Page 121 of Tarnished Queen

I’ve been single for most of my adult life. I know how to spend an evening alone in my room.

Except, tonight, Nikolai is everywhere. All I can think about is what he could be doing right now. Why did he stand me up? Why didn’t he call to tell me what was going on?

And the most pressing question of all: should I call him?

“No,” I say aloud, tossing my phone to the end of the bed so it’s out of reach. “No, you shouldn’t.”

But still, the idea is tempting. I try to distract myself with a book or painting my nails, but my phone keeps winking at me from where I dropped it.

“You’ll look desperate,” I say again. “Don’t do it.”

But I’m quickly losing the battle. So the only option is to retreat. Before I can sabotage myself, I slip out of bed and get into the hallway, leaving my phone behind.

So what if Nikolai calls or texts? Who cares? I’ll talk to him later. I don’t care.

I move into the sitting room and plop down on the sofa, already itching to run back and check my phone. Instead, I grab the remote and power up the TV.

The news is on. I’m not surprised. It’s all Nikolai seems to watch when he is rarely seated long enough to watch television.

Just as I’m about to turn the channel, I see a familiar name flash along the chyron at the bottom of the screen.

“Am I having a stroke?” I mutter, sitting up to get a closer look. But no matter how close I get, it doesn’t change.

I turn the volume up just as the same familiar name comes out of the news anchor’s mouth.

And now, I’m positive I’m losing my mind. “What did Nikolai do?”

34

BELLE

I can’t sleep and I can’t sit still. For the next ninety minutes, I pace around the house like a madwoman, repeatedly calling Nikolai and repeatedly getting nothing but his voicemail. By the time his car pulls down the driveway of the house, I’m a ticking time bomb of anxiety and confusion.

I catapult down the porch and meet him just as he’s opening the driver’s side door. “What did you do?” I demand.

Nikolai doesn’t look fazed at the sight of me, despite the fact I’m one worry line away from donning a tin foil hat and pinning newspaper cutouts to a corkboard.

“Hi to you, too.” He grabs me by the shoulders and gently moves me so he can step to the side and close his car door.

“Hi?” I snap. “That’s what you have to say after standing me up for dinner and then not calling or answering your phone?Hi?! You could have been dead.”

“You knew I wasn’t dead.”

“How do you know that?”

He gestures to me as if I’m proof enough. “Because clearly, you saw the news.”

Yes, I saw the news. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the news since I saw the news.

“What does that even mean?” I ask desperately. “You know I saw the news, which means you knew there was news to see. So that means… you did this?”

“Did what?”

“You know what! The news anchor said a university building—an entire freaking building!—was being named after Petyr Dowan. That’s my dad’s name.”

Nikolai nods. “I’m aware.”

“Why would they name a building after my dad?”

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