Chapter 11 – Eleanor
Work became my salvation and my prison all at once. I threw myself into designing with the kind of desperate intensity that bordered on obsession, losing track of time until my fingers cramped around my pencils and my eyes burned from staring at fabric swatches under harsh studio lights.
My office had transformed into a war room of creativity.
Sketchbooks covered every surface, fabric samples hung from makeshift lines across the walls, and my digital tablet never left my side.
I worked until three in the morning, fell asleep at my desk more often than in my bed, and woke up with needle marks on my fingertips from hand-sewing samples.
The spring collection was taking shape, and it was unlike anything I’d ever designed.
Darker, more complex, with an edge that reflected everything I’d been through.
These weren’t clothes for the girl who used to design pretty florals and safe silhouettes.
These were for the woman who’d married a monster and discovered she liked the way his darkness looked on her.
Zara called it my “vengeful goddess” era, and she wasn’t wrong. Every sketch, every seam, every choice of fabric was infused with the kind of raw emotion that only came from having your world turned upside down and somehow landing on your feet.
“You’re going to burn yourself out,” Anya said one afternoon, finding me hunched over my sewing machine with a half-eaten sandwich forgotten beside me.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re working eighteen-hour days and living on coffee and spite. That’s not fine; that’s heading for a breakdown.”
I looked up from the silk I was hemming, seeing the genuine concern in her hazel eyes. Over the past few weeks, Anya had become more than just my sister-in-law. She’d become my partner, my sounding board, my lifeline in a world where I still felt like I was constantly swimming upstream.
“I need to prove myself,” I said. “Show everyone that I’m not just some victim who got swept up in circumstances beyond her control.”
“Prove to who? The fashion world already loves your comeback story. Orders are pouring in faster than we can fill them.”
“Prove to myself, I guess. Prove to Maxim that I’m worth more than just being a pawn in his revenge game.”
Anya set down the coffee she’d brought me and perched on the edge of my work table. “Eleanor, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Are you doing all this because you love fashion, or because you’re trying to distract yourself from the fact that my brother is being an emotionally constipated asshole?”
The question hit too close to home, and I felt heat rise in my cheeks. “Both, probably.”
“I thought so.” She was quiet for a moment, then said, “He’s scared, you know.”
“Of what? The big bad Bratva facilitator is scared of his own wife?”
“Of letting anyone close enough to hurt him. Maxim has spent years keeping everyone at a safe distance, and you’re making that impossible.”
I thought about the night of the hotel party, the way he’d looked at me when I’d asked him to make it meaningful. The careful way he’d touched me, like he was afraid I might break or disappear. The way he’d held me afterward, for just a few minutes, before the walls went back up.
And then I thought about how he’d been avoiding me ever since.
“Well, he’s doing a pretty fucking good job of keeping his distance now.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“At least we agree on something.” I went back to my hemming, trying to focus on the precise stitches instead of the frustration building in my chest. “Sometimes I feel like I’m married to a ghost. He’s here, but he’s not really here.”
“He doesn’t know how to do this. The whole marriage thing, letting someone in. He’s never had to before.”
“Neither have I, but I’m trying. He’s not even meeting me halfway.”
Anya was quiet for so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft.
“Eleanor, if you’re trying to make up for what my brother did to you….”
“I’m not,” I interrupted, but she held up a hand.
“Let me finish. If you’re trying to make up for what he did, or if you think you owe us something, you don’t. But if you’re here because you want to be, because this feels right to you, then I need you to know something.”
She leaned forward, her expression serious.
“You’re family now. Not because you married Maxim, not because of some legal document, but because you chose to stay.
Because you’re fighting to make this work, even when he’s being a complete asshole about it.
And I want to help you, not out of guilt or obligation, but because that’s what family does. ”
Tears pricked at my eyes, and I blinked them back. “Thank you.”
“Besides,” she added with a grin, “your designs are fucking brilliant, and working with you is the most fun I’ve had in years.”
We worked together until late that evening, Anya helping me adjust patterns while I sketched new pieces. It felt good to have someone in my corner, someone who understood both the creative process and the complicated dynamics of loving a Voronov man.
When I finally made it back to the main house, I found Maxim in the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee in his hands. He was still in his work clothes, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up to reveal the lean muscles of his forearms.
“Working late?” he asked.
“Always. You?”
“Same.”
We stood there for a moment, two people who shared a home but barely shared a conversation anymore. The space between us felt like an ocean, and I was tired of being the only one trying to swim across it.
“I was thinking,” I said, moving to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water. “We should have dinner together tomorrow night. Actually sit down, eat real food, talk like normal married people.”
Something flickered across his face, too quick to interpret. “I might be working late.”
“Then we’ll eat late. Maxim, when’s the last time we had a real conversation? About anything other than logistics or schedules or business?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I, and that’s the problem.”
He set down his coffee cup, and for a moment, I thought he might actually engage with what I was saying. Instead, he kissed my forehead, a brief, distant gesture that felt more like dismissal than affection.
