Page 46 of The Harbinger

Katya took a sip. “Oh no, I don’t live here. My mama and I work here. She tends the gardens, and I clean the rooms.”

“Oh, sorry, I just assumed.” The memory of her hand on him clouded my vision. “You’re very friendly with Sacha, that’s all.”

Katya lowered her gaze to her cup and smiled as though remembering something special. “We’ve known each other for a very long time. Since we were children.”

I sat straight in my chair and leaned forward. “So, you know things about him that no one else would know?”

She nodded. “Many things.”

“Would you mind sharing?”

She rolled her shoulders back. “Life is boring without gossip, is it not?” Katya pinched her lips together, allowing our awkward silence to grow.

I pulled the cup to my lips and took in the wood cabinetry while I fought the twitch in my fingers when I glimpsed black along her wrist, peaking out beneath her sleeve.

Did she have the same one?

“Is that a tattoo?”

She glanced down, pulled her sleeve over the exposed skin, and picked up her cup.

“Katya.” Sacha’s deep voice shattered through the one moment of normalcy I’d had since being here and swirled a heat in my belly.

She smiled and sipped her tea, slid off the chair, then discarded the tea into the sink along with the fragile cup before leaving the room.

“Why did you do that? We just sat down.”

“I believe one of my rules was to not bother the staff. They have work to do.”

I rolled my eyes as I spun the barstool around to face him. “I wasn’t bothering her. Isn’t she allowed a break?”

How could a man treat his childhood friend like that—with such a callous disposition?

“Not in my home.” Sacha stood beside me, his two knuckles resting on the counter as I sipped the bitter tea.

“I didn’t know you’d be home early.”

He grunted, and my chest warmed.

If I closed my eyes, I could play house and pretend this was normal. I could imagine him being warm and caring, kissing my forehead with tenderness as he walked in the door from a hard day’s work in the office.

But the lie would bleed away into reality when I’d open my eyes. He didn’t want to be around me, and he’d spent his days in the city, working in that exquisite tower to escape me.

“What did you do today?” he asked as he tipped my cup and looked inside.

Do I rip the Band-Aid off now or make him find out for himself? Katya said he wouldn’t be happy, but just how unhappy would he be? Did she know him as well as she let on?

I chewed on the inside of my lip for a moment and adjusted my cup so the handle sat straight across, pointing towards the right, making minor adjustments until the itch inside settled.

“Well… I looked at a few books.”

“Find anything you like?”

“Not exactly.” I kept my gaze down to the counter when Sacha picked up an orange, then placed it next to the bananas.

“The books on the top shelf are in English.”

My heart galloped as I stared at the rogue orange. Should I tell him I knew about the English books and that he wouldn’t find them there anymore?