The autumn air—clear and cold—seemed to pour new life into an office bleached by air conditioners. And with a gust of wind that sent the first golden leaves spinning, she walked through the door. The new girl. Her name was Alisa. And with her arrival, something trembled in Maxim’s measured, predictable world.
Alisa wasn’t just pretty. She seemed woven from energy, curiosity, and a certain inner light that made men slow their step and women discreetly assess her outfit. Slim, with a sharp chin and lively, almost bottomless eyes, she slipped into the team with astonishing speed. It felt as if she already knew everyone, heard everything, did everything. Her laughter rang like a crystal bell, cutting through the monotone hum of printers and the soft whisper of meetings. She was curious to the point of impertinence, and her sharp, grasping mind seemed to absorb every detail, every unspoken thought, then twist it around an elegant finger and produce an unexpected, precise conclusion.
Over coffee she easily told her colleagues why she’d left her previous job. Her ex-husband—who was also her boss—handed down his verdict coldly and cynically, as though dissolving not a marriage but a failed contract: “I hope you understand that after the divorce I don’t want to see you here. Find yourself another place. I’ll manage without you. You’re not such a unique specialist that I have to hold on to you. There are hundreds like you outside these doors. No great loss.”
Alisa was nearly thirty. The five years she’d given that man now seemed to her like a strange, alien dream. They’d had no children—neither of them had wanted any. And now she felt only relief that she wasn’t bound to him forever by motherhood. Here, at this new place, a fresh wave seemed to lift her. And almost at once her piercing gaze fell on Maxim.
Maxim was her complete opposite. He was thirty-two, serious, laconic, with a calm, thoughtful gaze. His modesty wasn’t weakness but the result of a deep inner assurance that needed no display. Yet when it came to work, he changed: his mind, iron logic, and steadfastness in defending his point of view commanded respect. He was the one who stayed behind silently after everyone else to help a colleague finish a report, the one whose advice you could always rely on. That kindness and readiness to help, flowing from the depths of his soul, drew people to him like a magnet.
Alisa laid a veritable siege around him. Her compliments were honed and irresistible, her smile disarming, her interest sincere and ardent. Colleagues only exchanged glances, watching the unshakable Maxim melt like April ice under the spring sun. The initiative always came from her, and soon they were seeing each other. The office romance moved at a pace that amazed everyone, though no one commented aloud, preferring to watch events in silence.
After a few months they were already talking about a wedding. And at that very moment fate threw Maxim a test. The director summoned him.
“Maxim, the project in Altai. Urgent. A two-month trip,” the boss said, peering over his glasses. “You might be delayed a couple of weeks. Take the documents and go. It’s serious.”
He absolutely did not want to go. His heart clenched at the thought of parting from Alisa. But duty—and the solid bonus promised on his return—won out.
“I’ll be back, and we’ll file the application right away. I promise,” he told Alisa, kissing lips that smelled of expensive coffee and autumn lipstick.
She frowned. “Your mother… From day one she’s looked at me like I’m some kind of mistake. She hates me. And to be honest, I hate her too.”
“I’m marrying you, not my parents. We’ll live separately. Just be a little more polite with them,” he gently chided.
“As if! I’m not about to bend for anyone. And renting a place is expensive. I need money for dresses, shoes, salons. I’m not going to turn into a shut-in in rags!”
“You’ll have everything. Maybe not the most luxurious, but you’ll have it. Don’t worry,” he soothed her.
The thought of a beautiful white dress and a merry wedding softened her. She took the separation with surprising calm. Maxim, though, was gnawed by longing. On the plane he closed his eyes and tried to picture their future. She would cook… Then again, she couldn’t cook and didn’t like to. Well, she’d learn. He’d help—take out the trash, peel potatoes, buy gifts. Then children… True, Alisa wasn’t keen on having them. “But that’s for now,” Maxim comforted himself. “Once she gets pregnant, she’ll understand what a miracle it is.” He had long wanted to be a father. With that warm thought, he dozed off to the steady drone of the engines.
