Page 130 of The Oligarch's Daughter

“I went exploring,” he said. “Wanted to see the yacht.”

“So what ever happened to that guy who sat next to you at dinner? ‘Bondarenko’ I think his name was.”

“Last night they took him away in a medevac helicopter. Probably taking him to the nearest hospital, which must be on Bermuda.”

She looked suddenly concerned. “How do you know this?”

“I saw the helicopter land.” He decided to be selectively honest. “I had a drink with Polina,” he said. He wasn’t going to tell her what Polina had been up to.

“And Papa, too?”

“No.”

A bell rang, and Tatyana pressed a button on the bedside table. Paul heard the door to the suite open. Tatyana called out, “In here, please.”

There was a knock on their open bedroom door. Tatyana said, “Come.”

An older Black steward, wearing a blue uniform, entered wheeling a silver cart. “Good morning, ma’am, sir,” he said with a Caribbean accent. “Would you like a bed tray?”

“Yes, thank you, Simon.”

The steward opened a concealed compartment in the room’s paneling and withdrew a silver tray, unfolded its legs, and placed it on the bed. Tatyana had pulled the sheets up to cover herself. The steward set up Paul’s breakfast on the silver tray, poured coffee for both of them. “Would you like anything else?”

“We’re fine, Simon, thank you,” Tatyana said, and with a nod, he left the room.

The coffee was amazing, and the orange juice was freshly squeezed and delicious. The cloth napkins were monogrammed with Galkin’s intertwined English and CyrillicG.

Paul held the napkin up. “Funny your father goes withGfor himself instead of aPforPechorin.”

Tatyana took a careful sip of the hot coffee. She set the cup down, sighed. “Not so long ago, this yacht was named for his wife, Galina, my mother, so all the towels and everything had aGon them. For ‘Galina,’ not for ‘Galkin.’ Or maybe both. Then they divorced, and he married Irina, and everything was monogrammed with a capitalI. And aftertheydivorced, he had to order a whole new set of towels, for the third time, and he must have decided to stop naming his yacht after his wives.”

“Makes sense.”

She took a few more sips of her coffee and then got out of bed to put on her workout togs, Lululemon yoga pants and a black T-shirt. She left for the gym, and Paul had a leisurely breakfast. He pressed the button for the TV; the Rothko descended, and the TV screen appeared. He watched CNN for a while, then CNBC, as he ate his breakfast. Everything was surpassingly delicious. He felt strangely calm.

After an hour, Tatyana still wasn’t back, and he decided to get dressed and work out, too. But when he got to the gym, three floors down, he found it was empty. No Tatyana.

He went back upstairs and made a detour on the main deck, walked to the outdoor seating area, which was also deserted. Where had she gone?

On his way back to their suite, he heard Tatyana’s voice. She was standing outside the door to someone’s cabin, talking with a man whose voice Paul recognized. Then the man emerged from the room, and he saw the gray-and-ginger head of Andrei Berzin.

For a moment, he considered walking down the corridor and greeting Tatyana. Then he thought better of it and took the stairs up to their suite.

He was washing his hands in the bathroom when Tatyana returned.

“Did you work out?” he asked. Normally, her face was flushed and she glowed with perspiration after a workout. But not now.

“Yeah.”

“Why were you talking to Berzin?”

“What? When?”

“A few minutes ago. I saw you coming out of his room.”

A strange expression crossed her face and just as quickly vanished. “Oh, Berzin, he has a one-track mind,” she said. “He’s obsessed with threats to the family, and he wanted to talk about my personal security.” She didn’t sound very convincing.

“Whataboutyour security?”

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