“Pardon?” He edged into the room behind her, taking the strap of the bag from his shoulder and craning his head around to take in the space.

Lily watched her arm reach for the bag without quite feeling herself make the move. “Who is Alyona?” Her voice sounded strange in her ears. Cracked and dry.

“Why would you—” But he cut off the inane question with a Russian something or another. His eyes slammed shut. His hand went to his pocket in that way it always did, and he drew in a long breath. When he opened his eyes again, the stillness from their first weeks together had seized him again. “I apologize. It was the memory of that girl on the doorstep that brought it back.”

“Brought what back?” She slid the bag to the floor, under the table.

“The way she looked when I found her.” His face twisted. Smoothed back out. His nostrils flared, and he clasped his hands behind his back. “She was my . . .”

Sister. Cousin. Neighbor. Any of those would be logical. Any discovery of the sort this sounded like would be traumatic.

“She was my fiancée.”

“Fiancée.” She ought to focus on the was. But how, when all she could imagine was some other woman he’d never seen fit to mention?

Some of her feeling must have saturated her voice, given Zivon’s raised hand. “It is not what you think. It was arranged marriage. Our parents—she was still child when it was agreed. I, still at university. We were betrothed for decade, but I—it was never like . . .”

He motioned between them, something desperate edging out the stillness.

Lily shook her head. He’d lost his articles again, which told her as much as the words themselves. Whatever relationship he had with this Alyona may not have been quite like this, but it was clearly something whose loss had fractured him. Had it been just twelve hours ago that she was wishing he’d open up and tell her more of his past? The coward in her now wished she could shy away from it. “A decade? You were engaged for a decade.”

She had no hope of following the thoughts that rampaged through his eyes, across his face, before he slammed them down again. “Her mother was ill. She needed take care of siblings. But health had improved, so—wedding date was set. Alyona came to Moscow to prepare our house.”

Lily pressed her palm to the tabletop. “Set for when?”

“Twenty-second of June.”

“Of?”

The thoughts all went silent. “This year.”

She pressed with all her might against the table, but the world still spun. He was supposed to be getting married in a month, to this Alyona. “What happened?”