Forty #2
A moment passed and Klaudia was silent, regarding Granston. Then, frowning, she asked, “How old is she? His wife.”
“In her forties. I don’t know exactly.” Julian’s cheeks burned like a fever. “But for the record . . . she came onto me.”
“I’m sure she did,” Klaudia replied.
There was no hint of sarcasm in her voice. Klaudia was almost never sarcastic. Her expression was inscrutable, almost worried.
Julian winced, but before he could speak, Klaudia added, “Normal women don’t want to sleep with teenage boys.”
It was not at all what he had expected her to say. Julian didn’t often think of himself as a teenage boy. Still flushing, he shrugged and said, “It was idiotic. Embarrassing. Cafferty wanted to strangle me.”
Klaudia’s gaze shifted briefly from him to Granston, then back again. “At least we won’t have any trouble causing a scene.”
All Julian had to do was stare back at Granston, and there would certainly be a scene. But his thoughts were no longer on
Granston, or even on Chane. He looked at Klaudia and, almost by instinct, Julian did something he had not anticipated, something
that was not part of the plan. He reached out and took Klaudia’s hand.
“Dance with me,” he said.
Klaudia stared at him in shock, but she didn’t slip out of his grasp. “What?”
“Dance with me,” he repeated. “Come on.”
Her brow knitted. “But we have to—”
“It will cause a scene,” Julian said. “Trust me.”
Klaudia opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. An expression of abandon—maybe even pleasure?—crossed her face.
And then she allowed Julian to lead her out onto the dance floor.
He was hesitant about putting his hands on her further, knowing how Klaudia felt about physical contact. But she was the one
who slid her arm around his shoulder first, an act that made Julian’s skin prickle with electric warmth. He fitted his hand
on the curve of her waist, feeling the shape of her body through the silk, half in a haze of disbelief. He had hoped and dreamed
but never truly believed he would get to touch her like this.
Julian was surprised to hear the music change then, from the discordant orchestral-electronic mash-up to a song he recognized:
“Oh! Darling” by the Beatles. He drew Klaudia against him, moving more slowly than the rhythm of the song demanded. Her mouth
was near to his ear so he could hear her whisper nervously, “I’m not very good at this.”
“You’re doing perfectly,” he said.
If his only goal had truly been to cause a scene, they had succeeded.
The crowd had parted and the other guests were staring at them unabashedly, mouths hanging open.
T. J. Byrne was red in the face. Granston looked appalled.
And Chane was glancing back and forth between them and his previous audience, who had lost all focus on him in favor of gaping at Julian and Klaudia.
His expression of pure indignation, almost outrage, filled Julian with a perverse sort of pleasure.
Enlivened by the reactions and by the thrill of having her so close at last, Julian guided Klaudia to the center of the dance
floor. A subtle flush colored her cheeks; her skin was supple and pale as marble. A strand of dark hair had come loose from
her updo and curled gently to her nape. Her gray eyes were gleaming, hopeful. She didn’t look like the ice queen the world
thought her to be. Right here, right now, and just for him, she looked innocent. Delicate. Beautiful.
Was it the right time to tell her? To let her know how much he thought of her, how she kept him up at night, the painful tension
of longing in his chest? Maybe he shouldn’t say anything. Klaudia wasn’t one for flowery speeches. Maybe he should just kiss
her.
That would certainly cause a scene.
Julian leaned closer, heart racing. He heard the catch of Klaudia’s breath. But she didn’t shrink back or pull away. In another
moment, if he continued on this course, their lips would meet.
The screech of a microphone sliced the air. The music stopped. Julian flinched. Klaudia jumped.
Chane had clambered up onto the stage. His hair was mussed and he panted loudly into the microphone. The guests all turned
their attention toward him as he said, “Julian Joyce-Young the Third and Klaudia Shimonova, everyone! What a performance!”
He clapped fervently, and the audience gave a scattered, hesitant round of applause. Instinctively, Julian tightened his grip
on Klaudia. The room suddenly felt overly warm.
“Great, great,” Chane went on, face sour under the effusiveness of his words. “How about we bring them up onstage?”
Julian glanced down at his watch—it was not quite eight. Had they made enough of a scene for Klaudia’s plan to work? And would they be able to get to the roof on time? He couldn’t find Nadiya or Giselle in the crowd, which was either a good sign or a terrible sign. His pulse raced.