He was welcomed warmly on arrival. The office in Altai had a completely different, almost family atmosphere. A pretty, energetic secretary who introduced herself as Vika showed him his desk and said that today he was free—he could check into the hotel and rest.
The hotel was cozy, with a view of peaks already capped with snow. He settled in, strolled through the unfamiliar city where the air was so sharp and clean it made him dizzy, and slept better than he had in a long time. In the morning he plunged into work. The colleagues were pleasant and open. He grew closest to Dima—another employee on assignment, three months into his stint, living at the same hotel.
They began spending time together. Soon Dima introduced him to his girlfriend, Svetlana. They were inseparable. The three of them spent evenings together: going to the movies, taking walks, and on rainy nights passing the time in Maxim’s or Dima’s room over tea and conversation. Maxim watched them and missed Alisa all the more, though they spoke on the phone every day. Svetlana was a remarkable person—kind, with a gentle, accommodating disposition, and yet an inner backbone. She smiled often, and her gray eyes, framed by soft lashes, looked at the world with such warm, understanding sympathy that being near her felt calm and bright.
With about two weeks left in the assignment, Maxim’s life was turned upside down. His father called. The voice that had always been so firm and sure now trembled and broke: “Max, son… Your mother… Cancer. They found it late. She needs expensive treatment, medications we can’t get here… If we sell the apartment, we’ll have nowhere to live—especially her… Without it… without it she won’t last a year. That’s exactly what the doctors are saying…”
The world shrank to the size of the phone receiver. Maxim couldn’t breathe. His mother—so fragile, always so caring… He wanted to drop everything and fly to her immediately. But the director on site was inflexible: the project had to be finished, and only then would he receive his pay and the bonus that now seemed so paltry in the face of this grief.
That evening, white as a sheet, he told Dima and Svetlana what had happened. “Where am I supposed to get that kind of money? No bank will give me a loan that size… My parents have scraped together their last coins, but it’s a drop in the ocean…” His voice was even and empty, as if all life inside him had died out.
Dima sighed heavily, turning over options. Svetlana was silent, but her eyes spoke louder than words—filled with pain, compassion, endless pity.
Two days later Dima vanished without a trace. He bolted without even working two more days, leaving all his documents. In the office they only threw up their hands, baffled by his unprofessionalism. Maxim’s surprise soon turned to shock when that evening there was a knock at his door.
Svetlana stood on the threshold. Pale, eyes red from crying, she looked like a girl.
“Maxim, I need to talk… Dima ran. As soon as he found out I’m pregnant. He told me to ‘take care of it.’ But I don’t want to! I can’t!” Her voice kept breaking. “Before that he talked about getting married, invited me to meet his parents… And I, fool that I am, told my folks! And now… how can I look them in the eye? Maxim, you have to help me! Save me! Pretend… pretend you’re the father of my child! Come with me to my parents’ as my fiancé. You won’t have to lie—say everything as it is, just leave out Dima. They don’t know him. Then you’ll leave and I’ll tell them we changed our minds. Please! My father… he’s strict. If he finds out I was abandoned… he’ll make me get an abortion. And I can’t! I already love this baby!”
Maxim looked at her, unable to find words. Deceit, a lie—this ran against all his principles. But she looked at him with such pleading, such despair… And his own soul was writhing in helplessness. He tried to find support in Alisa, calling her and, through tears, telling her about his mother.
Her answer stunned him: “Your mom again? I saw her the other day—spry as anything, with shopping bags! She’s probably just milking you for money! And we need funds for the wedding—big ones! For the best dress, for the restaurant!”
His world collapsed completely. That evening he gave Svetlana his silent consent.
Svetlana’s parents lived in a big but cozy house on the outskirts of the city. Her father, Grigory Ivanovich, turned out not to be a harsh tyrant but a wise, perceptive man with kind eyes. He listened carefully to Maxim, asked about his work and life, then unexpectedly clapped him on the shoulder: “I can see it in your eyes—you’re the right sort. A straight, honest look. I don’t misjudge people—that’s why my business stands. I’ll give my daughter to a son-in-law like you with an easy heart.”
