“No.” I laugh once, and it sounds wrong even to me. “No, do not say my name like that. Tell me what is happening.”
His eyes move around the room instead of staying on me. The suitcase. The dresses. The passport on my vanity. The engagement ring on my finger.
He doesn’t even glance at the ring.
A cold pressure fills my chest.
“The trip,” he says. “You shouldn’t come.”
I blink.
For one stupid second, my brain offers me mercy. Maybe there’s a threat. Maybe something’s happened in Moscow. Maybe the Morozovs are fighting, and he’s trying to keep me safe.
“What do you mean, I shouldn’t come?”
He exhales. “I mean the trip is no longer necessary.”
“No longer necessary,” I repeat.
He flinches. “Yeah.”
“The trip to meet your family,” I say slowly. “The trip your father insisted on. The trip I have been preparing for, for three months. The trip your mother sent me a schedule for. That trip?”
“Yes.”
I stare at him.
Lev shifts his weight. He looks uncomfortable now, almost irritated even.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
I wait.
He says nothing else.
“You’re sorry,” I repeat. “For what?”
His jaw tightens. “Don’t make this harder.”
Something inside me goes still.
“Oh,” I say. “So, this is my fault now, even though I havenoidea what you’re talking about?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You walk into my bedroom the night before we are supposed to leave for Russia and tell me I shouldn’t come, but I’m making it harder?”
“I came here because I respect you.”
The laugh that leaves me is small and sharp enough to cut. “Respect me? You’re telling menothingright now.”
He looks at the floor.
I take a step toward him. “Look at me.”
His eyes lift, flickering with some emotion that resembles guilt.
I know that before he says it. I know it in the way his shoulders are already braced, like he expects a scene. Like he has practiced surviving this conversation. Like he has told himself I will cry, and he will endure it, and then he will leave feeling tragic instead of cruel.