I don’t really expect him to answer because he never does, but he surprises me. “To buy you a coat.”
Awww. We’re going shopping together? Things really have changed.
Misgiving splinters off the sapling of hope I’m nurturing, but I ignore it. I don’t want to question the future. The now is too beautiful to mar with it.
Adrian picks up the plates of food and arranges them at the table by the window, pulling out a chair for me. “Sit, Kit-Kat. I’ll sit with you.” He takes the opposite seat.
It’s such a simple thing, but it makes me impossibly happy. I’m in my fantasy world- Adrian and I are a couple. This is what it would be like if we were traveling together. We’d stay at luxury hotels and order room service. We’d sit across the table from one another and make each other smile.
I wrap myself in this feeling. The warmth and rightness. The centeredness.
Some part of me knows it won’t last, but I steadfastly ignore that niggling.
For this moment, I’m going to bask in the attention of the man I’ve fallen head over heels in love with.
Adrian
I can’t do it.
I’m walking away from this endeavor entirely. No Interpol. No personal vengeance.
Kat deserves to be made whole, and bringing down or killing her only parent would just further throw her off-balance.
After we eat, I make quick work of tying up loose ends while she’s in the bathroom brushing her hair and getting ready.
Then I take Kat out. I pretend it’s for her–because she needs to get out after being imprisoned for four days–but really it’s for me.
I’m savoring these last few hours with her.
I take her first to Meir Street to shop. We find her a beautiful red woolen coat, and I buy it for her, but she refuses to put it on.
“I don’t want to take off your jacket.” She hugs herself as if to keep me from removing it. “It smells like you, and it makes me feel safe.”
My body liquifies into warm syrup.
“Oh.” She blinks up at me, arrested. “Are you cold, though?” She’s ridiculously cute.
“No.” A lump crowds my throat. “I’m from Russia–this isn’t cold to me. You keep it on, malyshka.”
After Meir Street, we head to the diamond district where I buy her a pink diamond stud to replace the little gold hoop she wears in her nose.
We sit down in a quaint restaurant for dinner. All the while, I memorize Kat’s face. Her smile. Her exuberance that lights up and dims in a chaotic pattern.
I order coffee and dessert, then send a text from her phone–the one I put back together while she was in the bathroom. I set the phone down on the seat beside me.
“I have to step out to make a call. You stay here.” It’s an order but a mild one. She searches my face as I stand. I tap the table. “Don’t leave, malyshka.”
“I won’t,” she promises, and I believe her.
That, more than anything, is what makes my chest fissure from the pain as I walk away, never to see Leon Poval’s daughter again.
Kat
I sit in the window booth of the restaurant for a solid fifteen minutes before I get restless. I drank my coffee and ate the chocolate cake, and Adrian still hasn’t returned.
It’s rude.
I cling to my indignation for another ten minutes before the tendrils of misgiving creep in.
Adrian left me here.
No, no, he didn’t. Surely not. He told me to stay.
Oh God! He totally left me!
A phone rings at our table, and I jump. I look under the table. In the shopping bag. Finally, I spot it in Adrian’s seat.
I suck in a hard breath when I realize it’s mine.
He left me my phone.
Maybe it’s him!
I snatch up the phone and swipe before I see who’s calling.
My dad.
“H-hello? Papa?”
“Kateryna,” my dad snaps. “Are you all right?”
My eyes fill with tears although I’m not even sure what I’m crying over. “Yes.” I don’t sound convincing.
“Where are you? Put him on the phone.”
I look around, as if expecting to find Adrian nearby, but of course, he’s nowhere to be found.
He ghosted me.
Is this a trap? Is Adrian hiding somewhere nearby, so he can kill my father when he arrives?
I can’t even think straight. My mind is fuzzy, and a slow throbbing has started at my temples. Worst of all is a rising panic that makes my palms cold and clammy and my heart race.
“I-I’m not sure. Um…I’m staying at the Radisson Blu Astrid. Room 434. I’ll meet you there.” I end the call before he can answer and stand up from the table.
I need to get out of the restaurant before I start crying. I pick up the shopping bag and my purse and dig in it for a credit card as I stumble toward the door. I thrust it at our waiter when he hurries over.
“The gentleman already took care of the bill,” he tells me smoothly. “He asked me to give you this.”
He hands me a folded note, which I snatch and hold with trembling fingers as if it is my lifeline.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say breathlessly, rushing out of the restaurant.
Once outside, I gulp the cold air, trying to calm my racing heart. I open the note and stand under a streetlight to read it.
KAT,
I’m so sorry for the torture I put you through. It was wrong of me to involve you, and I will regret how I treated you until the day I die.
I don’t expect your forgiveness, but I want you to know that for you, I have halted my vendetta against your father. You changed me, and you changed my heart.
You know my name and where I live. Do what you need to do.
I will think of you throwing pots. Finding your center. Being bright, beautiful you.
You took my heart, and I don’t want it back.
–A