Page 102 of Sinister Promise

"The Princess Bride. It's..." She'd searched for words. "It's my favorite. It’s super funny. Although you probably won’t understand half the references."

Something about her tentative request had intrigued me. "Very well."

Twenty minutes later, we were settled on the couch with a bowl of popcorn between us. I'd changed into gray sweatpants and a T-shirt—casual clothes I rarely wore, feeling oddly exposed without my armor of expensive suits.

She'd disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bag of colorful candies, dumping them into the popcorn bowl.

“What unholy thing did you just do?” I teased, watching her mix the contents.

"M&Ms and popcorn." She shrugged, a slight blushcoloring her cheeks. "Sweet and salty. Don't knock it until you try it."

“It’s against nature.”

"It's not!" She grabbed a handful and held it out to me. "Try it."

I eyed the mixture skeptically before taking a piece. The combination was... unexpected. Not terrible, but strange. "Americans have no taste."

"Says the man who puts caviar on everything," she shot back, then immediately froze as if expecting punishment for her sass.

Instead, I found myself smiling. "Touché."

"Inconceivable!" some fool on the screen shouted, and Alina actually laughed—a real sound of joy that did something dangerous to my chest.

Her laughter was dangerous. It was like a drug. I found myself wanting more.

"What does that word mean, exactly?" I asked, genuinely confused by the varying contexts the word was being used in.

"It means unbelievable, impossible. But he uses it wrong—that's the joke. Inigo keeps pointing it out."

I watched her face as she explained, animated in a way I rarely saw. When the character finally said, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means," I found myself chuckling.

"American humor is... strange," I observed, reaching for more of her bizarre popcorn mixture. The M&Ms had grown on me.

"You're getting popcorn crumbs on the couch," she giggled as she brushed the fabric.

There was no fear or hesitation in her voice. Just...normalcy.

For the next hour, we sat together like any couple might.

She explained cultural references, laughed at my confusion over American customs, and gradually relaxed against my side.

I found myself studying her profile more than the screen, fascinated by this glimpse of who she might have been in another life.

"The grandfather reading to the sick boy," I said during a quiet moment. "It reminds me of my babushka."

She turned to look at me, surprised by the personal revelation. "She read to you?"

"Russian fairy tales. Always with a moral about being careful what you wish for." I paused, remembering weathered hands and kind eyes. "She would have liked you."

Something shifted in Alina's expression—softness, maybe even tenderness. "My grandmother really does like you, you know. She keeps asking the nurses about 'that nice young man'."

The moment the words left her lips, I saw the realization hit her.

The spell began to crack as reality intruded—the reminder of why her grandmother liked me, what I was holding over her head, the cage I'd built around both of them.

Her body started to tense, to pull away, and I couldn't have that.

Not tonight.

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