to say, I’m with this woman. Don’t bother us again.
I’d never experienced that before. Russian men—at least
the ones I’d met—never considered themselves taken or
off-limits until they were married. And the other women
knew it: make the mistake of leaving your date for a
few minutes and you’d come back to find another
woman perched on his knee. You had to fight viciously
to keep him—literally, with some women handing out
brutal beatings in nightclub toilets if they thought you
were competing for “their” man. The aim of the game
was to keep your man interested for long enough to
coax him up the aisle, at which point he was
yours...except for the mistress in some discreet
apartment somewhere, plus the hookers he’d fuck while
away on business.
Angelo had only just met me, but he looked at me like I
was the only woman in the world.
“Tell me about dancing,” he said as soon as the waitress
was gone. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“Float. And spin around on your toes and shi—stuff.”
He was trying not to curse in front of me. In his eyes, I
was innocent and he didn’t want to corrupt me. It was
almost funny: innocent? Me? Imagine his reaction if he
knew some of the things I’d seen, thanks to the family
business.
What kept me from laughing was how good it felt. No
one had ever cared about trying to shield me from
things before—even Vasiliy just accepted that violence
was part of my world. I’d grown up around tattooed
men who’d spent most of their lives in prison: I could
probably out-curse Angelo, given the chance...but the
fact that he thought of me as innocent made me light
up inside in a way I wasn’t expecting. It was almost like
glimpsing myself as I would have been if I’d been born
into a normal family. I wanted to be innocent. And I
wanted him to corrupt me.
I told him about Fenbrook Academy and early-morning
practice, about dancing the same piece a couple of
hundred times, about calluses and stone bruises and
climbing stairs on your ass because your feet hurt so
much. I told him about transferring from the ballet
school in Moscow, skimming over why I’d left. I focused
on the good stuff: how I’d always loved America and
wanted to come here.
The food arrived and we savored every bite. Talking
with him was so...easy. I could feel myself relaxing, the
layers of ice gradually thinning and cracking. With other
men, I had to weigh every word, worried in case it
sounded dumb...or sounded too intelligent. With most of
the guys Vasiliy introduced me to, talking really meant
polishing their egos.
Not with Angelo. I got the feeling he hated bullshit more
than anything else. And he didn’t talk like a rich person,
with all their little games and attempts to score points.
He talked about simple pleasures like eating hot dogs at
Coney Island and swimming off Sandy Hook Beach. I
told him about watching my cousin Luka play ice hockey
when the government froze all the paths in Gorky Park,
and buying blinchiki filled with butter and jam from
street stands.
I suddenly caught myself. This is crazy. I shouldn’t be
here. This whole happy date was an illusion, a soap
bubble that would be destroyed as soon as Vasiliy found
out about it. But….
I liked him.
It was more than just lust. That was still there: the
conversation would slow down every few minutes and
we’d just gaze at each other. My eyes slid down the
lines of his hard pecs under his white shirt; his eyes
skimmed over my bare shoulder and then all the way
down the side of my dress, following the shape of my
body as if he longed to do the same thing with his palm.
But I liked him. I liked his confidence and his warmth
and his refreshing lack of games.
He’s too good to be true. There were distant alarm bells
in my head: something familiar about him. But that
made no sense: he was so different to the Russian guys
I knew.
He told me about growing up right there in New York,
with scarcely enough money to eat. How things had
slowly improved as his dad worked his way up the
business and how Angelo had followed in his footsteps,
eventually taking over his dad’s position when he died.
“What is it you do?” I asked.
He opened his mouth to speak, pride in his eyes. As if
he knew I’d be impressed. I suddenly knew what it was
going to be: he was in banking, and it was going to be
some place I’d heard of, some place that would make
my jaw drop. I’m a vice-president at Goldman Sachs.
That would explain the money and the confidence. It
was weird, because he didn’t sound like some Harvard-
educated guy from a rich family. He sounded blue-collar
and proud of it.
But at the last minute, he seemed to change his mind.
The pride faded from his eyes. “Y’know. Just business.
Loans. Insurance.”
I frowned. I could tell he was downplaying it. Why?
No matter. I realized I’d dodged a bullet—if we got onto
the subject of jobs, he might ask what my folks did, and
then we’d get onto my family. I didn’t want to go there.
He poured the last of the wine and, as the final heavy
red drop fell into my glass, I felt it begin. He didn’t say
anything, but the question started to form in the air
between us. The end of the meal was here: what now?
This is where I’d normally say something, like, “Wow,
I’m really tired,” or “I have an early rehearsal
tomorrow,” just to start clueing the guy in to the fact
that no, I wasn’t going home with him. Even if I liked
the guy, I wouldn’t have sex on a first date.
But I stayed silent. I let the question grow and grow.
What are you doing, Irina? My heart started thumping.
I’d already come on a date with him when I knew this
couldn’t go anywhere. I had to come to my senses and
end it now.
But the thought of seeing that broad, muscled chest
without the shirt, of running my fingers down his bare
abs….
The waitress asked if we wanted dessert. We both
agreed we didn’t. I asked for the check and he caught
my eye. And we both knew, and, immediately, things
changed. His gazes had felt like soft caresses but now
they turned firm and direct: I could almost feel his
hands as they slid up my sides and over my back, could
feel the touch of his lips on the upper slopes of my
breasts.
I went to speak, but it was suddenly difficult to get air.
Part of me still couldn’t believe I was about to do this on
a first date. But I didn’t want it to end.
“Would you like to come back to mine?” I asked. My
house felt safer: familiar territory, plus Rachel would be
there, just in case all my instincts were wrong and he
was an axe murderer.
A smile slowly spread across his face, eyes twinkling
with a mixture of joy and raw, hot lust.
He stood behind me to slip my coat on and, when it was
wrapped around me, he stopped like that for a second,
holding the edges tightly together in front of me so that
the coat hugged me. As if, now that he was embracing
me, he couldn’t bear to let me go.
Then we were stepping out into the freezing night air. I
looked up the street one way then the other for a cab.
As I turned back to him, he stepped right up close to
me, so close that his leg slipped between mine. I
blinked up at him: we were so close, I had to tilt my
head right back.