Page 148 of Mile High Ex's Dad
No. Let him stay.
Let him think I’m angry enough to be reckless and not angry enough to be patient. Let him believe he has managed to unsettle me. Men like Mikhail do their best work when they think they’ve already gained the advantage. They start looking around instead of watching their own feet.
Good.
“I’ll see you inside then,” I say before walking away, catching the small frown that splits his brows.
I start back toward the lawn more slowly than I came. By the time I reach the edge of the garden, I already know what I need to do. Keep him close. Keep Camille visible. Keep Ethan contained.
And Sienna. Especially Sienna.
That thought comes with the same weight it always does now. Immediate. Uninvited. Entirely too central.
I spot Yuri near the side path and jerk my head once toward the terrace. He follows without comment. We stop just out of earshot of the nearest staff.
“Well?” he asks.
“He stays.”
Yuri looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “You’re joking.”
“No.”
His face hardens. “Viktor.”
“If I remove him now, we get nothing. If he stays and we even get a whiff of funny business…”
“Like trying to kill you?” Yuri prompts.
“You think he attacked me two nights ago?” I ask.
Yuri shrugs. “Wouldn’t put it past him. You’re the pakhan, and that leech wants power. Maybe he thinks you’ll be vulnerable at the wedding and thought to attack.”
“Well he’s wrong about it,” I say.
Yuri is quiet for a second.
Then, reluctantly, “All right.”
“Eyes on him at all times. Quietly. No heroics. No one touches him unless I say so.”
He nods once.
After Yuri leaves, I sigh and turn around to go back to the house. That’s when I stop short.
She’s coming towards me from the other side of the garden. The planner’s clipboard is still in her hand, her hair still pinned up with the same practical care, but now she’s wearing a dress that makes every other detail around her disappear for a second. Soft, fitted where it should be, loose where she wants it loose, elegant without trying too hard. She looks exactly like the sort of woman a man notices once and keeps noticing against his will.
I stop without meaning to.
She looks up almost at once, finds me across the grass, and I know from the shift in her face that she’s made the same decision I have. She’s coming toward me.
So I do the only thing that feels sensible and turn to walk the other way.
Not because I don’t want her near me. Because I do. Too much. Because the minute we are close again, all the things I told myself this morning about distance and judgment and timing become harder to defend.
I make it three steps.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see her falter.
