Page 89 of Savage Don

“You are influential,” Anya says over her shoulder. “Papa listens to you.”

Then she disappears down the stairs, leaving me standing in the hallway with that sentence sitting unpleasantly in my chest.

Papa listens to you.

Does he? Maybe. Maybe not.

But I know the way Irina behaves around him, how she touches his arm, looks at him, inserts herself into Anya’s life whenever I get too close. I have spent days judging her for using affection like a claim.

And what am I doing?

I have known Nikolai for barely more than a week.

I’m Anya’s temporary nanny, companion, tutor, whatever vague title we are using to make this arrangement sound less bizarre. And tonight, I let him touch me in his study while his daughter was somewhere downstairs waiting for me to help her ask about a birthday party.

That thought makes the warmth from earlier drain out of me.

I am not Irina. I know I am not. But the comparison still crawls under my skin.

Maybe desire makes everyone selfish.

Maybe I am simply not as principled as I like to think I am.

I walk without really choosing a direction, trying to settle my thoughts before I have to face anyone else. The house is quieter on this side, the corridor lined with old paintings, carved tables, and framed photographs arranged so tastefully that they look like they belong in a museum rather than a family home.

I slow when I see one picture in particular.

Anya’s younger in it, maybe three or four, sitting on a picnic blanket in a white dress with strawberries printed on it. Her hair is shorter, her cheeks rounder, and she’s laughing at someone outside the frame.

Beside her is a woman.

Sofia. It has to be.

She’s beautiful in a soft, effortless way that makes me feel shabby. Light brown hair, delicate features, long fingers resting near Anya’s knee.

There are other photos around it. Sofia holding Anya as a baby. Sofia sitting beside Nikolai at what looks like a formal dinner, her hand resting on his sleeve. Sofia in the garden, laughing at something Viktor is saying while Nikolai stands slightly behind her, not smiling exactly, but looking at her with a focus that makes my stomach twist.

They were a family. I knew that.

But knowing something and seeing it framed on a wall are not the same thing.

The guilt returns in waves.

Anya is still living inside the space her mother left behind. Nikolai is too. This house is full of her if you know where to look.

And I’m standing here with his taste still on my mouth.

“Lost?”

I jump.

Viktor is standing a few feet away, holding a glass of something amber.

I glance back at the photographs. “Maybe.”

He follows my gaze to the picture of Anya on the picnic blanket, then to the woman beside her.

For a moment, he says nothing.