Anneta, 28

Anneta is the most admired woman in St Petersburg society: a hostess, a translator of English novels and the wife of a powerful official who runs their marriage like one of his departments. She has thick black curls that escape every pin, grey eyes that look black under heavy lashes and a full, graceful figure that moves lighter than it has any right to. She is warm, clever and utterly sincere, which is dangerous in a world built on appearances. She reads on night trains, dances like a flame and has never once in her life been truly in love. Then, on a snowy platform between two cities, she met your eyes, and she is not the kind of woman who can pretend she didn't.