13. Katya
Katya
I fell back asleep, lured by the warmth of Artem's arms and the comfort of his scent. This time, when I wake up, sunlight streams into the room and the bed is empty.
I stretch languidly and turn to feel the sheet. It is cool to the touch, which means Artem hasn't been in bed for a while.
His absence makes me feel strange, but I push the thoughts down, not wanting to make a big deal out of nothing.
Artem is probably the type who wakes up and goes to the gym or starts work. Or maybe he's getting breakfast. Either way, I'm sure he's somewhere in the apartment. He wouldn't just leave me here in bed.
Grabbing the sheet, I cover my body as I start to walk through the apartment looking for Artem.
"Artem?"
"I'm here."
His voice comes from across the room, and I turn to see him standing by the windows, already dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark slacks, his pale hair perfectly styled.
I'm surprised to see how put together he looks considering that I hadn't even stirred.
"Good morning." I smile at him, taking a step toward him, eager to be back in his arms. "Sorry, I fell back asleep."
He turns to face me, and his expression chills me. I stop in my tracks. Gone is the tender, reverent man from last night. He's looking at me now with a polite detachment that makes me freeze in place.
He checks his watch and my spine stiffens.
"You should get dressed. I have a car waiting downstairs to take you home."
"A car?"
"Yes." He pulls his phone out of his pocket. "I have some business to attend to."
The words hit me like a slap.
"Oh. I thought maybe we could have breakfast—" I shift slightly, uncomfortable.
"I have meetings." He doesn't look up as he types on his phone, clearly dismissing me. "I've arranged a car."
I swallow down the bile building in my throat. This is a misunderstanding. I'm sure of that. No one changes this quickly.
"Did I do something?"
"No." His smile is perfectly polite and completely empty. "Last night was fun, but I have a busy day ahead."
I clutch the sheet tighter to my chest. I hate how vulnerable I am. I curse myself for not putting my dress back on. If we are going to have this conversation, I don't want it to be here, while I'm standing in his living room, naked and wrapped in a sheet.
"You're acting like a completely different person."
"Am I?" He adjusts his cufflinks with the same careful attention he always has. He looks at me as though he didn't just take my virginity, something incredibly important to me. "Perhaps you simply don't know me as well as you thought."
The casual cruelty of it steals my breath.
"I don't understand. Last night you said?—"
"I say many things." He finally looks at me directly, and his eyes are winter-cold, completely unreadable. "Particularly in bed."
Heat floods my face, shame and humiliation burning through me like acid.
"So you just wanted to fuck me?" My stomach quivers, and I feel a small bead of sweat building on my neck as I try to rationalize what the hell is happening here.
There's no way he did all this just to bed me. I was eager for him weeks ago. He was the one who took it slow.
Artem glances at me with pity.
"Don't be childish, Katya."
"Childish?" My voice sounds hollow, and I swear I'm having an out-of-body experience right now because this cannot be happening to me.
"It was sex, Katya. Pleasant sex, but just sex." He straightens his tie with mechanical precision. "I know it was your first time, but we are both adults. We do not need to do the whole flowers and hearts bullshit."
The cruelty lands perfectly. I feel like he shoved a knife into my chest and then twisted it deeper. The man who held me so tenderly last night, who whispered my name like a prayer, who looked at me with something that felt like love—he didn't exist.
He'd played me.
And I'd been na?ve enough to allow it.
"Get dressed." He turns back to the window. "I have an eleven o'clock."
I stare at his back, at the rigid line of his shoulders, searching for any trace of the man I thought I knew. There's nothing. No warmth, no recognition, no acknowledgment of what happened between us.
Just cold dismissal.
I want to scream at him. Gouge out his eyes. Tell him to go fuck himself. Anything.
Instead, I walk robotically back to his room and pull on my clothes, trying not to cringe as my lingerie scratches against my sensitive skin.
I glance at myself in the mirror. I'm pale, and a purple hickey is stark against my collarbone.
The sight of it almost makes me fall to my knees.
I don't.
I stuff my knuckles into my mouth, biting down to keep from sobbing. I will not break down in front of him.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath, stuff down the pain and hurt, and square my shoulders before walking out to the living space.
"Thank you," I manage, my voice barely above a whisper, "for last night."
He doesn't look up from his phone.
