Chapter 20
Elena
I had nowhere to go.
I sat on the loneliest bench in the park, my suitcase and paint box by my feet. Morning mist soaked the hem of my dress, cold climbing my skin. I still didn't move.
Go back to the Rossi house?
My father had already known Isabella had come back.
Now that my sister had stepped right into her old spot again, I—Kiryan's discarded stand-in—would only remind him what the Rossi family had lost. He wouldn't ask if I was hurt.
He'd ask how much a divorce would wreck, how many partnerships it would blow up, then he'd blame me for not being able to keep a man.
A hotel wasn't an option either. Registration. Cameras. Front desk staff. Any one of those could hand my location to Kiryan. I didn't want to go home and get torn apart. I didn't want him to find me.
So I sat there.
New York was huge, and still—there wasn't a single door that belonged to me.
I pressed my hand to my lower belly. It was still flat, so quiet it made me wonder if the hospital exam had been a dream.
"I'm sorry."
The second the words left my mouth, I realized I was crying.
Tears hit the back of my hand. The more I wiped, the more came. My chest felt packed with soaked cotton, every breath heavy and sharp.
I'd wanted to give this baby a whole home. I'd even been willing to wait for Kiryan one more time.
But he had already been building a whole home for another baby.
A dark sedan pulled up at the curb.
The door opened, and Yegor strode over.
"Elena?"
I lifted my head, my hand snapping to my stomach on instinct.
He wore a dark sweater, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, moving with an unhurried ease that screamed privilege—yet every motion stayed perfectly polite. He took in my ruined face, then flicked his gaze to the luggage by my feet.
"What are you doing out here?" I swiped at my tears in a panic.
"I drove past." He tilted his head toward the car. "I thought I'd mistaken you for someone else."
New York, and I still managed to run into someone who knew Kiryan at my absolute worst.
I stood, grabbing the suitcase handle. "Morning. Sorry, I probably look a little—"
"Not in the mood for small talk?"
He nailed it. Heat crawled up my ears.
I'd stood too fast. My vision dimmed. My knees buckled.
Yegor stepped in and caught my arm through my coat. "Easy."
The moment I steadied, he let go.
That restraint made my throat burn.
Kiryan never asked if I needed a hand. He decided. He grabbed. He put me where he thought I belonged, safe or not. His hands were bigger, hotter, rough at the fingertips from guns and old scars. Once he locked an arm around my waist, it was almost impossible to get free.
A wave of heat shot down my spine, completely wrong for the moment.
Fuck.
I shoved the memory down.
"You look awful." Yegor dipped his head, not too close. "Have you eaten?"
"No. I'm not hungry."
He glanced at my red eyes and softened his voice. "Can I sit?"
It was a public bench. He still waited for permission.
I nodded.
Yegor sat with a full person's worth of space between us. He didn't stare. He watched the joggers in the distance, like he was giving me the last scraps of dignity I had left.
"Did Kiryan know you were here?"
His name scraped raw skin.
"He probably doesn't want to." I stared at my empty ring finger. "We got divorced."
Surprise flickered across Yegor's face, gone in a heartbeat. "Was that your choice?"
"The papers came from him." I swallowed hard, the bitterness burning. "Isabella came back with a pregnancy report. She also made me listen to a recording. Kiryan said he'd divorce me, then marry her."
The last words nearly sliced my throat open.
Yegor didn't answer right away. His gaze held on my face for a second, like he wanted to say something, then he forced whatever pity was there back down.
"And then he let you walk out alone with your bags?"
"I left on my own." My voice went tight. "Don't call it him kicking me out. I'm not talking about him anymore."
"Then we won't." His tone didn't argue. "Tell me where you are going."
I couldn't.
Because the truth was humiliating. I had no friends to call. No family who'd take me in. I couldn't even check into a hotel that wanted an ID. I'd thought I just lived in Kiryan's house—until I walked out and realized my entire life had been locked behind that iron gate.
"I don't know," I said quietly.
Yegor didn't push. His eyes dropped to the hand I kept over my belly, then he looked away like holding it too long would be an offense.
"Then don't think about where yet." He paused. "Are you feeling sick?"
"I'm fine. Just tired."
"Elena." His voice stayed gentle. "You're white as a sheet. That isn't 'just tired.'"
