Finally, he pushes off of my car and watches me as I open the door. “Valya, I’m sorry, for everything. I—You—”
Before I shut my door, I look up at him. “If you’re really sorry, you’ll go get some therapy and start working through it on your own. Because I’m done.”
I slam the door and get out of there as fast as possible, refusing to look back in the rearview mirror.
Chapter Thirteen
Andrej
I watch Valya drive away, my mind reeling. I keep expecting her to tap her brakes, hang a U-turn in the middle of the road and come back. But she never does, and soon, she’s out of sight. I stand dejected on the sidewalk, the mid-afternoon sun beating on my shoulders.
“Andrej?” Turning, I see Losev emerging from the revolving door leading back into the Turgenev Building. He has sunglasses on, and khaki pants with a dress shirt. He looks as put-together as I usually do. “What are you doing here?” he asks.
I run a hand through my messy hair and shrug.
He comes to stand beside me, looking up and down the street as if the answer might be there. Then, he scrunches his nose and looks at me. “Have you been drinking?”
I shrug again.
He puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get some coffee. There’s a great place around the corner.”
We walk in silence. He doesn’t try to pry anything out of me, and I don’t offer any details. I feel like such an idiot. I put myself on the line and it wasn’t enough. I don’t know what Valya wants from me.
As we get in line at the coffee shop, a thought occurs to me that isn’t completely self-absorbed. “Shouldn’t you be with your baby?”
His whole face lights up. “She and Evangeline are home, so I’m headed back there in a minute. It’s a full-time job trying to keep Evangeline from going to work. If you see a woman in high heels wearing a baby and trying to hail a cab, call me, will you?” he jokes.
I try to smile but it feels pathetic, like a grimace. We place our orders and he pulls me over to a table in the window.
“I know sharing isn’t really your thing,” he starts, “but do you want to talk about it?”
There’s a part of me that wants to bury everything that just happened deep down inside and never uncover it, but I know how that turns out. My father taught me all about that. The hurt will fester, unexamined and misunderstood, and grow into something ugly. So, I tell him about my recent realization that I don’t want to continue my father’s asshole legacy. I want to be different, worthy of Valya. And, after swearing him to secrecy, I tell him about my disastrous confession this morning.
He stews over it for a while, sipping at his drink, and then asks, “Do you know what happened at the Oakwood Club meeting after you left?”
I narrow my eyebrows at him, not sure what that has to do with anything. “No.”
“Valya was denied membership. If someone had been there to go to bat for her, someone that knew her for more than a piece of paper, she probably would have gotten in. Evangeline and I couldn’t be there because she was in the hospital, so I sent you. And you…” He trails off.
“I left.” I stare down at my cup. I left the meeting, wrapped up in thoughts about myself. I hadn’t even thought twice about that meeting and her application, too absorbed in my own selfish realizations. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” I rub my hands down my face.
“You’re hurt,” he says matter-of-factly, parroting back at me what Valya always says. “Not by Valya. By other things. Your mom’s death. Your dad’s anger.”
“Valya told me to get therapy,” I admit.
Losev’s mouth twists in a wry grin. “It can’t hurt. Besides, all the cool kids are doing it these days. I’ll get you the number to my therapist, hang on.”
True to his word, I have the therapist’s phone number before Losev leaves to go back to his family. I stand on the street again, but this time, instead of feeling dejected, I feel hopeful as I press the call button and put the phone to my ear.
Chapter Fourteen
Valya
I smile across my desk at Gita, one of my long-term employees, as she gives me the rundown on how things are going at the Turgenev Building. The contract did end up coming through in spite of my faux pas with Andrej, and she’s taken on leading the cleaning crew. It’s a huge job, our biggest undertaking yet, and I needed someone I could trust.
“It’s only been a few weeks,” she says, “but I can already tell this will open a lot of doors for you.”
“For us,” I correct her, standing and coming around my desk to give her a hug.
We walk out, and I say goodbye to her at the elevator, watching her go. I should be happy, and I am—I’m thrilled—but just thinking about what happened last time I was at the Turgenev Building makes me melancholy.
It’s been three weeks and three days since I cut myself off cold turkey and left Andrej on the side of the road. Three weeks of silence. I thought it would get a little easier—it did in college after I left home. Every day, every week, he faded into the background. But it feels different this time. Like we were so close to something, but we just couldn’t make it work.
I turn around to go back to my desk when Charity stops me.
“I had a call from Andrej Novak’s assistant,” she says.
“Oh.” It’s like thinking about him just conjures him up sometimes. “What did she want?”
“Mr. Novak wants to pay out the rest of the contract. She said you can pick it up at the estate.”
“At the estate? Can’t she send it to me?” This feels like a trap. The skittish beating of my heart confirms it. I would ignore the whole thing, except he owes us quite a bit of money, and my employees deserve a bonus.
She shrugs and looks down at her note. “She said she also has some other items for you to pick up.”
My brow furrows. Had I left something there? Maybe my dad had—we did leave in a hurry, after all. I glance down at my watch. There are still a couple hours left in the day and I don’t have much to do. I decide to make the trip now. There’s no sense in putting it off.
The drive takes about thirty minutes. When I pull up to the estate, the first thing I notice is that the For-Sale sign that had been posted at the entrance when I’d been here last is gone. My heart sinks a little. There are no other cars in the driveway, and when I knock, the door creaks open. I let myself into the foyer. It’s empty except for that awful bust of Miloslav Novak. The thing always haunted me; I swear its eyes follow me across the room. I’m honestly not surprised no one snatched it up in the estate sale.
“Hello?” I call. My voice echoes through the hall, but no one answers. Without all of its furniture, I’d expected the house to feel empty, but it doesn’t. It feels…open. Airy. Bright. It’s a whole new place. A blank slate.
The back door is also open, so I peer outside. I’m not even sure who I’m looking for. Elya, maybe? Or a caretaker? Another assistant? My eyes are automatically drawn to the conservatory. If I had to pick one place in this house to take with me, that would be it. It was Andrej’s mother’s favorite spot. Having lost my own mother, I was drawn to her, and she humored me. She taught me about plants and how to grow beautiful things from tiny, nondescript seeds. I would sit out there with her for hours sometimes, just watching the flowers turn their faces as they tracked the path of the sun.