Arseny stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of his twenty-fifth-floor office, frozen like a statue, a heavy crystal glass in his hand. Amber whiskey swayed inside, catching the last glints of the dying day. Beyond the glass, veiled by the first mist of rain, the giant metropolis was slowly sinking into evening twilight. Myriads of lights flicked on one after another, turning the city into something like the Milky Way fallen to earth. He felt a familiar tension at the base of his neck—thick, insistent, like the foretaste of a storm mixed with the sweet poison of anticipation.
That evening he was to cross the threshold of one of the most exclusive and pompous society events of the year—the Charity Ball at an old mansion on Prechistenka Street. And not alone. That fact filled him with a strange mixture of pride and soul-chilling anxiety.
At the back of the office, beside the black Steinway, leaning against its glossy surface, stood Emilia. She was the embodiment of night and elegance in her black velvet dress, with a deep neckline baring fragile collarbones and the graceful line of her shoulders. Her fiery red hair was gathered into a careless yet no less perfect bun, from which one stubborn strand had escaped to brush her cheek. She looked at him with a mysterious, slightly melancholy smile that made his blood race and his iron self-control falter.
“Are you absolutely sure you want to appear there with me?” Her voice, soft and melodic, broke the solemn hush of the room. Long, slender fingers adjusted a delicate silver feather earring. “I’m not the kind of person they usually welcome in those gilded halls. My soul doesn’t wear a tuxedo.”
Arseny set down the glass and slowly, as if overcoming invisible resistance, crossed the office to stand beside her. He touched her cheek, running the pad of his thumb along her high cheekbone, feeling beneath her skin a tremor fine as a cobweb.
“That’s exactly why I can’t imagine the evening without you,” his voice sounded low and husky, almost a whisper. “You’re the only reality in a world woven of masks and ghosts. You breathe, you feel, you live. You are real.”
Emilia laughed, but an echo of uncertainty threaded her laughter. She knew very well who he was. Arseny Gradov—the owner of a vast construction empire, a fortress of a man whose name was synonymous with power and money. A man with a long past, heavy as granite. And with an ex-wife whose very name he had banished from his lips.
“And what if… what if they see nothing in me but your mistress?” she whispered, dropping her gaze to her hands. “If they read that story on my face?”
“Let them read,” he snapped, like the crack of a whip. “I stopped paying other people’s bills a long time ago. My life belongs to me alone.”
He had deliberately kept one detail from her, a small but ominous stroke in the picture of the evening ahead. He had been to that very mansion before. Many years ago. Back then, its walls had witnessed another life of his, another happiness, another faith. And another man—himself.
The mansion on Prechistenka, built long ago for a noble family, was the embodiment of a vanished era. Its walls, which remembered the whisper of high-society intrigues and the glitter of imperial balls, seemed to breathe history itself. Lofty painted ceilings, fanciful stucco with frozen mythological scenes, giant Venetian mirrors in gilded frames—everything was steeped in unfeigned, muted luxury. Arseny’s dark limousine rolled silently up to the carpet, and a doorman in a dazzling white livery opened the door with ceremonial deference.
Emilia stepped out first, and for a moment Arseny stood stunned by her transformation. In the light of the spotlights installed at the entrance, she looked at once fragile and indomitable, a night angel stepping onto foreign ground. She carried herself with striking dignity, though he knew—felt with every fiber—that inside she was knotted with fear. He offered his hand, and her fingers, cold and gripping, pressed into his palm. They crossed the threshold, and the massive oak door thudded shut behind them, sealing them into another world.
Inside, the air—thick with the scents of expensive perfume and floor wax—was threaded with the enchanting sounds of a string quartet. The cello traced a languid melody full of unending sorrow. Guests glittering with diamonds and silks moved smoothly about the hall, their smiles flawless and their eyes empty. Arseny nodded to a couple of familiar faces but did not stop, leading Emilia through the crowd with the confidence of a man who knew every turn of this labyrinth.
“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” she asked quietly, studying details of the interior that were familiar to him.
“Yes,” he answered curtly, and in that one word lay an entire tale.
He didn’t say that once, in a distant life faded almost to sepia, this house had been his home. That in this very drawing room, beneath the light of that very crystal chandelier, he—young and ardent then—had knelt to propose to Veronika. That on that balcony, behind the heavy curtain, they had kissed for the last time as husband and wife a heartbeat before their world split into “before” and “after.”
He didn’t want to resurrect ghosts. Not now. Not with her.
But Fate seemed to have a particular fondness for cruelly ironic turns.