"Of course." He waves me off. "I'll be in touch."
He won't. I'm not that fucking stupid.
I walk toward the door on unsteady legs, hoping until the last second that he'll call my name, that he'll say something that makes sense of this cruelty, that he'll explain why the man who made love to me so tenderly has become this cold stranger.
He doesn't.
I let myself out of his penthouse and into the hallway, where the elevator feels like a tomb and the descent to the lobby passes in a blur of tears I'm trying desperately not to shed.
The doorman nods politely as I pass, and I wonder if he's seen this before—women leaving these upscale apartments in yesterday's clothes with devastated expressions and shaking hands.
The thought makes me sick.
I skip the car. I'm far from home, but not so far that I can't walk.
And I need to walk.
I make it three blocks before I have to duck into an alleyway and vomit into a trash bin.
The humiliation is overwhelming. The way he looked at me, like I was nothing, like last night meant nothing, like I was just another conquest to be discarded. The dismissive way he called it "pleasant," the cold efficiency with which he got rid of me.
I gave him my virginity, and he treated me like nothing.
My phone buzzes with a text, probably from Lacey wanting details about my night, and I can't bear the thought of explaining this to anyone.
The shame is too acute, too raw. How do I tell my friends that the man I thought I was falling in love with, the man I trusted with the most intimate part of myself, couldn't wait to get me out of his apartment?
How do I admit that I was so completely, utterly wrong about him?
It takes about an hour to get home, and when I do, I crawl into my bed fully clothed, pulling the covers over my head like I can hide from what just happened.
The tears come then, harsh and ugly, soaking into my pillow as I replay every moment of last night, searching for signs I missed, clues that this was coming.
But there weren't any. He was gentle, reverent, careful with me. He whispered endearments in Russian. He held me afterward like I mattered.
It hadn't felt like a lie, and yet...
I cry until I'm empty, until my throat is raw and my eyes are swollen, and then I lie in the dark and try to understand how someone can be so tender one moment and so cruel the next.
I don't have an answer.
By evening, I've pulled myself together enough to shower and change clothes, despite feeling like I'm held together with tape and wishful thinking.
I would have ignored everything and wallowed in my misery, but I can't afford to. Because if I don't meet my grandfather for dinner, he's likely to hunt me down.
And the very last thing I want is to drag this meeting out, which is what will happen if I don't show up.
So I push all my feelings down, dress carefully in a conservative black dress, something my grandfather would like, and cover my sadness.
I look composed, professional, nothing like the broken girl who sobbed into her pillow all afternoon.
There's a knock on the door, and I let out a slow breath.
It's showtime.
My grandfather's guards escort me to the restaurant he's chosen. It's always the same place.
Expensive. Exclusive. Russian.
The type of place that caters to wealthy men from the old country who like good food and privacy.
Two large men in dark suits flank the entrance to the private dining room and nod respectfully as I pass. More of my grandfather's security, no doubt. He never goes anywhere without a cadre of protection.
And if he had his way, I would have my own squad of guards.
My refusal is one of the reasons for the rift between us. A rift that grows larger every year. As I get older, he wants to control me, and I want nothing more than to avoid that control.
But as I walk into the private dining room, I'm so glad to see him. Because at my core, I miss family. I crave the kind of unconditional love that is supposed to come with them.
Glancing at my grandfather, I feel a twinge of sadness.
He's aged since I saw him last. His silver hair is thinner, his face more lined, but his eyes are still sharp, still the same pale blue I remember from childhood. He's larger than I remember too, and I want to lecture him about his diet the way my grandmother would have.
"Katinka," he says, using the pet name from my childhood, and his voice is warm despite the formal setting.
"Dedushka," I say, letting him embrace me warmly before we sit at the small table that's been set for two.
The room is elegant but impersonal, all dark wood and expensive artwork, with soundproofed walls and no windows. The kind of place where serious conversations happen away from prying eyes and ears. He likes these kinds of spaces. Easier to control.
And control is everything to him.
"You look thin," he says immediately, studying my face with the sharp attention that made him successful in a world where weakness gets you killed. "Are you eating enough?"
"I'm fine."
The lie comes automatically. I'm not fine, but he doesn't need to know that.
"You look tired," he continues, and I can see him cataloguing details, storing information. "Are you working too hard?"