“Get some sleep, Eleanor. You look tired.”
He was gone before I could respond, leaving me standing in the kitchen with the taste of disappointment bitter on my tongue.
But I wasn’t giving up that easily.
***
The next evening, I recruited Anya to help me create something that would be impossible for Maxim to ignore or dismiss. We spent the afternoon cooking, turning the formal dining room into something that looked like a scene from a romantic movie.
Candles flickered on every surface, casting warm light that made the crystal glasses sparkle.
I’d chosen a playlist of jazz standards, the kind of music that made everything feel more intimate.
The table was set with the good china, cloth napkins, and flowers from the garden arranged in a simple but elegant centerpiece.
The meal itself was ambitious for someone who usually survived on takeout and coffee. Pan-seared duck breast with cherry gastrique, roasted vegetables that looked like they belonged in a magazine, and a chocolate dessert that had taken me three attempts to get right.
When Maxim walked into the dining room at eight o’clock sharp, I saw surprise flicker across his features before the careful mask settled back into place.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
“Dinner. You know, that thing married people do together sometimes.”
He took his seat across from me, and I poured wine into his glass, trying to ignore the way his eyes tracked my movements. We ate in relative silence for the first few minutes, the only sounds the clink of silverware against china and the soft jazz playing in the background.
“This is incredible,” he said finally, gesturing to his plate. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Like what?”
It was the first real question he’d asked me in weeks, and I felt a spark of hope. “Like the fact that I’m secretly addicted to reality TV. Or that I can’t sleep without white noise. Or that I’ve never been to Europe, even though half my fabric suppliers are based there.”
“We could change that,” he said quietly. “The Europe thing.”
“Could we? Because lately it feels like the only traveling you’re interested in is from the bedroom to your office and back again.”
The words came out sharper than I’d intended, but I was tired of pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t.
Maxim set down his fork, his jaw tightening slightly. “Eleanor….”
“Don’t. Don’t give me some bullshit excuse about work or security or whatever other reason you’ve invented to keep me at arm’s length.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks pretty fucking simple. We had one night where things felt real, and ever since then, you’ve been treating me like I’m made of glass. Or like I’m something dangerous you need to keep contained.”
“Maybe you are dangerous.”
The admission hung between us, raw and honest in a way that made my chest tight.
“Dangerous how?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his fingers toying with the stem of his wine glass. When he finally looked at me, there was something in his eyes that made my breath catch.
“You make me want things I can’t have.”
“Like what?”
“Like a life that isn’t built on violence and revenge. Like the ability to be the kind of man who deserves someone like you.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, and I felt tears prick at my eyes. “Maxim….”
“You should hate me,” he continued, his voice quiet but intense.
“You should be planning your escape, counting the days until you can get away from the monster who destroyed your life. Instead, you’re cooking me dinner and asking me about my day like we’re some normal couple with a normal marriage. ”
“Maybe because that’s what I want us to be.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You keep saying that, but you never explain why.”
He stood abruptly, his chair scraping against the hardwood floor.
“Because I don’t know how to be anything other than what I am.
I don’t know how to turn off the part of me that sees threats everywhere, that assumes everyone will eventually leave or betray me.
I don’t know how to trust that this is real. ”
“So don’t turn it off. Just…let me in. Stop treating me like I’m going to disappear if you get too close.”
For a moment, I thought he might actually do it. Might cross the space between us and let down the walls he’d spent so many years building.
Instead, he gave me that same faint smile, the one that never reached his eyes.
“Thank you for dinner. It was beautiful.”
He kissed my forehead again, that same distant gesture that felt like a door closing, and walked out of the dining room, leaving me alone with the ruins of my romantic ambitions.
I sat there for a long time, staring at the flickering candles and the barely touched plates of food. The jazz standards continued to play, mocking me with their promises of love and connection and all the things I apparently couldn’t have with my own husband.
When I finally made it back to my room, my eyes burned with unshed tears, but I refused to let them fall. Crying wouldn’t fix anything, wouldn’t bridge the gap that Maxim seemed determined to maintain between us.
Instead, I pulled out my sewing kit and started working on a piece I’d been avoiding. A wedding dress design that had been haunting me for weeks, something raw and complicated that reflected everything I felt about marriage and love and the space between what we want and what we can have.
My stitches were angry and mechanical, each one driven by frustration and hurt and the growing certainty that I was fighting a war I couldn’t win.
Maxim was here in this house, sleeping in the room down the hall, wearing a wedding ring that matched mine.
But in all the ways that mattered, he might as well have been on the other side of the world.
I stitched until my fingers were sore and my eyes couldn’t focus anymore, until the repetitive motion of needle through fabric became a meditation on disappointment and the particular cruelty of loving someone who refused to let himself love you back.
Outside my window, Chicago slept peacefully, unaware that in a mansion full of beautiful things and dangerous people, a woman sat alone with her needle and thread, sewing together the pieces of a heart that someone else kept breaking .