Roulette (22 page)

“Liar! I’ve seen you do it. I’ve watched you take over companies for the past ten years. I know how you work. God, I was so fucking naive.”

“Miki, stop.”

“No,
you
stop. Just stop.”

We don’t speak the rest of the way to Margot’s house, and I get out of the car without looking at him. It takes all my willpower not to slam the car door shut when I get out. At least he doesn’t rev the engine on purpose when he leaves, but it’s still loud in my ears when I open the front door and find Alexei sitting on the living room couch, looking at his computer. The sweet man is in a huge, blue-and-white-polka-dot silk bathrobe, and I smile when I look at him.

“I’m so sorry, Alexei. I’m so sorry—”

He’s up and across the room and holding me in a warm hug by the time the tears come. “I thought I could do it. I thought I could run the company and be the person my father wanted me to be, and be wild and free at the same time, and I just can’t. I’m so sorry if my foolishness is going to devalue the company.” I’m kind of half gasping, half talking at this point.

“Shh-shh-shh,” Alexei soothes. “None of that is going to happen. You are perfect, Miki. You are brilliant, and we will show them what you are. My paper doll.” He smiles on that last bit and forces me to smile through my tears. “It is a wonderful name for you. We will use it to our advantage, eh?”

He’s holding my chin, and I feel so young in that moment. But I also feel the fire that is still burning inside me, the fire to prevail over all of these external circumstances, to establish
my
life. I’m not going to let anyone—no matter how beautiful he looks in the moonlight—take that away from me.

“We need to go back to Saint Petersburg,” I say quietly.

“Yes. That would be best,” Alexei agrees.

“How quickly can we get there?”

“You go get cleaned up and pack. I’ll make the arrangements,” he offers.

“Okay.”

I walk back to the small room and start to put all of my things into my bag. I feel like the embodiment of that George Carlin skit about “
all my stuf
f
”; and I think of my house in Venice, with
most of my stuff
;
and then about my mother’s apartment in Paris, with
some of my stuff
; and now these pieces of luggage, with
the really important stuff.
I’m done crying about all this. For some reason, I just want to get to Saint Petersburg and move into my father’s apartment and go to work every day and keep that amazing company going.

And if we have to sell the Segezha plant to Durchenko, so be it. There are over five thousand employees who have come to depend on Voyanovski Industries for their livelihood, and I am done being some gadfly manager who thinks she can swan around the world while the company runs itself.

By the time I come out of the bedroom and I’ve changed into proper clothes, Alexei is likewise ready. “There’s a helipad nearby that can take us to Nice. From there I have a private plane that will take us to Saint Petersburg. Trevor said he’ll take us to the hotel where the helicopter takes off from.”

I sigh. “Yeah. I know it.”

Alexei manages a half smile. “Well, maybe now they’ll take a picture of you leaving with your uncle and write a new story, eh?”

“Yes, maybe.”

Trevor comes downstairs a few minutes later. “All set.”

“Yes. Please tell Margot I’m sorry I had to leave like a thief in the night.”

“She’ll understand—” Trevor begins to say.

“No, I won’t,” Margot says as she comes downstairs, tying the knot on her bathrobe. “What’s going on?”

“Too much to explain,” I say as I pull her into a hug. “Everything’s gone to hell with Rome and the merger and . . . just everything. I’ve loved seeing you, honey, but I have to get to work. Seriously.” I look her in the eye, and she sees everything, I’m sure.

“I told you to be careful,” she whispers.

“I know you did. I did what I wanted to do. Now I need to work. Hard.”

“Okay,” she says. “But call me and let me know you’re all right. And don’t let this sour your feelings about coming to stay with me again in Provence. I’ll put an invisible fence around the place, and we’ll put a chip in Rome’s skin, like a pet.”

I smile at the idea, then lean in and hug her again. “Thanks so much for everything, Margot. I’ll be in touch about all the work you did for me on the merger, but that deal is definitely off the table.”

“Oh, stop with that. Whatever you decide, just know that we’re here for you. I love you. Now go.” She squeezes me one last time, and then I turn to leave the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I
never should have listened to my mother. What was I thinking, going to Paris and doing all that stupid shopping-spree bullshit? That just led to the Provence bullshit. Which led to the Rome bullshit.

I’m where I need to be now: sitting at my father’s desk—my desk—where I’ve been ensconced for the past two months. From early in the morning until late at night. Every day of the week.

The first few days of fallout were surreal. Everything that happened in the press felt like it had happened to someone else. Everything at work feels real. Finally. The phone on my desk rings, and I pick it up with a malicious smile when I see who’s calling.

“They’re striking again,” he barks.

“Really?” I click on my computer and quickly look at the latest news from Segezha. Sure enough, the workers have gone on strike. Again. “And that’s my problem why?”

