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I dipped a piece of bread into olive oil and imagined Salvatore studying the wine list with theatrical offense before offering to buy the restaurant just so he could fix it.

The door opened behind me. I didn’t look up at first, not until the waiter hesitated. Years spent around powerful men had taught me to recognize the moment a room identified danger before I did.

The Russian from Central Park stood in the doorway.

He wore a dark suit without a tie, the collar of his white shirt open at his throat. His gaze moved through the restaurant before finding me. Surprise touched his face so briefly I might have believed it, if I had not spent my life surrounded by men practiced at hiding the truth.

Confusion came first. Then came the same warm, treacherous alarm I had felt when he caught my hand in the park. My body remembered him before my mind decided whether it wanted to.

He approached slowly and stopped several feet from my table.

“Maddie.”

“You’re a long way from Central Park.”

“I could say the same of you.”

“I live here.” I set the bread down. “What’s your excuse?”

“Business.”

The answer came too easily, polished smooth enough to reveal only the part of the truth he meant to offer. He glanced toward the back of the restaurant, where the owner stood near the kitchen pretending not to watch us.

“I won’t disturb your dinner.”

He turned to leave, and the relief I expected didn’t come. Something tightened at the thought of the door closing behind him. Mom’s voice returned from Cian’s apartment, telling me I might find a different love someday. I wasn’t ready for love. I wasn’t sure I was ready for another person at all. But the promise I had made her had not been to fall in love. It had been to try living in the present.

“You can sit.”

He stopped.

I didn’t know his name yet, but it felt wrong to keep thinking of him only as the Russian when he had spoken mine as though it carried weight beyond one afternoon in a park.

“If you want,” I added, because the invitation suddenly felt too intimate. “Unless your business is waiting somewhere else.”

“It can wait.”

He took the chair across from me, leaving the table between us like a boundary neither of us intended to cross. The waiter appeared almost immediately. He ordered coffee in a low voice, then folded his hands loosely in front of him.

“You never told me your name,” I said.

“Rurik Ryabkin.”

“Rurik,” I repeated, testing the shape of it. “Did Maxim send you to the park?”

“No.”

“Does he know you spoke to me?”

Rurik held my gaze. “Not from me.”

There were a dozen questions hidden inside that answer, but I was tired of men handing me fragments of truth and expecting gratitude for the pieces. “And tonight? Did someone send you here?”

“I’m in Boston on business.”

He didn’t look away, but he still hadn’t answered me. I should have asked him to leave. Instead, I lifted my wine and studied him over the rim of the glass.

“This restaurant reminds me of somewhere Salvatore once took me.”