ve never seen her dance like this.”
I tear my eyes away just long enough to look at him.
He shakes his head. “Look at her face. She’s not performing a role. She’s bleeding on the stage.”
And she is. Every move is raw. She’s not just dancing; she’s feeling it all.
She looks like she’s fighting for something… or mourning something, and the audience has no idea they’re watching her heart break in real time.
I grip the bouquet so hard that some of the stems snap.
Her jump sequence nearly takes me out. The emotion in it is everything she hasn’t let me see since the night she walked out.
She can hide heartbreak from a locker-room hallway and a lawyer’s conference room, but she can’t hide it here. Not tonight and not from me.
When the final curtain lowers, the applause is so loud it rattles the balcony. People are already on their feet, shouting “bravo!” and “encore!” and Luka nudges me again.
“Showtime,” he says.
We push through the crowd, down the stairs, through the lobby, toward the private elevator to the boxes.
Her grandmother steps out before we reach it, two guards flanking her.
She turns her gaze to me, assessing, measuring.
“It’s about time,” she says.
I blink. “What?”
“You came to fight.” She lifts her chin. “I wondered when you would.”
I step closer. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” she says in a tone that makes it clear she’s lying by omission. “Everything she did, she did for you.”
My stomach drops. “Tell me.”
She sighs, as if she’s tired of repeating herself. “I tested you first. With money.”
“The bribe,” I mutter.
“Yes, Katerina’s father was certain you’d take it. Certainly, you’d walk away the second you saw the number.” Her mouth twitches. “I admit, you surprised me a little, but I wasn’t surprised you were madly in love with her after everything she told me you’ve done for her.”
“You tried to bribe him with money?” Luka asks. “How much?”
“Enough that anyone else would have agreed,” she says, her eyes still on me.
“And then what happened when I told you no in that limo?” I ask.
“Then I needed to see how much my granddaughter would give up for you. It was obvious you loved her, but did she return the same level of love?”
My heartbeat stutters. “What did she give up? Because she told me she was going back to New York—”
“Is that what she told you?” A sharp, humorless smile ghosts across her lips. “My dear boy, she told me you would never let her go if you knew the truth, and I suppose she was right to think you wouldn’t let her go with the truth.”
“The truth?” I echo.
“She believed,” Grandmother says calmly, “that her only option to secure your father’s trial spot was to return to Moscow. Marry Maxim. Live under her father’s thumb again.”
My mouth goes dry. “You didn’t.”
“No.” She lifts a brow. “But she thinks I did.”
Luka curses in Russian so violently that nearby patrons stare.
“She gave up her freedom,” Grandmother continues, “to secure your father’s future. I wasn’t fully convinced she would.” She levels her gaze at me. “But she did. Without hesitation.”
I swallow hard, dizzy. “I don’t understand. She doesn’t have to go back to Moscow?”
“No,” she says simply. “Your marriage is under my protection now. She may stay in Seattle. She may dance. She may live her life.” A pause.
“She just doesn’t know that yet. I gave the option to live without going back to Moscow, but I already knew your father was never going to get into the trial.
Or she could give you up, and I would call in a favor and pay for it myself. ”
“My father’s nerve trial. What happens with that?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “That was an olive branch. I wish to be in my granddaughter and grandson’s lives in the future.”
“Grandson?” Luka chokes.
She ignores him.
“Katerina is not engaged, nor will she be to Maxim,” her grandmother finishes. “And the divorce papers? Naturally, those were part of the test.”
My jaw drops. “A test?”
“Yes.” She smiles like a cat with cream. “To see which of you would sign. She didn’t. Neither did you.” Her voice softens just slightly. “Good. You love each other. I needed to see it for myself.”
I clutch her flowers a little tighter in my hand. “So we’re not getting divorced. And she’s not going to Russia?”
“Well,” her grandmother says, adjusting a glove. “That is up to the two of you. But your marriage has my blessing.”
“But she gave up her spot here under false pretenses.”
His grandmother brushes her hand through the air. “A simple, large donation to PNB put them on my side. They knew she wasn’t leaving. Her place is still safe. I’ve just been waiting for you to figure it out.”
Luka grabs my arm. “You need to go.”
I look toward the stage, the curtain fully lowered now.
Grandmother steps aside, nodding toward the backstage hallway.
“I suggest,” she says, “you get back there before someone else tries to whisk her away.”
My pulse roars in my ears.
I turn to Luka.
“Go,” he says. “Now.”
And I run.