Page 11 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
She patted the cushion beside her, and after a moment’s hesitation, I sat down. The couch had been a gift from her andMilo when I’d first opened the studio—butter-soft leather the color of caramel, big enough for two people to curl up with coffee and dreams and the kind of conversations that lasted until dawn.
“He’s alone right now,” she said, her voice soft. “Completely alone. No family, no one to help him through this except whatever bottle he finds at the bottom of a glass.”
The image she painted—Lev drunk and grieving and isolated—made something twist painfully in my chest.
“He has friends. Business associates. Women who—”
“Who what? Care about him?” Irene’s laugh was sharp enough to cut. “Anya, honey, when was the last time you went on a date?”
The question caught me off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Answer me. When was the last time you let someone get close to you? Really close?”
I opened my mouth to respond and found I couldn’t. Because the truth was embarrassing and pathetic and completely accurate. There had been dates, of course. Dinner with the art gallery owner who’d wanted to discuss a potential collaboration. Coffee with the journalist who’d interviewed me for Vogue. A handful of carefully orchestrated evenings that had ended with polite handshakes and promises to call that we both knew were lies.
But close? Really, truly close?
“Five years,” Irene said softly, reading the answer in my silence. “Five years since you let someone past your walls. Five years since you trusted someone enough to be vulnerable.”
“That’s not—”
“It is.” Her eyes were kind but relentless. “You’ve been waiting, Anya. All this time, through every safe, boring date with every safe, boring man, you’ve been waiting for someone who kissed you once in a club and then disappeared from your life.”
The truth of it hit me like a physical blow, knocking the breath from my lungs and leaving me dizzy with the force of recognition. Five years of holding everyone at arm’s length, five years of finding excuses and building walls and telling myself it was about independence and focus and protecting the life I’d built.
Five years of waiting for a man who’d touched me like fire and then walked away without looking back.
“Only Lev dared to come close,” I whispered, the words torn from somewhere deep in my chest. “Only him. And I let him, just once, and I’ve never forgotten how it felt to burn.”
Irene reached over and took my hand, her fingers warm and steady against mine.
“Then maybe it’s time to stop running from the fire and go see if it’s still burning.”
I pulled my hand away and stood up, sudden energy coursing through me like electricity. She was right. God help me, she was absolutely right. I’d spent five years telling myself I hated everything about Lev’s world while secretly, desperately hoping he’d find his way back into mine.
“This is insane,” I said, already moving toward the door.
“Probably,” she agreed. “But sometimes the best things are.”
I grabbed my keys and jacket, my heart hammering against my ribs with a rhythm that felt like anticipation and terror in equal measure. “If this goes badly—”
“It won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.” She smiled, and it was full of the kind of confidence I wished I felt. “And I know him, even if you think I don’t. He’s been waiting too, Anya. Maybe not as obviously as you, but he’s been waiting.”
The drive to Lev’s apartment felt like traveling through a dream—familiar streets transformed by darkness and the weight of possibility. I’d been to his building exactly once before, years ago, when Maxim had sent me to deliver some documents he’d forgotten. Even then, I’d been struck by how perfectly the space reflected its owner—all clean lines and expensive materials and not a single personal touch that might reveal something vulnerable underneath the surface.
I parked in the visitor’s space and sat in my car for a full five minutes, hands gripping the steering wheel while I tried to talk myself out of what I was about to do. This was crazy. Lev Antonov wasn’t the kind of man who needed comfort from anyone, least of all from his best friend’s little sister who’d thrown herself at him once and been gently, definitively rejected.
But then I remembered the look in his eyes five years ago, right before he’d kissed me. The way he’d said my name like it was a prayer and a curse wrapped together. The way he’d touched me like I was something precious and forbidden at the same time.
Maybe Irene was right. Maybe he’d been waiting too.
I got out of the car before I could change my mind and walked to the building’s entrance on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. The lobby was all marble and mirrors, intimidating in the way that expensive things often were. The elevator ride to the fifteenth floor lasted forever and not nearly long enough.
Standing outside his door, I almost lost my nerve entirely. What was I supposed to say? That I was sorry for his loss? That I’d driven across town because I couldn’t stop thinking about him? That I’d spent five years measuring every man I met against the memory of one kiss?
