A Slip Is Best on a Sweltering Night

Mikhail was in a foul mood.

More precisely, he felt as though something had been taken from him, and it put him in a very foul mood.

From a third party’s perspective, he had never had her for even a moment, but Mikhail couldn’t have cared less about that.

“Maria, is the cotton candy good?”

“Yeah! It’s suuuuper sweet!”

A little girl holding cotton candy, and a lovely woman holding the girl’s hand.

She was the woman he’d seen at Count Clione’s ball a little while ago.

When Mikhail had seen her in a corner of the ballroom, smiling awkwardly as she turned away the men crowding around her, he’d been utterly captivated.

Though he hadn’t spoken to her, and their paths had only crossed once, he’d kept picturing her ever since that day.

He’d gone all over the place, hoping she might attend another social gathering, but perhaps their timing never lined up, because he couldn’t find her anywhere...