Klaudia broke away from him first. She began to walk toward the stage, like a prisoner to the gallows, and Julian followed.
The guests parted to let them through. From up above, Chane smiled frostily.
And then someone shouted, “Hey! Stop!”
Julian whirled. It was one of Chane’s security guards, darting out from behind his plant. His arms flailed, and Julian saw
Nadiya at last. She elbowed the guard in the stomach and, in one fluid motion, snatched the gun from his hip.
She drew it, and the guests uttered a collective gasp. The security guard charged her, and to Julian’s shock it was Giselle
who stopped him, kneeing him hard between the legs. The guard slumped to the floor, groaning.
Through the panicking crowd, he caught Nadiya’s gaze. She gave him the quickest of nods, gesturing upward with her stare.
Julian understood only a split second before it happened. He grasped Klaudia’s arm and pulled her to the door as Nadiya pointed
her gun at the ceiling and fired. They managed to make it through the threshold just as the chandelier plummeted to the ground,
shattering on impact into thousands of shards of crystal and glass.
Chaos. Julian all but dragged Klaudia down the corridor. The guests were screaming, footsteps pounding the floor as they scrambled
toward the exits. Nadiya’s idea was brilliant—the stampede would trap Deckard and the guards inside, leaving them enough time
to get to the roof.
Brilliant—as long as Nadiya and Giselle managed to find their way out, too.
Julian pushed the worry from his mind as the hallway unspooled in front of them. The elevator door was in sight.
Klaudia stumbled along with him, holding the train of her gown. Julian paused to allow her to regain her balance; the thin
heels she wore were making it difficult to run. Her eyes were glazed with panic, her chest heaving with exertion.
“Come on,” Julian urged. “We can do it; we’re going to make it.”
Klaudia nodded and straightened. In another moment, they were running again.
Julian didn’t allow himself to think of all the things that could still go wrong, chief among them being, what if Fikret didn’t
come?
They were mere steps away from the elevator when someone entered the corridor in front of them. He and Klaudia skidded to
a halt, and when Julian saw who it was, his heart briefly stopped.
“Dad?”
It had to be a hallucination, a dream.
His father’s expression was dark and completely familiar. It was the same look he’d given Julian when he’d arrived to pick
him up from the police station, shouldering through the crowd of protestors. Now his scant remaining hair had been combed
and gelled, and he wore a tuxedo with a white tie, attire too formal for anything his father did in his daily life.
Had he been at the party? How? Why?
“Julian,” his father said. Three brusque syllables, perfectly cold.
“What are you doing here?” Julian choked out.
“Just business.”
Business? Julian’s mind raced. He could only vaguely feel Klaudia’s grip on his hand tighten.
There was a commotion behind them. Three of Chane’s guards charged down the corridor, blood on their faces and guns drawn.
“Come with me, Julian,” his father said. “We’re going home.”
Julian froze. He waited for the punch line to the joke.
“Come on,” his father said, more crisply this time. “Let’s go. Your mother is waiting.”
Slowly, Julian shifted his gaze to Klaudia. She was staring at him, mouth ajar, eyes wide with terror. He had only seen her
look that way once before—when Carter had her cornered. When he had sworn to himself that he never wanted to see her look
like that again.
“Julian.” His father’s voice pressed down on him heavily. “Come. Now.”
Chane’s guards drew closer. Julian let his hand slip from Klaudia’s.
He took one step away from her, and then another. Klaudia’s arm was still outstretched toward him, hanging limply in the air.
Blood roared in his ears. It obliterated every other sound. He couldn’t even hear his own footsteps as he approached his father’s
side. He felt outside his own body.
As soon as he was there, his father put an arm over his shoulder. The physical touch—so warm, so rare—jolted Julian back into
his skin.
And so he heard everything, saw everything, felt everything that happened next: Chane’s guards descending on Klaudia, twisting
her arms behind her back. Her short, bitten-out gasp. The brutal wrenching in his chest as she lifted her gaze to meet his,
almost too bewildered to be pained.
His father turned him forcibly around. Julian didn’t look back as he was marched down the corridor, out through the hotel
doors, and into the dusk.