My throat clenched.
If he'd been colder, I could've kept pretending I was fine. But he just sat there, quiet, waiting—like he was giving something frightened the time it needed to crawl out of a corner.
"I am pregnant."
Tears fell again.
Yegor's shoulders went rigid. He looked at my stomach, then snapped his gaze away, like one more second would be disrespectful.
"The doctor said I need rest. Stable emotions." I tugged a bitter little smile. "I did a terrible job of that today."
"You did good enough."
"You don't even know what happened."
"I know you sat here alone with a baby, blaming yourself for crying." His eyes darkened. "That is enough."
I bowed my head.
"Let's get you out of here," he said. "I'll get you settled."
"I can't go back to the Rossi house. A hotel isn't safe. I don't want my father's mouth on me, and I don't want Kiryan finding me."
"I'm not taking you to either of those places."
I stared at him, wary.
Yegor lifted both hands, open. "I have a house. Plenty of guest rooms. There are staff and a doctor on-site. You can stay in a separate guest wing, lock the door from the inside. I won't come in without your permission."
"Yegor..."
"Temporary," he cut in softly. "When you've rested, I'll help you find an apartment. The lease will be in your name. You'll pay the rent yourself. Will that work?"
He'd blocked the exact fear I couldn't say out loud—charity.
I wanted to refuse. But my stomach burned with emptiness, and the doctor's warning echoed in my head. Pride wasn't worth gambling another life.
"I'll move out as soon as I can."
"Of course." Yegor stood, lifting both cases. "But before anything else, you eat breakfast."
"I can carry one."
"I know you can." He didn't question me—just shifted the bags behind him. "I just can't stand there and watch a woman haul luggage on her own."
He slowed his pace so I walked ahead, keeping a half-arm's distance the whole way.
Three days later, I sat in Yegor's courtyard and painted.
The place wasn't much smaller than Morozov manor. Walls, checkpoints, patrol routes—plenty. The difference was the air. People didn't move like they were afraid to make noise. The gardener even shouted across the lawn asking if I wanted him to trim branches blocking my light.
I told him no.
Tree shadows on the canvas could be part of the painting.
I painted the park bench. Not me. Not the luggage. Not the tears. Just a dark coat left over the backrest, and morning light slicing through leaves.
"It is too cold out here." Yegor's voice came from behind me.
He carried a mug of hot water and stopped outside the pale rug I'd spread without meaning to. That was my line. He'd understood it. After that, every time he came out, he stopped there.
"In the painting or in the yard?" I asked.
"In the painting. The yard is cold too, but I figured telling you to go inside wouldn't do a damn thing."
"You figured right."
Yegor sat farther back, long legs stretched out. "You erased the person."
"How do you know there was someone?"
"The light on the right doesn't line up. You blocked in a shape first, then buried it under the background."
I looked at the faint underlayer. "You've studied art?"
"I've learned how to look. I never learned how to paint." A corner of his mouth shifted. "My mother collected Impressionists. When I was a kid, she made me stand in front of every painting for ten minutes. Said if I didn't understand it, I still had to learn to shut up."
I laughed. "That worked."
"At least it taught me I can't compliment a painting just because the colors are pretty." He got serious, watching me. "You are gentle. Emotional. Even when you leave, you refuse to paint it cruel."
My fingers tightened.
Kiryan had watched me paint too. He'd sat shirtless in front of me, that two-headed eagle tattoo spread across his chest, old scars cutting through muscle. He didn't understand art, but he watched with a focus that felt like theft—until the hand holding my brush went hot.
Back then, he'd said my eyes looked like they were lit from the inside.
I'd thought he finally saw me.
Turns out being seen and being chosen were two different things.
"Maybe I just don't want to paint people." I set my cup down.
Yegor didn't call me on the lie.
"The doctor came this morning," he said. "She said you are anemic. You aren't sleeping either."
"She also said it isn't serious."
"You remember the part you want."
The words sounded too much like Kiryan. My spine snapped tight.
"Sorry," Yegor said it immediately. "I wasn't ordering you around."
Kiryan wouldn't have apologized that fast. He'd been older than me, and he'd held too many lives in his hands. He'd wrapped concern in commands. He'd take my brush, scoop me up, carry me inside, then glare like I'd forced him to do it—and tell me I didn't have a choice.
