Page 70 of Cruel Romeo

Despite my misgivings, I find myself drawn in. Granted, it’s a lot of wide shots on artificial reconstructions of ash clouds,molten rock, and a whole city turned to stone mid-scream. Real happy stuff.

But it’s strangely compelling, too. Something to do with the presenter’s lulling baritone and British accent, perhaps, or the way Petyr seems to relax minutely as the images flow by.

I find myself watching him as much as the screen.

“The graffiti is still there?” I ask, jaw half-open.

“Hm?” He throws another distracted look. “Oh, that. Yes.”

After five more minutes, I’m hooked. Petyr keeps eating, occasionally looking at the screen without much enthusiasm, but me? I’m fixated. Utterly taken in. Worse than the time I binged a whole season ofDrag Racein twenty-four hours.

The subject changes from wide shots to specific relics of the city. They show a couple, locked together in a forever in an embrace. Ash clings to their forms, their outlines still visible two thousand years later.

“Can you imagine?” I say before I think better of it. “Dying in someone’s arms like that?”

Petyr glances over, brows raised. “That’s a morbid wish.”

“I’m just saying.” I shrug and pick at my food. “If the world’s going to end, maybe being with someone you love makes it less terrifying.”

He doesn’t respond right away. I can feel his gaze, heavy on the side of my face. But my own thoughts are too loud.

I don’t even believe in that kind of love. Not really. Not after the examples I’ve seen. My parents? Toxic. Lara’s husband? A controlling old man with cruelty in his veins. Anatoli and my sister-in-law? God help that poor, poor girl.

My whole family has always treated love like a transaction or a leash, something constricting rather than freeing.

So why does my chest ache like I want it anyway?

Like I want what these two people had, thousands of years ago?

I must be quiet for a beat too long, because Petyr’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “This is about your job.”

“Huh?” I blink.

“You miss it.” He fixes me with a gaze I can’t quite read. “I know giving it up wasn’t easy. But it was for your safety, and you did the right thing.”

Yep. Way to miss the point entirely.“Oh,” is all I manage to say.

“You still have your classes.”

I offer a tight smile. “Right. I know.”

But he’s dead wrong, on all counts. I’m not mourning my job. If anything, I’m mourning mylife. My clean, simple life where I was a no-name wedding planner with no connection to the Danilo family.

Now, Anatoli is looking for me. He’s trying to track me down, and if he does, all hell will break loose. Petyr will find out the truth about me. He’ll realize he married the enemy, and then what? I doubt he’d be so concerned about my safety. About whether or not I’m exposing myself by going to work or to class or—or anywhere.

And maybe I’m mourning that embrace I saw on screen, too. That honest, loving, all-consuming embrace I can never truly have.

Because love like that? It doesn’t exist. And if it did…

Petyr Gubarev certainly wouldn’t be the one to give it to me.

We eat in silence for the rest of the documentary. When the credits start to roll, Petyr turns towards me. “Come upstairs.”

Despite everything, my heart still stutters. There’s a heat in his eyes, but there’s something gentler under it, too. Something unexpectedly kind.

Maybe I should take it while I can. His kindness, his warmth.

God knows it won’t last forever.