Page 8 of The Pakhan's Bride
My languid walk takes me past a shop window filled with hand-bound journals and antique pens, a man smoking out on his balcony, and a cat curled on a shutter ledge, blinking at me like I've interrupted a dream.
The cobblestones shine faintly in the low light, uneven beneath my feet. I take a left on Rue Saint-Antoine. Then a right. I don't need my dossier to know where I'm going. I've studied this neighborhood, memorized its corners, traced this route with red ink under lamplight. But nothing prepared me for the way the city would actually feel.
Then I see a bar tucked between a bookshop and a closed florist, looking just like the kind of place someone could live their whole life walking past and never notice. Its windows are glowing, low and amber. A chalkboard outside lists wine specials in slanted cursive. Narrow entrance. Kitchen exit likelyin the back. Everything in me pauses, telling me that for some inexplicable reason, Imustgo in.
Gut instinct pulls me forward, and the bell chimes as I step inside. A warm drift rushes to meet me, carrying scents of wine and garlic and old wood polished by countless elbows. The ceiling hangs low, crossed by rough-hewn beams. Edison bulbs in iron fixtures cast intimate pools of light over mismatched tables. A dozen conversations blend into comfortable background noise. No one turns to stare at the newcomer. I'm unimportant here. The thought makes my lips curl into a real smile, the first in days, the first that doesn't feel rehearsed.
I move to the bar, perch on a worn leather stool, and order a glass of Bordeaux in perfect French. The bartender—gray-haired, hands gnarled from decades of opening bottles—gives me a nod of approval at my choice before bringing me my drink. The wine tastes like berries. I let it linger on my tongue, savoring the moment, the place, the feeling of being untethered from my name.
"There are better wines." The voice comes from my left—American accent, a slight Southern drawl softening the edges of his words.
I turn. He sits alone at a corner table, a glass of amber whiskey cradled in long fingers. His face holds shadows and angles that the dim lighting can't soften. Dark hair cut military-short. Eyes that miss nothing. A day's stubble on his jaw. He wears faded jeans and a black shirt rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and a watch worth more than this entire bar.
Suddenly, every nerve ending of my body is far too aware of the heat in his voice, the way it drags like velvet over gravel, the slow trace of his eyes across my collarbone. I clutch my drink tightly to ground myself. The stem of the glass is cool againstmy fingers, but my mouth is dry. My stomach's fluttering, and it has nothing to do with nerves. "You make a habit of analyzing women's drink orders?" I ask, and my voice comes out a little lower than I meant it to.
His eyes are a kind of blue that doesn't belong to any sky I've ever seen. They rest on my mouth when I speak, and then he grins. This is a man who knows exactly what his smile does. "Only when they are this beautiful."
The bar fades around us. I can hear the rain slicking down the windows. The hum of a record player in the back. But it all feels far away, like I've stepped into a slower current. Like I'm not drowning, but the undertow's real.
"Care to join me?" he asks in an irresistible baritone, rich and full-bodied. And like a moth drawn to a flame, I leave my glass behind and step toward his table.
4
ZOYA
Islide into the chair opposite the stranger, keeping my back to the wall. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I smile shyly, somewhat out of my element beside a man this handsome. "You seem very certain of your wine preferences."
He signals the bartender without looking away from me. "Some certainties are worth having."
His watch catches the flitting light—an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak. It sits incongruously against the worn cuff of his black shirt. A man comfortable with contradictions. The bartender brings a bottle at his signal, presents it with theatrical flourish. I don't look at the bottle, even when the stranger nods, waits as our glasses are filled. The wine is the color of garnets, also my birthstone. I lift it, inhale. Earth and oak, aged over two decades.
"What do you think?" he asks when I sip.
"You were right." I allow a small smile. "Château Margaux, ninety-six." His eyebrow lifts, just slightly. I set my glass down. "My drink was just fine, but this has more structure."
A microscopic shift in his posture presents itself in the form of surprise, but it’s quickly masked. His fingers tap once againstthe rim of his glass, a tell I file away. "Most tourists can't tell the difference between French wine and California knock-offs," he says.
The corner of my mouth tilts. "Do I look like a tourist to you?"
"You look like someone playing a part." He leans back, studying me with new interest. "Not very convincingly."
I switch to Russian, let my natural accent flow. "And what part would that be?"
His lips curve at the language shift. He responds in the same tongue, his accent heavier but entirely competent. "The lonely and lovely girl in a foreign city. The woman with no past and no future. Just the present moment, a glass of wine, and a stranger's company."
He understands Russian. Interesting. Not just understands. He speaks it with the cadence of someone who learned on Moscow streets, not in classrooms. I revert to English, softer now. "Perhaps I simply enjoy good wine and intelligent conversation."
"Perhaps." He matches my English, his Southern American drawl lending an unusual texture to the words. "And perhaps I'm just a businessman enjoying an evening in Paris."
"Are you?"
"No." His directness catches me off guard. "Just as you're not a mere tourist with too much money to spend."
My heart stutters, but my expression remains unchanged. I've had years of practice keeping fear from reaching my face. "What makes you think that?"
"The way you scan the room every forty-five seconds. The way you positioned yourself with sight lines to both exits. The way you touch your hair when deflecting a question." He gestures to my hand, which I realize is doing exactly that. I forceit down to my lap. "Whoever taught you was good, but there are tells they couldn't eliminate."
I should leave. Now. This man is dangerous, though not in the way my father's associates are dangerous, with their obvious threats and displays of power. Mentally, I calculate the distance to the door, the number of people between us and it, the likelihood that he would follow. He's still watching, so I take another sip of my wine as I think of what to say. "You haven't asked my real name."
