He pulled off his suit jacket, set it on my shoulders, and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind my ear. “As of today, you are twenty. You do not need your papa to hold your hand anymore.”
His comment stung, but I didn’t believe I was asking for much. I just didn’t want to sit in front of a Christmas tree with only him and our cook Borya, who were both paid to be there. I didn’t want to feel like the ballerina in the music box on my dresser, spinning in an exhausting and eternal pirouette just to please someone who had deserted me.
A part of it wasn’t even about all that.
“What about your date tomorrow?”
“I don’t want to go,” I said, pulling my eyes from his to the bay.
“Why not?”
I searched for a reasonable answer but remained silent. Ivan would think I was crazy if I told him the truth.
“Your papa likes Carter.”
“Maybe he should date him then.”
“Mila,” he chastised.
For years, Papa had hinted he would be happy if Carter became his son-in-law. I was sure it was only because his father was a business friend and a famous attorney from old money. Like always, I’d given in to Papa’s insistence, and Carter and I had shared a traditional courtship for six months now.
“He’s going to pop the question tomorrow, isn’t he?” I asked emotionlessly.
It should have been a ridiculous thing to ask considering we weren’t even monogamous. All anyone had to do was turn on TMZ to find out who twenty-five-year-old playboy Carter Kingston had been sleeping with. But he was taking me to The Grande, a restaurant well-known for marriage proposals. I could only imagine his papa had pushed him toward the archaic idea, just as mine had.
Ivan didn’t say anything, but his eyes told me all I needed to know.
I nodded even though, inside, the thought of saying yes, of knowing I would force that word past my lips, trapped me in a glass box slowly depleting of oxygen, and I was banging on the walls, choking, coughing, begging for air.
I forced the feeling down. “Carter will still be here when I get back.”
Ivan remained quiet for a moment before he tossed out his best card. “You know your papa would not approve of this.”
I chewed my lip. In the past, whenever I’d asked to tag along on one of Papa’s business trips, he’d refused. But even as a child, I noticed something in his eyes, a spark that couldn’t say no with more volume than if he’d shouted the word. I was never, ever permitted to set foot in Russia, that much was clear.
“I know, but he’s not here right now, is he?”
“You are not going.”
I stared at him.
Ivan might complain sometimes, but he never told me what I could or couldn’t do. It was always, “Yes, Mila.” “Of course, Mila.” “As you wish, Mila.” Kidding. That one was a besotted, sword-wielding Westley in my dreams. My point was, he never said, “No, Mila.” I bet if I wanted to rob a bank, he would be my second, no questions asked. Naturally, he’d tattle on me to my papa afterward, but he’d still don a ski mask with me.
The suspicion I’d worked so hard to keep down popped like a balloon, grabbed ahold of my heart, and twisted. What was my papa hiding in Russia?
Another family?
The only conceivable reason he might hide something like that from me was he didn’t want me in their lives. And, eventually, in his too.
Je ne pleurerai pas. Tu ne pleureras pas. Nous ne pleurerons pas. I will not cry. You will not cry. We will not cry.
The conjugations failed me, and a single, annoying tear ran down my cheek. Ivan angled my chin up to his and wiped it away, the soft brush of his thumb wrapping me in warmth and contentment. Something else filled the space between us. A pull. An attraction. A little electricity. Some days, when I was feeling particularly suffocated, it sparked hotter than others.
Neither of us ever acted on it.
My excuse was the fortune-teller I went to when I was fourteen. At that very gothic age, I’d asked her what my purpose was in life. She’d frowned, sitting behind her crystal ball, and then said I would find the man meant for me and that he would take my breath away. It was a generic response she probably told everyone, but it stuck to me like glue.
I breathed just fine around Ivan.
And Carter, despite experimenting with him out of sheer boredom. Not to mention, he was incredibly persuasive.
My time was running out like the last few grains of sand spilling through an hourglass. Yet still, I waited. For more. For some silly idea Madame Richie had put into my head.
That was my excuse.
Now, I was curious to know Ivan’s.
I leaned into the thumb running across my cheek and blinked soft eyes up to his. “How come you’ve never kissed me?”
“Because I want to live more,” he deadpanned.
A corner of my lips lifted. I’d never even heard my papa raise his voice before, and certainly not to Ivan, who was practically a son to him.
“But really?”
He gave me a weighty look and dropped his hand. “No more talk about Moscow, all right?”
Releasing a sigh, I nodded.
I watched him walk up the lawn to the house, the sway and expanse of the Atlantic settling in my bones with a sense of longing and seclusion from the rest of the world.
My phone vibrated inside my dress pocket, and I was tempted to ignore it, but I ended up reaching for it anyway.
Papa: Happy birthday, angel. Sorry I missed it. Business as usual. We’ll celebrate when I get home.
Another message came in.
Papa: Have fun tomorrow. Carter is good for you.
I put my phone back in my pocket and replaced my earrings with synthetic blue diamonds. I imagined them glittering like the Heart of the Ocean as the sea dragged me down, forever suspending me in gasping breaths, pearl necklaces, and the lonely sounds of the ocean.
It was what convinced me.
Tomorrow, I’d be in Russia.
resfeber
(n.) the restless race of a traveler’s heart before a journey begins
I waded in a pile of clothes, half-bohemian, half-sophisticated socialite. The former, I felt compelled to buy but never wore. Papa seemed quietly disapproving of anything yellow and nonconformist, and I took peace signs seriously.
Until now, apparently, as I packed colors brighter than the sun into an old cheerleading duffle bag.
I wasn’t home free of The Moorings yet, so I dressed the part in a loose blouse, checker-print cigarette pants, and white ankle boots. I caught my reflection in the mirror: a taller, less-pink version of Elle Woods in Legally Blonde staring back.
On my way to the door, I stopped to unclasp my pearl necklace and dropped it into my jewelry box. Then, I wound up the ballerina, setting her on a lonely pirouette, before I tiptoed down the stairs at three a.m.
Passing Ivan’s bedroom door, I stilled when a very feminine moan sounded on the other side. Ivan wasn’t a Don Juan, but neither was he celibate. Sometimes, during my papa’s absences, I’d come down to breakfast to find a half-naked woman in our kitchen. It never really bothered me—my childhood crush had faded long ago—but now, a flare of rejection started in my chest.
He wouldn’t even kiss me earlier because death was on the line, and now he was talking dirty Russian to some random? Although, I found it more annoying than anything. He was so convinced I was such a doormat he hadn’t even bothered to put his guard up after our conversation.