Durchenko growls into the phone, and I laugh at him—my new favorite pastime. “Be careful what you wish for, Pavel. Wasn’t that what you told me? You were going to get your hands on that factory no matter what, if memory serves. You got your wish.”

“Damn you, Miki. Those workers are so loyal to your family, I can’t get them to do anything.”

“Maybe if you started paying them a living wage—”

“I’m already paying them more than my other factory workers elsewhere.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You know that factory is nearly twice as productive as any of your other factories. That’s why you wanted Kriegsbeil to acquire it in the first place, so you could get in there and figure out the management structure and productivity incentives. And now that you see why, you’re angry?”

“I’m not running a kindergarten or an old folks’ home! Workers need to work and leave. When did I become responsible for their children and their sick grandparents?”

I laugh at him. “When you wanted a factory that produced twice as much as your other factories.”

He hangs up on me—his new favorite pastime.

I know he’ll be calling again before the end of the day. During the negotiations at the end of May, Pavel Durchenko and I stared at each other across the conference table, and it was as if we had some sort of Vulcan mind meld. I never looked away, just held his vicious gaze. While in Paris, I’d done a ton of research about his childhood and rise to prominence in the Saint Petersburg crime syndicate, then his transition into legitimate enterprises.

Like so many of his peers who made their way out of the sewers of Moscow, he is brilliant in many ways. He is quick-witted, able to make massive decisions in the blink of an eye, but he had a brutal childhood—and an adulthood spent compensating for it—that I can actually relate to on some very deep level.

Now that he’s quite firmly entrenched in the world of international business, he can no longer get away with as much of his sledgehammer negotiating as he could in, say, Odessa—or Little Odessa, for that matter. So, three days after I came to Saint Petersburg from Provence, we all met in a conference room at the Hermitage Hotel. Alexei, Jules, and I were on one side of the table; Durchenko and his silent attorney sat on the other side, with two massive bodyguards flanking them.

Pavel just stared and stared, baiting me. I kept thinking of my father and barely felt ruffled. The silence extended until Durchenko was satisfied somehow, and then he blurted, “Everyone out. Except you.” He lifted his chin toward me on that last bit.

“Now, wait one minute,” Alexei blustered.

“Go, Alexei,” I said gently.

Jules slid the stack of legal papers in front of me and patted my shoulder as he left. Alexei looked into my eyes to see if I’d lost my mind, but I smiled and he saw I knew what I was doing. It was one of the best moments of my life.

Pavel Durchenko and I sat alone in that room for nearly three hours. His bodyguard brought us lunch at one point as we talked through every line of the contract. He tried to get us to stay on to manage the plant, and I told him that would have to be an entirely separate negotiation, and one that was very unlikely to end favorably. The arrangement he had with my father was a straight sale, and, after having worked on it with Jules and the others for the previous few weeks, I saw why. Dealing with Durchenko in a sale was one thing, but my father never would have entered into a long-term business arrangement with someone so volatile and domineering.

But over the ensuing weeks, Pavel and I have become—quite bizarrely—friends. He is fourteen years older than I am, but he’s one of those generation-bridging types. He knows more about new techno music and Tinder and where Beyoncé is spending summer holidays than I ever will. But he’s also a voracious reader and art collector; he talks about Schopenhauer and Schiele as easily as he talks about Shakira.

Usually we just argue and rib each other about business, but lately he’s been a bit more sociable, most recently having invited me to a house party at his country dacha this weekend. He judiciously avoids any mention of Rome de Villiers. Clairebeau was summarily cut out of the Segezha deal when the preexisting contract came to light. I haven’t spoken to Rome since I stepped out of his car in Provence.

Very cut and dried. As if Rome and I never even met. Cauterized. That’s what it feels like—as if all my swirling emotions of loss and love and tenderness and frustration have been seared into oblivion. Or frozen solid.

I’ve got more than enough on my plate without thinking about him, and I’m thankful to be relieved of the obsession. Most of the time. Like, if he happened to be at Durchenko’s house party, that would not be . . . feasible.

I finally call Pavel on Friday afternoon and confess my weakness. “Look, I hate that I even have to ask—”

“I love it when you are at a disadvantage,” he gloats.

“Yes, I know that. Not that it’s really a big deal, but is Rome de Villiers going to be at your place this weekend?”

“Since it’s not really a big deal, maybe I shouldn’t tell you?”

What a prick.

“Never mind.” I’m ready to slam down the phone.

“Ah, struck a nerve?”

“Forget I called—”

“Not so fast, doll.”

He and nearly everyone else have taken to calling me that absurd nickname. The publicist assures me that if I keep a sense of humor about it, it will either go away or take on a sort of endearing patina. I’m not so sure, but I’m trying to be patient.

“I’m hanging up now—”

“Fuck no!” he interrupts quickly. “Of course he’s not coming to my house this weekend. Or ever. Shit, Miki. You think I’d let that slimy bastard anywhere near Azi ever again?”

