Roulette (13 page)

I realize I’m not totally opposed, either. I call my friend Margot from the airport lounge at LAX and give her a very truncated version of events. She’s thrilled that I’m able to attend her wedding after all and is sweet enough not to ask a bunch of difficult questions when I tell her that Landon and I have broken up and I’m no longer working at USC.

She gasps slightly, then sounds really happy for me. “I have to say, you sound really good, despite all that. And, selfishly, I can’t wait to see you, Miki, whatever the circumstances.”

I call Alexei next, and, as I expected, he is delighted that I’m on my way to Europe and we will get to work together in person. He promises to meet me in Paris the next day, and his enthusiasm is actually quite contagious. As I settle into my luxurious first-class seat an hour later, I take a sip of champagne and realize I’m going to work in Paris! In my company’s offices! And this is my new life!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

M
y mother and I are both tired when we arrive at her three-bedroom apartment near the Musée d’Orsay the next night. We order in a light supper and then sleep through to the next morning, until we are awoken by the sound of insistent knocking on the front door.

Mom wraps herself in a long ivory silk robe and saunters down the front hall. She looks through the peephole, then pulls the door open and grabs Alexei into a fierce hug. I stand at the far end of the hall that leads back to the bedrooms.

“Hi, Alexei.” I wave.

They both turn and stare at me, and I can tell immediately that something is going on. Alexei shuts the door behind him, takes off his trench coat, and hangs it on the antique coatrack.

Simone speaks first. “I’ll make coffee. You two go into the living room.”

I walk down the hall, and Alexei pulls me into one of his big bear hugs. He mumbles all sorts of apologies in Russian near my ear.

“Slow down.” I pull away and then tuck my arm through his. “What’s going on?”

It sounds pretty bad. Pavel Durchenko claims my father signed a transfer agreement for the Segezha plant, with Kriegsbeil serving merely as the front so Durchenko isn’t publicly involved. But it’s still
his
in his mind. And Alexei is claiming there is no such agreement.

Durchenko is pissed, to put it mildly.

“Alexei . . .”

He looks guilty. “Yes?”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Is there an agreement?”

I can see the wheels turning in his Cold War head. He tries to be all reassuring. “Don’t worry about it.” He pats my knee.

I move his hand away. “Are you
crazy
?”

He opens his mouth to speak, and I hold up my hand. “You know what, don’t answer that.” I get up and walk over to the front hall and pick up my computer case. I pull out my phone and scroll to the private number Durchenko gave me at my father’s funeral service. I don’t have any reception in this part of my mother’s apartment, so I reach for the old black telephone on the antique side table. “I’ll simply tell Durchenko there’s been a misunderstanding and we accidentally mislaid the document.” I start to dial.

“Miki, no!”

I continue dialing.

“I shredded it!” he blurts.

I set the phone back down slowly. “You did
what
?”

“When we were going through your father’s desk that last day you were in Saint Petersburg,” he says quickly, as if saying it really fast could make me skip past my rising fury. “It was in one of the private files I was sorting through, and, well, I shredded the agreement. It wasn’t notarized or anything. It was just a handwritten—”

“Damn you, Alexei,” I interrupt.

At least he has the good grace to hang his head in shame, but only for a few seconds. “I knew you would be mad at me.”

I shake my head, because me being mad at him is the least of our worries. Durchenko killing us, on the other hand, might be more of a legitimate concern.

Then Alexei fists his meaty hand and punches his own thigh. “No! Damn Pavel Durchenko! Your father—” Alexei’s voice catches on the emotion, and I think he is about to cry. Then he shakes his head. “Your father was being practical. Just give me two weeks.”

“Two weeks to do what? To figure out a way to cover up your lies?”

“To reason it out?” he asks tentatively.

I’ve been feeling the power dynamic changing between us over the past few weeks, but his tone just now makes it feel official. Alexei is asking my permission, in a way he never would have—and obviously didn’t—a month or two ago.

“Alexei,” I say with a sigh. “You of all people know Durchenko is not
reasonable
.”

“Two weeks—that’s all I’m asking. Come on, Miki. I know I can get a better deal sorted out by then, and we also have Clairebeau to think about now.”

I stare at him. “Is Clairebeau in on this with you?”

“What? No. You negotiated that deal with Clairebeau.”

“With your encouragement, if I remember correctly. You’ve been trying to mess with Durchenko this whole time, haven’t you?”

He looks mildly guilty but hardly remorseful. “It all presented itself.”

“My negotiating my first deal with one of the most powerful publishing conglomerates in the world—under false pretenses—just
presented itsel
f
?”

“Miki, we—”

“You totally used me, Alexei. Which I get . . .”

He smiles like he did this really clever thing.

“No!” I yell, then calm my voice. “I mean, it’s fine because no one is dead yet. It’s not fine that you manipulated me into negotiating that deal with Rome de Villiers when you
knew
Durchenko already had a claim to the property—”

“I didn’t technically know that . . .”

I stare at him with as much disdain as I can muster.

“I mean, I didn’t find the document until after . . .”

“Alexei, just stop. You got what you wanted. You threw a wrench into Durchenko’s plans by using me and Clairebeau.”

“Just two weeks, Miki. Kriegsbeil is almost ready to deal without Durchenko.”

I scoff. “Well, they’re idiots if they cross him. I’m sure he’s thrown people out of planes for less.”

“Those stories are highly exaggerated,” Alexei tut-tuts.

“You realize what you’re asking, right?” I stare at him for a few seconds. “Exaggerated or not, Durchenko is a man who can tap my phone, break into my house . . .
kill me
! And you’re asking me to wait around while you try to cook up some backroom deal with one of his silent partners?” I’m beginning to sound shrill. “And to keep Rome de Villiers in the dark as well?”

