Page 27

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Stuffed with blini, drunk on vodka, Tatyana and Paul collapsed into the bed as soon as they got back to her apartment. Quickly, Tatyana was asleep, and Paul soon after.

They awoke in the middle of the night. Paul felt logy, his mind thick and slow. He got up to use the bathroom, and when he returned to the bed he saw that Tatyana was awake now, too.

“What did you and Papa talk about?” she asked.

“Ugh,” Paul said, making a guttural sound. “I was drunk, and I agreed to invest some money for him.”

“Really? He must really admire you. Trust you. He’s very particular about where he puts his money.”

“I must have been out of my mind.”

“Why do you say that? He knows how well you do.”

“It’s a roll of the dice, Tatyana. The market could drop, you know? And he’s not going to be happy about losing money.”

“He’s a grown-up. He’ll understand.”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, then. If you feel that way, then let me speak to him. I’ll just tell him it’s a mistake, that I don’t want his future son-in-law investing his money. That it’s . . . awkward.”

Paul shook his head. “No, milaya . Thank you, but that’s okay,” he said.

I don’t shy from challenges , he told himself. Especially from my future father-in-law. Or maybe I’m still drunk.

“You sure?”

He nodded, looked down for a moment, then looked up with a half smile. “He wants me to sign a prenup.”

She groaned. “Not my idea.”

“No doubt.”

“I don’t know about this stuff. I’m the oldest in the family. The first to get married, the first to have to deal with all this. What did you tell him?”

“I didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask ; he told me. Like, it wasn’t up for debate.”

“Did it bother you?”

Paul shrugged. “I expected it. He’s a wealthy man, and he wants to protect his daughter’s assets. They’ll send me the document, we’ll see what it says. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“He didn’t mention our engagement?”

“He said he was very happy. What did Polina say to you?”

“Oh, she was thrilled. She was already talking about where the wedding should be.”

“Uh-oh.”

“She wants it to be in Tuscany, at my father’s villa near Florence. She wants an over-the-top wedding. A showcase. Something that will show up his oligarch friends.”

Paul hadn’t even thought about that—competitive weddings in the oligarch world. “Is that what you want?”

“No way. I couldn’t care less about all that shit, Pasha.”

“Good.”

“Polina is . . .” She paused, looked up at Paul with an almost helpless shrug.

“She seems nice,” Paul said. “Is she not nice?”

“She competes with me, have you noticed?”

Actually, Paul had noted that Tatyana took particular care with her makeup and her outfits when she was going over to her father’s house. He suspected that on some deep, psychic level, she was competing with her dad’s young wife, too.

“She competes with me for my father’s attention.”

“Maybe you should feel flattered that she’s so jealous of you,” he said. “But you seem to get along.”

“We get along okay,” she replied. “I mean, she doesn’t treat me like a stepdaughter. Or a daughter at all. If Polina tried to treat me like a daughter—I mean, she’s only a couple years older than me—things would go badly. So we’re like sisters, and most of the time we get along well. We go shopping together.”

“What was their wedding like?”

“Unbelievable. It was in Moscow, at the Barvikha. Elton John performed.”

“You’re kidding me.”

She shook her head. “They had a ten-tier floating cake, and she wore a seventy-carat engagement ring.”

“ Seventy carats? Did you want a bigger diamond than the one I gave you?”

“No! The one I have now is perfect. I wouldn’t want it any bigger. It would be too heavy.”

Ten million bucks at least for a seventy-carat diamond ring. Maybe more. He had no idea. He was glad Tatyana didn’t want something as big as her stepmother’s. Or even close. He was doing well, and banking a lot, but he didn’t have that kind of money.

He wondered, for the first time—but not for the last—what he’d gotten himself into.