I don’t bother mentioning that Pavel is the slimy bastard who went out with Azi for over a year and then accused her of trying to force him into marrying her when he learned she was pregnant with
his
baby. I’m not in the mood to quibble, but I can’t repress a laugh. “Really? Because you’ve always been so devoted?”

“Fuck you.” He hangs up, and I smile at the phone, hearing the hint of humor in the supposedly bitter words. He’s already told me Aziza will be in Russia for the weekend, and I suspect this might even be the occasion of their secret-wedding announcement. She’s been in Saint Petersburg a couple of times—according to the newspaper and gossip rags—but I’ve yet to see her in person since Margot and Étienne’s wedding.

Rumors of her pregnancy are starting to circulate, and rude questions about paternity are starting to crop up on some of the more salacious sites. She broke it off with Rome after the pictures of him and me made it impossible for her to turn a blind eye without looking like a doormat. She also publicly claimed to be considering her parents’ wishes that she agree to an arranged marriage after all.

When the story broke that Rome and I were fooling around while he was engaged to Azi, he basically took all the heat. Not that I was paying attention, since I was too immersed in taking Voyanovski Industries—and taking myself seriously—to glance at what probably amounted to some modern act of chivalry on his part. I just couldn’t bring myself to care.

If Rome wanted to throw himself onto some sort of public-relations
expiatory pyre, so be it. He said he seduced me to devalue my company, and—though I had my hackles up about being depicted as some hapless victim—my new (highly paid) publicist in Los Angeles assured me it was the least of several worse depictions. My publicist, Dani Stephens, came highly recommended by Vivian, so I trust her completely. She spins my academic background into the cause of my inability to deflect Rome’s playboy wiles. I’m such a bookish genius that it is difficult for me to understand when a French pirate is making love to me.

None of it matters. In that sense, Rome was right. It’s all just PR—like those teacups spinning in that children’s amusement-park ride—not really affecting anything outside of a very small orbit. Dani has constructed a public Dr. Mikhaila Voyanovski Durand persona that vaguely resembles me—who goes out to dinner with clients, sponsors arts events in her new hometown of Saint Petersburg, and crunches numbers like the Hulk crunches cars—but that Mikhaila never actually penetrates my real life, my work life. My quiet private life.

I leave work on Friday afternoon, and my driver takes me to my father’s apartment so I can change and pick up my luggage for the weekend. Despite my father’s seriously vast wealth, I’m coming to adore the intensely private and simple way he managed his everyday life. There is an older woman who lives down the hall from his apartment who comes in every morning after I leave for work and cleans, does laundry, makes dinner—hell, I don’t really care what she does, but it means I don’t have to do anything when I get home exhausted and hungry every night. She’s uncommunicative and bristly, and I pay her what my father paid her, and that suits us both just fine.

I swim every morning at the indoor pool at the Four Seasons. I go to work. I go to dinner with Alexei or a new colleague a couple of times a week, but mostly I’m just getting to know Saint Petersburg. I wander around the city at all hours of the night (which makes Alexei adorably protective and furious). I suspect he’s hired a few bodyguards to follow me at a distance, but I’ve never been able to catch them. I go hear music and see student films and have even spoken to one of the local universities about teaching a few classes. I’m trying to understand the intense political undercurrents of the country, but I know it will take time.

I’m not totally isolated, despite my mother’s constant griping phone calls to the contrary. She’s back from Cairo and living the high life in Paris and acting like she’s worried about me, when it’s pretty obvious she just wants a partner in crime. She hasn’t said so directly, but I think Jamie what’s-his-name is also back on the scene. I do video calls with Vivian and Margot all the time, for just a quick hello or for longer calls about what they’re up to. Since I don’t feel like I have very much going on—other than work—I can finally be a good, listening friend again, and not the desperate mess I was in the spring.

I change into jeans and grab my weekend bag and go back downstairs to my car. In that, at least, Alexei put his foot down. He forbade me to drive around the city like a slow-moving target for any thug to rob, or worse. My company car is a massive Escalade with bulletproof, tinted windows, and the driver, Sergei, is, well, ex-FSB and a heat-packing beast.

Vivian loves all these dramatic details. She keeps calling me Natasha Fatale and wonders when I’m going to start spying. As the driver and I head out of the city to Durchenko’s dacha, I pull out my phone to check emails. After I finish replying to a few important ones, I see it’s after seven my time, so it’s after eight in the morning for Vivian, and I decide to touch base.

“What’s up?”

I love how she answers my calls like I’m still in Venice or sitting at my desk at USC.

“Nothing, just headed out to Pavel Durchenko’s dacha for the weekend, and I’m riding in the back of the car for an hour and a half.”

“He’s totally got the hots for you.”

“Trust me on this. He totally doesn’t. I’m pretty sure he and Aziza are going to announce their engagement this weekend. Or even their marriage, if they’ve been able to keep it under wraps.”