“It’s an advantage,” he said flatly. “While people are trying to decide how many of the rumors they should believe, I’ve summed them up and leapt three steps ahead.”
“You like that it makes them nervous. Then they don’t try to get close to you,” she guessed, earning another baleful glance that made her breath stick. She was certain she was right, though, so much so that parts of her softened toward him as she recognized their similarity. She feared isolation, so she forced herself to find contentment in being alone. What did he fear that kept him holding people off so ferociously? Caring?
The thought was a double-edged sword of understanding and hopelessness so acute it made her head swim.
“This scar reminds me who I am and where I’ve been, which is a place you don’t want to go, Clair,” he said in a gentle warning that made her heart batter her ribs. So he had suffered a very deep wound. Nevertheless, she would listen to his story if he wanted to tell her. Had he ever told anyone, she wondered?
The lights faded before she could ask. Faces below rotated to watch the curtain rise. Music swelled as Petrushka began to unfold with its tragic puppet, considered cruel but instead capable of emotion, trapped in a cell, unable to reach the ballerina he loved.
* * *
Aleksy loathed small talk. It was a step into familiarity that he never encouraged. Clair had been spot-on when she suggested he was happier holding people at a distance.
Scowling, he wondered what had possessed him to talk about his scar. It was a topic he usually shut down outright, but he’d been compelled to learn if it was behind the reserve she’d shown earlier. Clair was exceptionally beautiful tonight, and fresh bitterness had overcome him that he was such an unsightly match for her.
Intellectually they were on an even playing field, which was an anomaly for him. Rather than babbling inanities or barbs, she had a quiet sincerity when she spoke and displayed surprising insight. He avoided women who made him feel. He’d never had one who made him think.
Disturbed by a rush of both anticipation and caution, he forced himself to stop letting her get under his skin and instead focus on their surroundings.
He noted with twisted pride how her smile of pleasure attracted curious, admiring looks during intermission. He detested networking at any level and would have stayed in the private lounge attached to the czar’s box if he could, but he succumbed to convention at these things.
With hooded fascination, he watched her greet those who approached with seemingly sincere warmth, admiring dresses and jewelry if no other conversation presented itself. He was used to his dates sulking, or smiling as if it pained them to make the effort, leaving the weight of social chitchat up to him. Clair put people at ease and he found his own tension ebbing because people weren’t so nervous—which, contrary to what she’d said, always made him impatient. Aleksy glanced at the next hovering couple, smiling as he recognized the man behind the gray beard and the woman’s twinkling blue eyes. He introduced Clair to Grigori and Ivana Muratov, smoothly forcing those trying to hold his attention to move along.
After brief inquiries about their daughters and grandchildren—he had known their entire family for many years —he and Grigori became caught up in discussing politics.
“That was the chimes,” Ivana warned a few moments later, touching her husband to interrupt their conversation. “Intermission is over, but this charming young lady has just told me about the charity foundation she has started. We would like to help her with that, wouldn’t we? Aleksy has made a donation.”
The unexpectedness of Clair’s subterfuge against these of all people made Aleksy’s cheeks sting with a rush anger. Thankfully the couple didn’t notice, both smiling at Clair’s bewildered face.
“Of course we’ll match it,” Grigori agreed, clapping Aleksy’s shoulder with enough enthusiasm to nearly knock him off his unsteady feet. “Send me the details.” With cheerful goodbyes, they hurried down the hall toward their own box.
“They seem very nice. How do you know them?” Clair lifted the most guileless eyes to him but sobered as she read his forbidding expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Grigori gave me my first real job after my father was killed,” Aleksy answered. He had to school his fury with everything in him as he took her arm and led her back to the lounge. Before she could pass through to the balcony, he cut her off, closing the doors so they were alone in the sitting room.
The music rose in the auditorium and Clair lifted a nervous hand to indicate it. “The show is back on.”
Aleksy turned on her. Whatever she read in his grim expression scared her, but she held her ground with more mettle than anyone he’d ever made a point of revealing his fury to.
“Why are you angry?” she asked with rigid dignity.
“Did Van Eych teach you to work a situation like that or is it a personal gift?”
She straightened as tall as she could possibly be, a pale reed so beautifully set off by the deep blue of the gown he nearly had to close his eyes against the temptation to touch her. He focused on the finery of the dress instead, on the fact that the small fortune he’d dropped on her new wardrobe wasn’t enough. She was trying to steal from his friend, as well.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I won’t let you take advantage of Grigori’s generous nature.” The man had been his salvation, offering Aleksy not just work, but a fresh chance. Grigori had helped a desperate young man put a roof over his mother’s head while giving him the opportunity to move up the ladder toward the life he lived now. The life itself didn’t mean anything, but Grigori’s hand up when no one else had offered meant the world.
“I didn’t expect Ivana to offer a donation.” Clair managed to sound not just innocent, but hurt. “We were only chatting. She asked how we’d met, so I told her about the charity.”
“Which doesn’t exist!”
Clair’s jaw dropped open. Rather than cower under his blistering gaze, she drew a deep, hissing breath of outrage. “Don’t tell me your precious Lazlo failed to advise you of the email I sent him today? I attached the tax receipt. What?” she dared challenge as he narrowed his eyes. “You thought I asked for the Wi-Fi code so I could update my social media status to ‘mistress’?”
He ignored her biting sarcasm. “I can check,” he warned. “With one call.”
“Do it,” she choked, acting so offended as she swung away that he experienced a flash of misgiving. He shook it off and scowled at her as he withdrew his phone.
Seconds later a muted buzz vibrated in his palm. Clair’s back stiffened as though the sound were the whir of a whip and she was bracing herself for the lash.
The edges of the device dug into his hard grip as he read and reread the message.
“You told him you’d print me a copy if I asked, so he assumed I was aware,” he paraphrased, needing to hear it to fully comprehend it.
“You didn’t ask,” she pointed out, barely able to look at him.
“So it’s real, this charity of yours.” She even had a registered number.
That swung her around to face him. “Of course it’s real! I’m not a liar. You don’t truck with those, remember?”
He found himself in the completely unfamiliar state of being at a loss as he let it sink in. “I don’t understand,” he muttered, voice graveled by his impatience at being faced with something that didn’t add up. “You gave me your virginity for charity? Why would you do that?”
“People like me deserve—” She cut off her outburst and struggled visibly, jaw flexing as though chewing back words she hadn’t meant to voice.