Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Genevieve
“So let me get this straight.” Anna sat on the edge of my bed, watching me dig through my closet with the focused desperation of a woman who owned exactly nothing appropriate for an opera house.
“SSB got tickets to the one play you mentioned wanting to see, like, a month ago, in passing, during a completely unrelated conversation. And this is a work thing?”
“It’s a client event.” I pulled out a navy dress I hadn’t worn since a cousin’s wedding two years ago, held it up to the light, and decided it looked exactly as outdated as I remembered. “He has investors who enjoy that sort of thing. I’m there for appearances.”
“Uh-huh.” Anna didn’t bother hiding her skepticism. “And it’s just a coincidence that the opera happens to be the exact one you said you’d love to see someday, when you had money and time, neither of which you currently have?”
“Coincidences happen. Plus, I didn’t exactly say these to him. It was in a conversation with Caroline and Rose.”
“A conversation that happened in your office which happens to be inside his office.”
I huffed after another dress proved to be a failure. “Like I said, Anna, it’s purely a coincidence. I didn’t even know it was showing.”
“Exactly.” I could hear the exasperation in her voice.
I paused, looking over my shoulder to find her watching me. “Whatever happened to being my personal stylist and helping me figure this out?”
Anna dragged herself from the bed and began shuffling through my wardrobe. “I’m simply saying a man like Kazimir didn’t stumble into the opera by accident.”
“Which is why I’ve been trying to drill it into your skull that we were meeting a client.”
Kazimir hadn’t used those exact words. Plainly speaking, he had sent me an email to dress the part and be present at the orchestra. The exact tone his messages for out-of-town trips came in.
In my excitement, I didn’t bother checking what was showing and flew straight into picking an outfit.
I’d scrolled through the internet searching for outfit inspiration and quickly realized this wasn’t a task I could execute on my own, necessitating Anna’s presence.
Unlike me, Anna loved to dig, and when she found out Hamilton was showing, which was a rare occurrence in cinemas, she refused to drop it.
I refused to indulge her, knowing well I would be gutted if I let her fill my head with wishful thinking and I walked in to find Nikolai, Lev, Rose and a few grey-haired men. The disappointment would sting way more than I was willing to admit.
Kazimir didn’t hint at anything and I would not be making anything out of it.
“Here.” Anna pulled out a black cocktail dress I’d passed over three times in my search.
I scrunched my nose. “Isn’t that too plain?”
“Yes. Which is why your tits, hair and jewelry will be the accessories.” She tossed the dress at me and went to my vanity to pull out a couple of silver pieces of jewelry.
I could already see the outfit coming together and cursed myself for not figuring it out earlier.
“You’re allowed to just say it, you know,” Anna said, drawing my attention.
“You’re allowed to admit that the man who scares you a little is also the same man who made you soup and texted you jokes during a business meeting, and said man also got opera tickets specifically because he knew it would make you happy. None of those things are crimes.”
“I never said they were crimes.”
“You’re treating them like crimes. You’ve got a look that says you’d rather believe in flying pigs than the possibility of Kazimir liking you.”
“At least believing in a flying pig won’t hurt me,” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“So that’s what this is about, fear?”
I lifted my arms and let them fall limp beside me when I felt my words tumbling inside me. “Anna, I don't want to build false hopes. I don’t want to tell myself there is more when he has not explicitly said anything to me. I’m allowed to want to keep my heart safe without being told I was scared.”
Her expression softened as she pushed off the drawer. “You love him.”
It wasn’t a question and I didn’t have it in me to deny it. I’d gone through every possible route of denial and self-preservation, and they all pointed to one thing.
The reason why I was scared and undecided about his history and the world he navigated behind business deals and pressed suits was because my feelings had become compromised, and not because I was trying to make a careful decision.
“Am I fucked?” I looked to Anna, who still had the same softness on her face.
“I would be surprised if you didn’t. I mean, the man might be a little questionable, but he’s been better than any of the men you’d spoken to in the past.”
I let out a bitter laugh as the memories of my very few but brief failed talking stages came to mind.
The universe did have a unique sense of humor.
First, the okay men with no baggage were assholes, and the one who ticked almost all my boxes lived double lives.
“I won’t judge you for wanting to be with him, Gen. I’ve always thought him to be a sexy son of a bitch, and this might sound wrong, but I believe that layer of danger surrounding him just bumped him up on my hot radar.”
The chuckle that spilled from my lips hardly matched the incredulous look I sent her. Of course she would think an air of danger made a person hotter.
“What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I say I won’t judge you and you go full courtroom on me?”
“Me?” I placed a palm on my chest. “I would never.”
Anna crossed over the side of the room to pull a pair of black stilettos from my shoe rack. “There you go, perfect ensemble.”
“Thank you.” I gathered the dress into my hands and headed into the bathroom. “And can we switch to a topic that doesn’t involve my boss or work?”
