Chapter 11 - Anka #2
Over the next few days, she threw herself into every mundane household activity she could find, desperate for distractions from the hollow ache in her chest. She helped Elena reorganize the kitchen pantry, spent hours reading in the library, and even attempted to learn watercolor painting from an online tutorial.
Nothing worked. She was going stir-crazy, trapped in this beautiful prison with a man who treated her like she was invisible during the day and haunted her dreams at night.
Viktor had gone back to his old pattern of avoidance, leaving early for work and returning late. When their paths did cross, he was coolly polite, discussing household matters and upcoming social obligations like they were business partners instead of people who’d been intimate just days before.
It was driving her insane.
By Thursday, she’d reached her breaking point. She marched into his study without knocking, finding him hunched over his laptop with a cup of coffee that had probably gone cold hours ago.
“We need to talk,” she announced.
He looked up, his expression carefully blank. “About what?”
“About the fact that I’m losing my fucking mind in this house. I need to get out, Viktor. I need to do something, go somewhere, have a life that doesn’t revolve around avoiding you.”
“The security situation—”
“Is manageable. I’m not asking to wander around the city alone and unprotected. I’m asking for the freedom to leave this compound occasionally without it turning into a federal fucking case.”
He leaned back in his chair, studying her with those unreadable blue eyes. “What are you proposing?”
“I want to go out. Shopping, museums, coffee shops, I don’t care.
But I want to do it without feeling like I’m escaping from prison or betraying some unspoken agreement between us.
” She took a deep breath, steadying herself for his reaction.
“I’m willing to have a bodyguard if that makes you feel better about it.
Someone professional, someone whose job it is to keep me safe instead of control my movements. ”
Viktor was quiet for a long moment, considering. She could practically see him weighing the pros and cons, calculating the risks and benefits as if she were a business investment rather than his wife.
“Fine,” he said finally.
“Fine?”
“You can go out. With protection.” He closed his laptop and stood up. “Give me a few minutes to make some arrangements.”
Relief flooded through her, so intense she felt dizzy. “Thank you. Really, Viktor, I appreciate—”
“Don’t read too much into it,” he said curtly. “This is about practicality, not sentiment.”
The words stung, but she refused to let him see it. “Of course. I wouldn’t want to mistake your basic human decency for actual caring.”
He flinched slightly at that, but didn’t respond. Instead, he walked past her toward the door.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said. “Be ready to go.”
She spent the next twenty minutes getting ready, selecting a simple yet elegant outfit that would suit whatever they ended up doing. She was just touching up her lipstick when Viktor knocked on her door.
“Ready?” he asked when she opened it.
She nodded, expecting to see one of his security men waiting in the hallway behind him. Instead, it was just Viktor, dressed casually in dark jeans and a gray sweater that made his eyes look like winter storms.
“Where’s my bodyguard?” she asked.
A slow smile spread across his face, the first genuine expression she’d seen from him all week. “You’re looking at him.”
“Viktor, that’s not what I meant—”
“Too bad. If you want to get out of the house, you can have me as your escort. Take it or leave it.”
She should have argued, should have insisted on someone else, anyone else. Being alone with Viktor outside the compound was dangerous in ways that had nothing to do with physical safety.
But she was so desperate for freedom, so tired of feeling trapped and isolated, that she didn’t care about the risks.
“Fine,” she said, grabbing her purse. “But I’m choosing where we go.”
“Deal.”
As they walked toward the garage, she caught him watching her out of the corner of his eye. There was something different about his expression, less guarded than it had been all week.
“Why?” she asked as he held open the passenger door of his sleek black Audi.
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing this? Yesterday, you could barely look at me, and now you’re volunteering to be my personal bodyguard?”
Viktor was quiet until they were both in the car, the engine purring to life around them.
“Because,” he said finally, “I’m tired of pretending I don’t care what happens to you.”
The admission hung between them like a bridge they were both afraid to cross. She wanted to ask what it meant, wanted to demand clarity about where they stood and what he wanted from her.
Instead, she just said, “Where do you want to go first?”
“Surprise me.”
So she did. She directed him to a small art gallery in SoHo, a place she’d discovered during her college years and always meant to revisit. It was quiet and peaceful, filled with the work of emerging artists that was more about passion than profit.
Viktor followed her through the exhibits, his presence both protective and distracting. He asked thoughtful questions about the pieces that caught her attention, listened to her explanations about technique and artistic movement with genuine interest.
“You know a lot about this,” he said as they paused in front of an abstract painting that reminded her of storm clouds.
“I studied art history in college. Before... well, before everything got complicated.”
“You never finished your degree.”
It wasn’t a question. Of course he’d know that, just like he probably knew everything else about her life over the past four years.
“Hard to focus on academic pursuits when your family’s at war with half the other families in the city,” she said with a bitter laugh.
“Is that what you want to do? Go back to school?”
The question caught her off guard. No one had asked her what she wanted in years. Everything had been about duty, about family obligations, about playing whatever role was required of her.
“Maybe,” she said honestly. “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about what I want in a long time.”
“You should think about it.”
There was something in his voice that made her look at him more closely. For just a moment, his mask slipped, and she saw something that might have been regret in his eyes.
“Viktor—”
“Come on,” he said, the moment already passing. “I’m buying you lunch.”
The rest of the afternoon passed in a strange sort of truce. They wandered through bookstores and boutiques, had coffee at a sidewalk café, and even stopped at a street vendor for pretzels like they were tourists instead of two people with more baggage than most international flights.
It felt like before. Like those early days when they were just Viktor and Anna, two people falling in love without the weight of family names and ancient grudges between them.
But as the sun began to set and they made their way back to the car, reality started creeping back in. They weren’t those people anymore. Too much had happened, too many wounds had been inflicted for them to simply pick up where they’d left off.
“Thank you,” she said as Viktor pulled into their garage. “For today, I mean. I needed this more than I realized.”
“You’re welcome.”
They sat there in the growing darkness for a moment, both of them reluctant to break the fragile peace they’d managed to build.
“Viktor,” she said finally, “about the other night...”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yes, we do. We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”
He turned to look at her, and in the dim light of the garage, his eyes looked almost vulnerable.
“What do you want me to say, Anka? That it meant something? That I’m sorry? That I wish it had never happened?”
“I want you to tell me the truth.”
“The truth is complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it.”
For a moment, she thought he was going to open up, going to tear down the walls between them and let her see what he was really thinking. Instead, he looked away.
“The truth is that we’re both fucked up people trying to make the best of a bad situation,” he said. “The truth is that caring about you is dangerous for both of us.”
“And if I’m willing to take that risk?”
“Then you’re braver than I am.”
With that, he got out of the car and walked toward the house, leaving her sitting alone in the darkness with more questions than answers and the growing certainty that her feelings for Viktor Nikolai were about to destroy her all over again.
But this time, she wasn’t sure she cared.