Vasili handed her a glass. “Do what?”

“You know.”

“I suppose I can guess.”

“I’m forty. I have to live my own life.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know, that’s the trouble.”

“I’m forty-eight,” he said. “And I feel something similar.”

“What?”

“I don’t chase girls anymore. Or women.”

She was in a cynical mood. “Don’t chase them—or just don’t catch them?”

“I detect a note of skepticism.”

“Perceptive of you.”

“Listen,” he said, “I’ve been thinking. I’m not sure we need to continue the pretense that we barely know one another.”

“What makes you say that?”

He leaned closer and lowered his voice, so that she had to strain to hear him over the noise of the party. “Everyone knows that Anna Murray is the publisher of Ivan Kuznetsov, yet no one has ever connected her to you.”

“That’s because we’re ultra-cautious. We never let anyone see us together.”

“That being the case, there’s no danger in people knowing that you and I are friends.”

She was not sure. “Maybe. So what?”

Vasili tried a roguish smile. “You once told me you’d go to bed with me if I would give up the rest of my harem.”

“I don’t believe I ever said that.”

“Perhaps you implied it.”

“And anyway, that must have been eighteen years ago.”

“Is it too late now to accept the offer?”

She stared at him, speechless.

He filled the silence. “You’re the only woman who ever really mattered to me. Everyone else was just a conquest. Some I didn’t even like. If I had never slept with her before, that was enough reason for me to seduce her.”

“Is this supposed to make you more attractive to me?”

“When I got out of Siberia I tried to resume that life. It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve realized the truth at last: it doesn’t make me happy.”

“Is that so?” Tanya was getting angrier.

Vasili did not notice. “You and I have been friends for a long time. We’re soul mates. We belong together. When we sleep together, it will just be a natural progression.”

“Oh, I see.”

He was oblivious to her sarcasm. “You’re single, I’m single. Why are we single? We should be together. We should be married.”

“So, to sum up,” Tanya said, “you’ve spent your life seducing women you never really cared for. Now you’re pushing fifty and they don’t really attract you—or perhaps you no longer attract them—so, at this point, you’re condescending to offer me marriage.”

“I may not have put this very well. I’m better at writing things down.”

“You bet you haven’t put it well. I’m the last resort of a fading Casanova!”

“Oh, hell, you’re upset with me, aren’t you?”

“Upset comes nowhere near it.”

“This is the opposite of what I intended.”

Over his shoulder, she caught the eye of Daniil. On impulse she left Vasili and crossed the room. “Daniil,” she said. “I’d like to go abroad again. Is there any chance I could get a foreign posting?”