“This has nothing to do with Rome,” Alexei snaps.

“I suspect he’d take a different view.”

“Look.” He rests his palms on his knees and tries to calm down. “It’s just a small factory in Segezha.”

“Exactly. So what is this really about, Alexei?” My voice has softened, too.

“It’s ours, Miki. Your father and I built that plant. We hired those workers and the workers’ children. We have kept it running all these years, through so many lean times. And that man—”

“Stop making it personal.”

He sighs. “Fine. I’m sentimental. I admit it. I don’t want Durchenko to have it. He doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t care about people.”

“Then why did Mikhail make the agreement with him?”

“Your father saw the future of the business in our timber holdings, in the land and the trees.” Alexei sighs again. “We had a major disagreement before he died. Mikhail was going to phase out all the paper factories.”

“But, Alexei . . . I agree with my father.” My voice is even gentler, because I wish there was some way to soften the facts, but he knows that’s what I intend to do.

“I know.” He looks like he is almost crying. “I know in time that’s what we will have to do, but please let me have this one thing. For a short time longer.”

“Oh, god, Alexei. Please don’t get emotional. You’re going to make me cry.”

Alexei looks so tender that I don’t say anything more.

“Eventually Durchenko will get his hands on everything, but please, let’s at least try. If I can get Kriegsbeil to get on board—which I think I can—and Clairebeau is already in, then it will be as if the document between your father and Durchenko never existed. He can still be in on the deal, but he won’t be able to shut down the plant and sell it off in pieces.”

“Regardless, what you’re suggesting is completely unethical. The agreement was real.”

He furrows his brow and shakes his head, as if ethics are such silly, childish things at a time like this. I think he’s actually convinced himself that shredding the contract was the ethical thing to do. “Two weeks, Mikhaila. That’s all I need. Let’s not be overly dramatic.”

My mother has returned from the kitchen and is standing in the arched entry to the living room. She listened to the tail-end of our conversation, and that last bit makes her break into infectious laughter. “Oh, Alexei, you are the one who needs to quit being such a drama queen.”

Unexpectedly, I burst out laughing, too. The man is the epitome of brawny, scowling, hirsute manhood, and the idea of his being a queen is priceless. His thick beard and heavyset stature make him look as if he could fight a bear without a weapon. But I have to hand it to my mother—she’s right. It is as if Alexei wants this caper to remind him of the “good old days” of his Cold War heyday. Simone is having none of it.

“If anyone can get to the bottom of this,” Alexei continues, “it’s Jules Mortemart.”

I raise an eyebrow for further explanation, feeling like the name rings a bell, though I’m not sure from where.

“He’s a brilliant attorney who practices here in Paris. Your father and I have had him on retainer for a few years.” He hesitates for a moment in that sheepish way of his. “For when we have issues that we don’t want to handle in Russia. You probably saw his name on one of the old deal memos.”

It turns out Jules Mortemart is thrilled to take on the top-secret investigation into whether our company is obligated to Durchenko in the absence of a cosigned contract. He is also willing to pursue our various options and work with us for the next two weeks.

We put Jules on speaker and talk for an hour. He puts my pesky ethical questions to rest almost immediately by explaining there are all sorts of legal reasons the shredded document might not have been valid in any case, given how it was executed in such a hasty manner—perhaps under duress—and how soon before my father’s death it was signed. I get a recurring chill up my spine when I realize I am speaking as the head of the company, that Alexei and I are talking about the Segezha deal as equals. Alexei gets up a couple of times to refill his coffee, impatient with not getting his way more easily. I’ve pretty much assumed my father’s position—taking the long view against Alexei’s clever but often shortsighted plans—and I begin to see why they had such a successful, enduring partnership.

Eventually, Jules and I decide to let Alexei pursue some of his more questionable alternatives with the Germans, but we also agree that Jules and I will work on drafting a proper agreement with Durchenko in the meantime, in case Alexei fails. We all agree to postpone contacting Clairebeau for the moment. If the deal I negotiated with Rome becomes null and void because of a preexisting agreement, we will deal with that mess next.

I try not to think about how I’ve been secretly looking forward to casually touching base with the CEO of Clairebeau while I just happen to be in Paris. We’re business colleagues, after all, and it wouldn’t be totally inappropriate for me to give him a call, I’ve been rationalizing. But, once again, the universe is trying to help me squash my foolish lust, and I try to see the self-imposed gag order as a blessing in disguise. Of course, as soon as I think of the word
gag
, the foolish lust pulls right back into the lead.

Alexei is watching me have this absurd internal battle while Jules drones on about how he is familiar with Clairebeau and how it shouldn’t be a problem keeping them on the sidelines for two more weeks.

“Are you okay?” Alexei asks quietly.

I nod and shake off the stupid thoughts. Rome is
engaged
, I remind myself. But my mother’s words still poke at the edges of my mind:
engaged is not married
.

After we hang up with the attorney, I tell Alexei point blank I am calling Durchenko. He growls and grumbles but ultimately gives in. I’m nervous, but probably not as much as I ought to be. In fact, I feel sort of exhilarated. The private number gets answered after one ring.

“Durchenko.”

“Hello, Mr. Durchenko,” I say in my most formal Russian. “Apparently we have a misunderstanding about a Segezha contract.”

“I have no misunderstanding. I am holding a copy of it in my hand right now.”

“Yes, well, as you can imagine, we are concerned that we do not have my father’s signed copy. Please give us some time to sort through the rest of his documents, if you would?”

He breathes heavily into the phone. “This is a totally legitimate contract,
Dr. Durand
.”