NINA
He is insane.
Absolutely insane.
I stare at Luka as he takes another turn, smooth and confident, as if ditching his own security detail in the middle of the night is a normal decision made by normal men who have not recently been shot in a parking garage.
For a second, I think I should be furious.
Actually, I am furious.
But then my phone buzzes in my purse at the same time his phone lights up in the console, and I imagine the entire security team behind us collectively losing their minds because their billionaire boss has decided to vanish with his secretary like a badly behaved teenager after prom.
A laugh rises in my throat before I can stop it.
I press my lips together, but I can’t help myself.
It comes out suddenly and helplessly, too loud for the quiet car, and once it starts, I cannot pull it back.
The night has been too much. The gala, Roman, Luka’s temper, the strange men at the exit, the ride back where neither of us knew how to talk properly, and now this man, this dangerous, impossible man who’s driving down the road with no destination in mind, just to lose his own security detail.
Luka keeps his eyes on the road. “You find this amusing.”
I wipe under one eye carefully because I don’t want to ruin my makeup. “I find you insane.”
Luka says, “That’s not news.”
I laugh again. “Your own security is going to murder you.”
Luka says, “They may try.”
“You are their job,” I say.
“I’m their employer,” Luka says.
Behind us, headlights swing into the street we just left, but Luka takes the next turn before they can follow properly.
He does not speed like a reckless idiot.
That would be too simple for him. He drives with calm precision, using traffic, service lanes, and timing, cutting through a residential road, then around a block of closed shops, then past a row of old trees that separate the main avenue from a quieter park road.
His phone vibrates again. He ignores it.
My phone vibrates too.
I pull it out and see an unknown number.
Then another message.
Tell him to answer his phone.
I snort. “Your security has found my number.”
Luka looks mildly offended. “They shouldn’t be involving you in this.”
“They’re desperate,” I say. “You’ve turned them into abandoned children.”
Luka says, “Don’t reply.”
I say, “I’m absolutely replying.”
“Nina,” Luka says.
I type quickly.
He is alive. Unfortunately still making decisions.
A second later, the reply comes.
Please tell him to stop the car.
I show Luka the screen.
He looks at it once. “No.”
I type again.
He says no.
Three dots appear immediately, then vanish, then appear again.
I put the phone back in my purse before I start feeling bad for them. After another two turns, the security car is gone.
I look out of the window and realize I don’t recognize this road. “Where are we going?”
Luka says, “Nowhere.”
I turn to him. “That’s concerning.”
Luka says, “You wanted honesty.”
I roll my eyes. “This is highly concerning. Are you sure you’re not having a mental breakdown?”
He glances at me, and his eyes are warmer now. “There’s a park ahead. We can walk for ten minutes.”
“In this dress?” I ask.
“You can walk in that dress,” he says.
“You don’t know that,” I say.
“I watched you cross an entire ballroom in it while making half the room forget what they were saying,” Luka says.
That makes me go quiet.
He turns into a narrow road beside a park, then pulls into a small parking area near an old wrought-iron gate. The place is almost empty. There are a few food trucks, but not many customers.
Lamps line the path inside the park, and beyond them, trees stand dark against the sky.
Luka switches off the engine.
I look at him. “You realize this is how scandals happen.”
Luka says, “I have survived worse.”
“That’s not comforting,” I say.
Luka says, “I’m not trying to comfort you.”
“What are you trying to do?” I ask.
He turns in his seat, and because the car is dark except for the weak glow from the streetlamp outside, his face looks less controlled than it did at the gala. He looks tired. Handsome, still, unfairly, but tired in a way I don’t think many people get to see.
Luka says, “I didn’t want to drop you home while you were still angry and silent.”
My chest tightens, and I look down at my hands. “I wasn’t only angry.”
“I know,” Luka says.
“Do you?” I ask.
Luka says, “No. Not all of it.”
At least that is honest.
I breathe out slowly. “I didn’t like how tonight felt.”
Luka says, “Which part?”
“All of it,” I say, then I shake my head because that is not fair. “No. That’s not true. Some of it was beautiful. Walking in with you was… more than I expected. I know I asked you to introduce me as staff, and I know you were respecting my rule, but it still hurt to hear it.”
Luka says, “I know.”
I look at him. “Don’t say that unless you actually understand it.”
Luka’s jaw shifts slightly. “I understood it when I said it at the door. I never meant to hurt you, I was only doing what you asked me to.”
