Traded to His Enemy, Pregnant With His Heir novel · Chapter 11 of 48

Chapter 11: Seventy-Two

"I'll be there," I said.

"Good." Gianluca stepped aside. "Save me a dance."

"Save her a chair," I said. "She faints."

Galina laughed out loud, one bark, and Ilya walked us out onto Hanover Street with his hand on the small of my back.

On Thursday a white box came to the penthouse.

Inside, in tissue, was a long dress the deep green of a wine bottle held up to the light.

Velvet. Long sleeves. A back that wasn't there.

"I didn't pick silver," Ilya said from the doorway.

"I noticed."

"Green is for your eyes. Silver was for his car."

I looked up at him.

"How do you know that?"

"You told me, the first night, in your sleep." He shrugged. "The walls here are not so thick."

Galina pinned the hem on Friday with her mouth full of pins and lectured me the whole time.

"You don't eat the shrimp. You don't drink the champagne. You don't let the Italian girl near your glass."

"Yes, Galina."

"And you dance with Ilya. Close. So they all see."

"Galina."

"What? I am old. I want to see something nice before I die."

The ballroom at the Copley Plaza was all gold leaf and chandeliers.

Every family in New England was in it.

The North End at the tables by the stage. The Irish from Southie by the bar. The old men from Providence at a round table near the band, with their wives in furs.

The Lazarevs had never been invited before.

When Ilya walked in with me on his arm, the music didn't stop, but every conversation did.

I felt it go across the room.

The Bellucci wife.

On the Russian.

Pregnant, someone whispered, and it went from table to table faster than the waiters.

Ilya didn't look at any of them.

He looked at me.

"Breathe," he murmured.

"I am breathing."

"You're breathing like a nurse. Breathe like a woman who owns the room."

Gianluca was at the North End table with Donatella beside him in pale blue.

She'd had her hair done in soft waves, and she had her hand on his arm.

He watched me cross the floor.

He didn't take his eyes off the green dress the whole way.

The band started a slow song.

Ilya held out his hand.

This time I took it.

He walked me into the middle of the floor and pulled me in close, his palm flat on my bare back, warm and heavy.

His other hand closed around mine and held it against his chest.

"Everyone's watching," I said.

"Let them."

"Galina told you to do this."

"Galina told me to dance close. I'm deciding how close."

He drew me in until there was no air between us at all.

I could feel his heartbeat through his shirt, and his thigh moving against mine, and his breath at my temple.

His thumb moved in one slow line down my spine, under the edge of the velvet.

My knees went weak in front of four hundred people.

"Ilya," I whispered. "Behave."

"No," he said, against my ear. "Not tonight."

The song ended.

Nobody clapped. They just stared.

And across the floor, right on cue, Donatella's knees buckled.

She went down slowly, gracefully, with one hand at her throat, into Gianluca's arms.

"I can't breathe," she gasped. "Gian, I can't, I can't breathe, it's happening again."

People stood up from the tables.

Somebody yelled for a doctor.

Gianluca looked up at me across the floor, white with fury.

I walked over.

I knelt on the parquet beside her in my green velvet.

"I'm a nurse," I said, loud and pleasant. "Let me."

Before Gianluca could stop me, I took Donatella's wrist.

I found the pulse with two fingers and looked at my watch.

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