“For now.” I didn’t need to see her face to know she was probably grinning without repentance. “But I expect a full report tomorrow. With details.”
I gave her no reply, but I was grateful when she switched out to the latest drama in her office.
As much as I hated to admit it, talking about Kazimir still made me nervous, and speculations of the opera being a date and not a meeting had my stomach in knots I knew would only loosen if my mind shifted from him.
The car Kazimir sent arrived precisely on time, sleek and black and entirely too conspicuous for the modest street I lived on.
Anna made a face as if to say, ‘I told you it was a date,’ but knew better than to voice her suspicions.
I slid into the back seat, feeling more nervous than the occasion technically warranted for what was, according to the story I’d told Anna and myself, a work obligation dressed up as an evening out.
The opera house glittered against the dark sky when we pulled up, its facade lit gold, a small crowd of exquisitely dressed patrons filtering in through the grand entrance.
I almost missed Kazimir standing next to a young man with a sleek back that would probably send his stylist to a restock.
He was dressed in a charcoal black tux with his hair casually styled in a low-effort manner that somehow managed to make him look even more charming.
His company was talking animatedly and I figured, to the dismay of the sinking feeling in my chest, that he was the client we were to meet while Kazimir stood with his signature passive expression.
I scanned the environment for a familiar mop of brown and perpetual smile, a brooding, tall figure or a woman dressed to the nines and came up with nothing.
Even the men in suits who seemed to follow wherever Kazimir went were absent. Or maybe they were in a more discreet location given the nature of the event, and Nikolai, Lev and Rose had probably gone in first.
“Mr. Ivanovich,” I greeted as I approached Kazimir.
His gaze raked over me, leaving trails of heat on my skin.
His companion didn’t bother to disguise his interest. He immediately held out an arm to me, eyes twinkling with something I wasn’t interested in placing. “Hello, Miss…”
Before I could shake his hand and fill up the space he left, Kazimir’s hand clasped around his. The man’s face instantly went red.
“That’ll be all, Conan.”
The man scrambled away, leaving me in shock and confusion.
“I thought… isn’t that… is he not the client?”
“Client?” Kazimir echoed, brows drawn together.
“Never mind,” I said, deciding I preferred a client I was yet to meet over one who undressed me with his eyes.
“You look beautiful,” he said, completely taking me by surprise.
“Thank you.” I glanced past him, trying to shake off the weirdness of the situation. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Everyone else?”
“Your security. Nikolai. Rose? I assumed this would come with an entourage.” I tried to keep my voice light, despite his compliment still lodged in my chest like a nestled animal.
“They won’t be needed tonight.” He said it simply, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “This isn’t that kind of evening.”
I wanted to ask what kind of evening it was, exactly, if not the kind that required his usual safeguards, but some instinct told me pressing further would only make him retreat into the careful, evasive answers he gave when a question got too close to something he wasn’t ready to discuss.
So I didn’t press, only slipped my arm through the one he offered as we walked toward the entrance together.
The lobby was a glittering crush of velvet and gold leaf, chandeliers dripping light across a marble floor polished to a mirror shine, and despite myself, despite the doubts I’d been nursing about every layer of this evening since Anna first started teasing me about it, I felt something in my chest loosen at the sheer beauty of the place and the possibility of what the night meant.
I’d seen pictures of this opera house online, late at night, scrolling through listings, but standing in the midst of it, I could boldly say this was one of the few moments where the picture didn’t do justice.
“This is incredible,” I said, unable to keep the wonder out of my voice as I took in the painted ceiling above us, cherubs and clouds rendered in faded gold and blue.
“It’s better from the box.” Kazimir guided me toward a private staircase tucked away from the main crowd.
The box he led me to overlooked the stage from an angle that felt both intimate and impossibly grand, red velvet seats arranged for two, a clear view down into the orchestra pit where musicians were already beginning to tune their instruments and some of the performers hung around.
I settled into my seat and wanted to take a picture, something to immortalize the moment, but I noticed the obvious lack of cameras.
The people here were refined, used to space, and I couldn’t afford to stick out like a sore thumb.
A shutter followed by a flash pulled my attention to Kazimir inspecting his screen carefully.
“Did you just take a photo of me?”
“You looked like you needed one.” He handed me the phone and I saw the most stunning angle of my face, lips slightly parted and eyes wide with wonder.
I was thankful for the dim lights hiding my embarrassment. “I look like a child in Disneyland.”
“You look perfect.”
I swallowed thickly, not knowing what to do with the comment.
Thankfully, the orchestra began, saving me from having to come up with a response.
I let the music pull my attention away from the question of what tonight actually was, a client event or something else entirely.
There were a lot of things tonight could be, and one thing it wasn’t, and that was business, but I’d learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth and enjoy what it brought.
I didn’t examine it too closely. Instead, I took a page from Anna’s book and let myself relax and enjoy the moment without obsessing over what it meant.