Page 195 of Lethal Legacy

“Boris.” I shake his hand. “May I present—” I turn to introduce the couple to Darya, but Katerina is already moving toward Inger, wearing a rather pained smile.

“Hello, dear,” she says in heavily accented Spanish, eyeing the sequined Versace with barely disguised distaste. “My daughter tells me you did a wonderful job at the Holy Week parade. The children are very lucky to have a nanny like you.”

I find Inger’s look of abject horror even more satisfying than I did her outrage when she caught sight of Darya in the limo.

Katerina is still standing with her hand out and a rather haughty look of surprise at Inger’s lack of a response when Darya steps between the two.

“Princessa Katerina Petrovna,” she says smoothly in Russian. “I’m Lucia, the children’s au pair.” Katerina’s eyes widen as they run over Darya from head to toe. Her face creases into an approving smile as Darya takes her hand and drops a perfectly subtle curtsy. “Your grandson, Matvei Olyavitch, is dancing with Ofelia,” Darya goes on, smiling. “It’s very sweet of him. She’s been practicing for weeks.”

“Oh!” Katerina’s hand flutters to her mouth. “But you are perfect,rypka!” she says in Russian, beaming at Darya. “Now I understand why my daughter said you were such a treasure. Roman, wherehaveyou been hiding this one?” She taps me playfully on the arm. “Come with me, dear.” She casts Inger a dismissive glance. “Do excuse us, won’t you?”

Tucking Darya’s arm through her own, she steers her toward a group of austere-looking matrons, who are eyeing the milling crowd with extremely critical eyes. I watch long enough to see their faces soften into approving smiles as soon as Darya greets them.

Turning my back firmly on Inger’s outrage and Nikolai’s sullen resentment, I take Boris by the elbow. “Come and meet my son, Mikhail. He’s a bloody genius on computers.”

Hopefully flattery will help whatever is bugging the kid.

“Computers!” Boris chuckles. “I can barely operate my iPhone.”

I roll my eyes. “Tell me about it. Let’s get a Scotch, shall we?”

58

LUCIA

“But then you must know Irina Ketzinyovna!” One of the matrons pinches my cheek affectionately.

“I do have that honor.” I smile at her. “Her granddaughter takes Russian classes with Ofelia.”

“Then it is settled.” Katerina beams around at the table. “You will come to tea with us next week, Lucia.”

I laugh and agree, falling into a discussion with one of the women about what books the girls will be studying in Russian class next term. This entire night has been like walking on a knife edge, with a precipice drop at either side.

Deflect questions about my past.

Evade, rather than lie.

Drop enough hints to reassure the women that I am from their world, but for complicated reasons, can’t speak of my own origins.

We’re all Russian. Hidden tragedy and family secrets are our lifeblood. To be an enigma, particularly a tragic one, is an intrinsically Russian archetype. Add my entrance on Roman’s arm, and I’ve easily become the most fascinating project the matrons will have for some time.

Or I could be, if I was staying.

That thought sends a prickle of awareness down my spine, the uncanny sense I have whenever Roman is watching me. And hehasbeen watching me. Roman’s eyes have followed my every move from the moment he laid eyes on me earlier this evening.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t enjoy him watching me.

I forgot how devastating he is in a tuxedo. Everything about him, from his dark, dangerous eyes to the hard muscularity beneath the tailor-made suit, makes every other man in the room seem utterly insignificant. They all jostle to shake his hand. Their wives watch him with openly covetous eyes. Even the stately matrons try to flirt with him, and he, in turn, handles them with a suave charm that melts even the frostiest demeanor.

I want to walk across the room and wrap my arms around his neck. I want him to claim me in front of the room, then take me somewhere quiet and fuck me with my dress around my hips.

I want to be his. And I want to mark him as fuckingmine.

There’s something about becoming Darya again that has made me feel like living dangerously. Part of me knows that tonight might be the last time I have this, a taste of the world that was once mine, and which has lately, no matter how briefly, been mine again. From confronting Inger in the limo to embracing my Russian heritage, I’ve felt more empowered tonight than I have in years. Tonight I don’t feel like the beaten, cowed Darya Petrovsky who ran from the Orlovs. Brave as she was, that Darya was also desperate. Even though she’d been raised to the finest of all things, somehow she always shied away from the spotlight, from owning her place and her heritage. By the time the Orlovs beat and scarred me, Darya had almost become resigned to being a victim.

Darya had never been forced to fight for her survival. When the Orlovs came, she had no arsenal with which to fight back.

Darya had been raised to glide elegantly through rooms like this one. But she wasn’t equipped to survive the world beyond them. I’ll never know who Darya might have grown into, had she stayed in her gilt-and-marble palace forever.

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