“I know,” I say, and suddenly I feel so stupid. Why am I behaving like a petulant child is beyond me.
He watches me for a moment, then reaches for his door. “Come.”
“Where?” I ask.
“For a walk,” Luka says.
I look at my heels. “If I break my ankle, your security team gets custody of me.”
Luka says, “I will carry you.”
“That’s not better,” I say.
He gets out and comes around to open my door.
I take his hand as I step out, partly because of the heels and partly because I want to.
The night air is cooler here. It smells faintly of wet grass, dust, and the last steam from the tea stall across the street.
The music from the gala is gone. The cameras are gone.
The polished smiles and careful questions are gone.
It's only us.
Luka locks the car and leads me through the gate.
The park path is uneven in places, so I hold his arm. At first, I tell myself it is practical. Then his hand comes over mine, warm and steady, and I stop pretending.
We walk slowly beneath the lamps.
“Your shoulder,” I say after a while.
Luka says, “It hurts.”
I look up at him. “You could have lied.”
Luka says, “I’m trying your honesty method.”
“How is it working?” I ask.
Luka says, “It’s inconvenient.”
“That sounds right.”
He looks down at me. “Are you still angry?”
“Yes,” I say.
Luka nods. “All right.”
I look at him, surprised. “That’s it?”
Luka says, “I’m learning not to fight every answer I dislike.”
I study his face. “Who are you, and what have you done with Luka Kazan?”
Luka chuckles. “He’s unavailable.”
I almost smile. “Busy ditching his security?”
Luka says, “Among other things.”
We walk a little farther.
The park opens into a small clearing with an old fountain in the middle, dry now, with fallen leaves gathered in the basin.
The path circles around it. The lamps are spaced far enough apart that the light comes in soft pools, and somewhere beyond the trees, a car passes on the main road, distant enough to feel like another world.
I stop near the fountain because my feet need a break. Luka stops with me. And for a moment, we simply stand there.
Then he turns toward me and holds out his hand.
“May I have this dance?” Luka asks.
I stare at him. “Here?”
Luka says, “Yes.”
“In a park?” I ask.
Luka says, “Yes.”
“There is no music,” I say.
Luka says, “There was barely music at the gala.”
I give him a look. “That’s objectively false.”
He holds my eyes. “I didn’t get to dance with you.”
That shuts me up.
The words are simple, but they go straight through me.
My throat tightens. I place my hand in his. “You’re still insane.”
Luka says, “I know.”
He draws me closer carefully, slower than he did in the closet, slower than he does anything when he wants control.
One hand settles at my waist, the other holds mine, and because there is no music, we move to almost nothing at all.
Maybe to the hum of traffic beyond the trees.
Maybe to the rhythm of our own breathing.
Maybe to some song I imagine because the moment needs one.
He's a good dancer.
He guides like he does everything else when he’s not being impossible, with quiet certainty and enough restraint that I can choose to follow. His injured shoulder keeps us from moving too much, so the dance is small, almost still, more swaying than anything else.
I look at his tuxedo, at the undone patience in his face, at the silver near his temples catching the lamplight, at the mouth that has ruined my sense of judgment completely, and something inside me goes soft in a way I cannot defend against.
He’s not my boss, anymore. He’s not even my brother’s best friend. He’s Luka Kazan.
This is Luka standing with me in an almost empty park because he did not want to take me home while I was still hurt, because he wanted one dance without photographers, without introductions, without the word staff cutting between us.
The realization arrives quietly.
I’m falling in love with him.
I always imagined love would arrive in a dramatic way, not sneak into my heart like this.
I look down because I don’t know what my face is doing.
Luka says, “What?”
“Nothing,” I say.
Luka says, “That answer is yours now?”
“It always was,” I say.
He lowers his head slightly. “Nina.”
I close my eyes for half a second.
When I open them, he is still watching me.
I could tell him. Not everything. Not Roman’s card, not the warning, not the terrible tangle of questions I’m not ready to explain. I could tell him this one thing. That when he asked for this dance, something in me changed its shape.
But love is a dangerous word.
Especially with him. Especially now.
So, I say the safer thing.
“I used to imagine this,” I say.
His hand stills at my waist. “What?”
“Being with you somewhere like this,” I say. “At the gala, I mean. Not the park. I’ve never had a fantasy about being kidnapped from your security detail and taken to a park.”
Luka says, “You have a very limited imagination.”
I huff out a laugh. “Apparently.”
“I made a mistake today,” he says. “I should’ve introduced you differently.”