I'd hated his control. And still, the second my memories tightened around his arms, my body remembered what it felt like to be completely caged in. Shame heated my chest. I dragged the tip of my brush through wet paint hard enough to scrape.
A heavy slash of blue split the shadow. I reached to wipe it out.
"That color." Yegor stopped me. "You don't have to cover it. Leave it. It makes it feel real."
"Some mistakes ruin the whole painting."
"Some mistakes make you finally see what you are supposed to paint."
Our eyes met for a beat. The admiration in his was clear—and restrained. I understood it. I had no intention of feeding it.
"I appreciate you taking me in," I said carefully. "But I don't want you getting the wrong idea."
"I don't."
"You don't even know what I am going to say."
"You want a place fast. You don't want to owe me. And you don't want anyone thinking you've moved from one man's house to another man's house."
I went quiet. He'd hit every nerve.
Yegor set a folder beside his chair. "I had a few apartments pulled. Look when you feel like it. But my advice is: don't move yet."
I frowned.
"Not because I want to keep you here." His voice stayed even. "You are weak. There is a doctor here, security, room for you to work. That is better for you and the baby."
"I can take care of myself."
"I believe you."
He didn't steal the choice with a simple you can't.
"But you should know what Kiryan is like," Yegor went on. "If he finds out about the baby, he won't send a lawyer to negotiate. He'll come himself. He'll take you back."
My stomach knotted tight. "He has Isabella's baby."
"That doesn't change his possessiveness."
"You don't know what happened between us."
"But I know him." Yegor's eyes cooled. "He can fail to value something and still refuse to let anyone take it from his hand."
Cruel. Accurate.
That night at the birthday banquet, Kiryan could abandon me to chase Isabella—and still couldn't stand Yegor standing beside me. He'd grabbed my waist and announced in front of everyone that I was his wife.
I'd mistaken possession for love.
"I'm not a thing."
"Of course you aren't." Yegor didn't hesitate. "That is why the decision should be yours."
He stood. "The apartment list stays here. If you want to move today, I'll have someone take you. If you decide to stay, nobody will bother you in the guest wing. And as for Kiryan—until you are ready to see him, this house won't open its door to him."
"You'll piss him off for me?"
Yegor paused. "I am backing your decision."
No promises. No teasing. And somehow it carried more weight than any pretty line.
"I'll stay a few more days."
"Okay."
He didn't look pleased. He just took my empty cup. After a few steps, he looked back.
"Elena, you are good. Kiryan not knowing how to hold on to something doesn't mean you aren't worth holding on to."
Then he walked away without waiting for me to answer.
The next few days, no Morozov car showed up. No lawyer dropped off papers. No one ordered me to come back.
My old phone stayed off, buried in the deepest part of a drawer. Every night, I imagined the screen lighting up and what I'd see.
Maybe Kiryan's calm, cold command. Maybe nothing at all.
In the end, I pulled the SIM card out and tucked it into the bottom of my paint box.
That was it.
I poured everything into painting, forcing myself to stay busy.
"Just wait for me," I whispered to the baby. "I'll get us a place."
I didn't need Morozov money. I didn't need my father's scraps. I had my hands, my brushes, and the small reputation I'd built submitting work anonymously.
I could feed us.
Yegor didn't hand me cash. He didn't buy my paintings. He just left me a few curator contacts and had his driver take me to galleries when I asked. At the first meeting, he didn't even walk in with me.
"That is your work," he'd said. "They should be looking at you, not me."
I stood by the elevator clutching my portfolio, my palms slick. "What if they say no?"
"Then you try another."
"And if everybody says no?"
"Then you put on your own show." He pressed the button. "When you paint, you know what you are doing better than any of them."
The elevator doors opened. I stepped inside.
Before the doors slid shut, Yegor still stood where he was, not following.
The curator flipped through my portfolio, then went back and studied the first few pages again. "All these anonymous pieces are yours?"
"They are."
I remembered my father saying a Rossi daughter shouldn't waste time on cheap canvas. I remembered Kiryan, in the beginning, throwing my supplies into the rain, convinced I was just performing misery for attention.
But the paintings had survived.
And they'd brought me here.