Page 121 of Hate You Most

She hated that she knew how to give them what they wanted.

The longer she danced, the more obvious it became that she was outside of herself. She was watching the whole scene unfold from a distance with a kind of detached nausea. Her smile was there and her body was definitely there. Her hand was in Lev’s, and his other hand was on her waist. But the part of her mind that should have been feeling something—anything—remained completely blank. She felt nothing but a faint and weary discomfort.

His fingers moved over her side in a gesture that could have once passed for affection, and she noticed with a clarity that it frightened her. The gesture didn't seem romantic or comforting, it was simply there. Almost misplaced.

Lev was playing this role too—and he was the better actor.

Another flash of light came from the far side of the room. It briefly made her look past Lev’s shoulder and toward the edge of the dance floor, where the crowd thinned out near the bar. Someone was watching them there too, but their gaze was less curious than others.

She turned back to Lev and tried to lose herself in the music again. She shook her hips a little and tried to become a version of herself she wasn't.

“Relax,” he murmured, smiling down at her. “You’re so tense.”

Viktoriya gave him a soft laugh. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m more than fine.”

He said nothing, only lifted his hand slightly higher and guided her closer as the music changed around them.

The lights dimmed, then blues and golds flashed across the room. His body was warm and close and wrong in a way that made her skin feel separate from herself.

She let him spin her around again, because there was no point in refusing now. His hands moved around her neck and he kissed her sloppily. There was no emotion in it. Instead there was a terrible blankness in her mind as she recognized that this was supposed to mean something. His mouth was warm and she could taste the bitterness from whatever beer was leftover on his lips.

Around them, the club seemed to sharpen and blur at once. The music throbbed in her chest and heels.

She moved outside of her own body. She could see Lev’s hand on her waist, the pressure of his mouth against hers. She could sense the watching eyes around her. She was above herself. A woman dressed in black, kissing a man she did not love. The sight filled her with such a sudden misery that her chest went cold.

The wrongness of it hit her all at once. Not because Lev had done anything wrong, but because she had no idea what the hell she was doing. This wasn't a kiss of desire and no matter how many times she told herself that, in her mind, she couldn't keep convincing herself.

She broke the kiss before it could become anything else, though Lev seemed too confident to notice at first. Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked at him with a kind of numb horror that made his smile falter.

He asked her something, probably whether she was all right, but the words vanished under the pounding music around them.

She was not in love with him. She was not the version of herself that he and her father and the tabloids had agreed upon.

She turned away from him completely. She needed to get out of here.

Across the room, through the movement of bodies and shifting pink lights at the edge of the dance floor, there was a flash of movement. Dark hair pulled into a bun with two loose strands having slipped free.

It was like she was back on the ice again, staring at Dakota before she delivered the performance worthy of gold.

Their eyes met across the dance floor.

Viktoriya’s body went cold and hot all at once, as if every nerve in her body had suddenly remembered what it meant to be alive. Her throat tightened so sharply that it hurt.

Dakota had seen her kiss Lev. She didn't know what to do with that. She wanted to reach out for her, but Lev’s hand was still at her waist. Every point where his hands met her body just made her more aware of how empty those touches were.

He noticed the change in her face.

“What is it?” he leaned close and asked.

She didn't answer him. Her eyes were fixated on Dakota across the sea of people. She turned away and disappeared into a crowd toward the exit.

Viktoriya blinked. For a moment she wondered if Dakota had been there at all, or if she had imagined it all.

She took a step forward, barely registering in her mind that she had moved. Then another step forward. Lev’s fingers tightened at her side. He mumbled something, but she didn't register it.