Svetlana’s mother, Valentina Petrovna, a sweet, slightly plump woman, looked at him with motherly tenderness. At a table groaning under the food, the conversation naturally turned to Maxim’s parents. Blushing but looking him in the eye, Svetlana told them everything: the illness, the money, the hopelessness.
Grigory Ivanovich darkened. He was silent for a long time, staring into his glass. “My own mother died young… I know what that’s like.” He lifted a heavy gaze to Maxim. “We’ll help. I’ll give you the money. Whatever’s needed.”
Maxim leapt to his feet. “No! Please— I can’t… It isn’t right!”
“It is right,” the master of the house said firmly. “You’ll save your mother—then you’ll earn and pay it back. Agreed?”
On the way to the hotel Maxim boiled over. “Sveta, what have you done! They know everything! Now I’m supposed to marry you by all the rules? And Alisa? I can’t deceive them like this!”
“But you’ll save your mother!” she said quietly but insistently. “And the marriage… Maxim, it’ll be a formality. Only on paper. For my parents—peace of mind; for you—the money for treatment; for me—the chance to keep the baby. In a couple of months we’ll quietly divorce. I’ll put the baby in my name. You’ll be free. Dima turned out to be a scoundrel, and you… you’ll be saving two lives.”
The last argument sounded like a sentence. Clenching his teeth, Maxim dialed Alisa to confess everything.
“Listen, the trip is dragging on, and there’s this… with my mom… we’ll have to postpone the wedding for a few months. But I’ve found a way…” He tried to get a word in, but Alisa exploded.
“I’m sick of your mommy! I’m not going to wait, and I’m certainly not sacrificing my wedding because of her illnesses! Money for treatment? I’d rather spend it on the honeymoon! If you don’t come back now, it’s over. Another man has already proposed to me—solid—and his mother, by the way, is healthy. Got it? Bye!” She hung up.
Maxim sat for a long time, numb, staring at the dark screen of his phone. Then he slowly raised his eyes to Svetlana. They held emptiness and a bitter awakening.
“You know… I really could have married her…” he whispered.
The assignment ended. Maxim returned home for a short while. He silently set an envelope of money on the table before his parents. His mother wept; his father held him in a wordless embrace, but Maxim didn’t share the details. Then he arranged a transfer to the Altai branch and went back—to Svetlana, to his new, strange, frightening reality.
They filed their application. They had a quiet, modest wedding with a small circle of guests. Grigory Ivanovich kept his word. The two months they had agreed on flew by. But when it came time to speak of divorce, both realized they couldn’t. Their fictitious marriage had become more than an arrangement. They discovered they were happy together. Quietly, calmly, reliably. Maxim watched how Svetlana cared for him, how she cooked, how she ran their home, how her face lightened when he returned from work. He found himself looking forward to those returns.
Five months later, little Grisha was born—a sturdy, blue-eyed boy whom his grandfather adored and in whom he kept finding more of himself. No one ever doubted that Maxim was his real father. Maxim himself forgot otherwise. He doted on the baby, carried him in his arms, sang him songs. His heart, so hungry for fatherhood, finally found its meaning.
The treatment worked. Maxim’s mother began to recover. When his parents came to visit the “in-laws” and it came out by chance where the money for treatment had come from, Maxim’s mother wept with shame and embarrassment. Grigory Ivanovich embraced her fatherly and said, “Your son has made my girl truly happy. So we’re square. In fact, we owe you.”
Maxim looked at Svetlana rocking their newborn daughter, Liza; at their son crawling around his feet; at the happy faces of their parents. He caught Svetlana’s gaze—warm, loving, full of deep, voiceless gratitude. And he understood that the autumn which had brought the selfish, beautiful Alisa into his life had, in fact, only heralded true love—love that came to him under the guise of deception and proved to be the purest, most saving truth of his whole life.