Oops, Terrible First Impressions.

Natalia

Where the hell am I?

The first thing I notice is the ceiling.

Wrong ceiling. Too high, too white, too quiet, and I stare at it for ten full seconds before everything else arrives ... the ache in my neck, the weight behind my eyes, my entire body feeling like it lost an argument with the floor.

I sit up.

Unfamiliar room. Unfamiliar sheets. Unfamiliar everything.

I look down at myself.

I am wearing a jacket.

A man's jacket. Dark, expensive, large enough that it falls to the middle of my thighs and swallows my hands completely. Underneath it ... my underwear. That's it. That's the whole outfit.

I stare at the jacket.

And then, slowly, like something surfacing from deep water ... the memories start coming.

The bar. The drink. The collision. One green eye and one grey one looking down at me with that unbearable calm. My hand flat on his chest. Him stepping around me. Walking away.

And me ... me ... opening my mouth and saying...

"Oh my God." I press both hands over my face. "Oh no. No no no..."

Did we ... are we ... did I...

I look at the other side of the bed. Undisturbed. Pillow untouched. The sheets on that side are still crisp and flat and completely, definitively unslept in.

Okay. Okay, so we didn't...

My eyes land on the nightstand.

There is a stack of bills sitting next to the water glass.

I stare at them.

I pick them up. Count them. Count them again.

The number I'm looking at is an insult. Not because it's small ... it's not small ... but because what I was wearing last night cost ten times this amount easy, and that dress is nowhere. I have checked the floor, the chair, the bathroom, every inch of this hotel room, and my red Valentino ... the one I paid more for than most people's rent for a year ... is simply gone.

He left me money.

He took my dress.

"He's a thief," I tell the empty room. "He is a gorgeous, completely unhinged thief and I swear to God..."

I look down at the jacket.

His jacket. On my five-foot-two body. Falling almost to my knees like a dress.

I put on the hotel slippers. I grab my clutch. I walk out with my head high because I have survived worse than this and I will survive this too even if I have to do it in someone else's jacket and complimentary foam slippers.

…

The house is quiet when I get back.

I ease the door open, step inside, ease it shut. Turn the lock. Press my forehead to the wood and breathe for exactly three seconds.

New day. This morning doesn't exist. Moving on.

I turn around.

From the kitchen ... a stove clicking. Something being poured. And then a voice that is not Dad's, low and dry and immediately, horribly familiar, says...

"You strike me as someone who takes their coffee seriously."

I go completely still.

"Depends on the morning," Dad says, warm and unbothered.

"This one qualifies."

I look down at the jacket I'm wearing.

I look at the kitchen doorway.

"No," I breathe. "Absolutely not."

I step into the kitchen anyway.

He's at the counter with his back to me, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a coffee mug held loosely in one hand, talking to my stepfather like he has been here a hundred times before. He got a different shirt from somewhere. Same height. Same shoulders. Same quality of stillness that fills a room without asking permission.

Dad spots me first. His eyebrows go up.

The other man turns around.

One green eye. One grey one.

Both landing on me like they were already looking for me.

For one horrible second neither of us speaks. The kitchen hums with something that has nothing to do with the coffee and everything to do with the fact that we both know exactly what happened last night and neither of us is going to be the first one to say it.

His gaze travels down. The jacket. The hotel slippers. Back up to my face.

Something moves at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile. Worse than a smile.

“You,”

“Me,” he agrees, like I said something interesting.

“How are you in my house?”

“I was invited.”

“By who?”

“Your father.”

“What ... how do you know him? Did you follow me home? Did you go through my bag? Was my address in my...”

“I didn’t follow you.”

“Then explain what you’re doing here.” I fold my arms. The jacket sleeve falls over my hand. I push it up. “Explain how you are standing in this kitchen.”

He tilts his head slightly. The amusement at the edges of his expression doesn’t move. “You don’t remember.”

“I remember fine.”

“Do you.”

“Yes.”

He sets his mug down and takes one step toward me. Then another. Slow. Unhurried. Like he has all the time in the world.

Until he’s close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to hold his gaze, which I resent deeply.

“Then you remember,” he says quietly, “asking me to sleep with you.”

I open my mouth.

“You remember,” he continues, “ordering four more drinks after I said you’d had enough.”

“I...”

“You remember leaning across the table and telling me you were, and I’m quoting, perfectly absolutely one hundred percent fine.”

Something flickers at the back of my memory.

A bar table. His face across it. Watching me with those mismatched eyes.

Me reaching for another glass.

“And then,” he says, and something shifts in his voice, “do you remember what happened after that?”

I remember...

Something rising in my throat. His expression changing, just slightly, from blank to something else. Him standing up quickly. His hand on my arm.

Oh no.

Oh absolutely not.

“The bathroom,” I say slowly.

“The bathroom,” he confirms.

“I didn’t...”

“You did.”

“On myself.”

“On your dress, mostly.”

He pauses. “The Valentino.”

I stare at him. My face is doing something I have no control over.

“That’s why it’s not here,” he says. “The hotel took it to be cleaned. The money on the nightstand was for the dry cleaning charge.”

The corner of his mouth moves.

“Not payment, Miss Monroe.”

The kitchen is very, very quiet.

“I threw up on my dress,” I say.

“Yes.”

“In front of you.”

“Also yes.”

Oh God…

Dad makes a sound from across the kitchen that is absolutely him trying not to laugh. I turn to look at him and his face is completely neutral, which means nothing, because Dad has had decades of practice.

“She was accusing you of stealing,” he tells the man, with the tone of someone delivering a mildly interesting news update. “When she walked in.”

“I gathered.”

“And of being a stalker.”

“I got that too.”

“Dad.”

My voice comes out very flat.

“I’m just filling in the gaps.”

He straightens up, setting his mug down, and moves toward us with the expression he gets when something is about to become official. “Roman, thi is my daughter, Natalia.”

“Natalia.”

He looks at me. Then at the man beside me.

“This is Roman Volkov.”

Roman…

He looks back at me with absolutely no readable expression whatsoever.

“The new mayor.”