As they approached the bar, paneled in dark marble, Arseny felt a sudden, physical change in the atmosphere. The air grew dense and viscous, as if filled with mercury. Something clicked deep in his mind—a primitive, animal instinct firing. He slowly raised his gaze—and his heart froze, then bolted into a wild gallop.
In the arched doorway, beneath the shadow of a heavy velvet curtain, stood she.
Veronika.
His ex-wife. His fallen angel. His unhealed wound.
She wore a gown the color of ivory, sculptural and austere, with a long train streaming along the floor and a deep, almost defiant plunge at the back. Her ash-blond hair was swept into an intricate, impeccable style, baring the proud line of her neck, circled by that very string of pearls—the gift for their tenth anniversary. It glinted coldly under the chandeliers like tears turned to jewels. She looked straight at him, and in her fathomless gray eyes there was no anger, no reproach, no pain. Only icy, all-understanding calm. And something more—undivided, absolute power.
The corners of her lips touched that polished smile of the social world, honed by years, which he had once considered his greatest weakness and his most precious treasure. She took a light, weightless step forward, and the crowd parted respectfully before her.
“Welcome to my home, Arseny,” her voice, clear and ringing as crystal, swept through the hall, silencing the nearest clusters of guests. “We are all so glad to see you here.”
“We”? The word struck him like a slap.
Arseny felt Emilia’s hand clutch his elbow. He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He only stared at Veronika, trying to decipher the riddle of her composure, to read the hidden meaning in her eyes.
“Yes, this is my home,” she went on, as if replying to his unspoken question. “I bought it exactly a year ago. Shortly after our paths finally parted.”
He hadn’t known. He had been sure the mansion belonged to some old foundation and was untouchable, like a museum piece. But apparently nothing in this world is truly untouchable if the price is high enough.
“My congratulations,” he managed, each word scorching his throat.
Veronika nodded with a queen’s grace, and then her gaze—weighty and appraising—slid to Emilia.
“And this must be your companion? Would you favor me with an introduction, my dear?”
“Emilia,” she replied, and Arseny noted with pride that her voice did not waver, though he saw the fine gold chain at her wrist tremble.
“A charming name. Very… poetic.” There wasn’t a trace of open sarcasm in her tone, but every word, every syllable was honed like a blade and carried an invisible charge of venom. “Please, make yourselves at home. The champagne, I assure you, is the best to be found within the Garden Ring.”
She gave them one last radiant yet utterly lifeless smile, turned, and dissolved into the crowd, leaving behind a trail of a scent he remembered better than his own name. Lavender, vanilla, and cold steel.
“She… owns all this?” Emilia whispered, her eyes full of confusion.
“It seems that from now on she does,” Arseny replied, feeling some vital support collapse within him with a crash.
He couldn’t collect his thoughts. Each glimpse of Veronika hit him like a jolt, hurling him back ten years. To the days when they were young, full of hope, the world at their feet, shining and brimming with promise. They had shared a home, shared dreams, shared a future. And then everything had gone off course. Not at once, not with a crash, but slowly, like a ship holed below the waterline.
He didn’t blame only her. Not entirely. He blamed himself more. For his pride. For his blindness. For failing to see her despair behind the flawless façade. For not forgiving a single fatal mistake, choosing to leave and slam the door rather than stay and try to mend things.
“Do you want to leave? Right now?” Emilia asked quietly, reading his tension like an open book.
“No,” he answered, forcing himself to meet her gaze. “I won’t let that happen. My place is here. Beside you. That is my conscious choice.”
But for the first time in many years he felt the ground under his feet turn to shifting sand.
Later, when the guests began moving to the dining room for the formal dinner, Arseny saw Veronika step lightly onto a small marble dais and take a microphone. Her figure in the pale dress was a shining beacon in the multicolored throng.
“Dear friends,” her amplified voice commanded every ear. “Thank you for finding the time to share this special evening with me. We are gathered not only for a good cause, but to remind ourselves that true life is not just titles, accounts, and successful projects. It is sincerity. Honesty with ourselves and with others. And, of course, love. The kind that forgives. The kind that waits. The kind that does not die even when it is denied the right to exist.”
She made a practiced pause, and her gaze—heavy and piercing—found Arseny in the crowd and held him fast for a moment.
“Sometimes we lose what is most precious through our own foolishness or pride. But sometimes the Universe, as if mocking us, gives us a second chance—to see, to understand, and perhaps to set things right. The main thing is to find in ourselves the courage to admit: I was blind. I was wrong. I caused pain.”
The hall erupted in applause. Arseny gripped the edge of the table until the bones of his knuckles turned white. He understood everything. This was not a pretty speech for the press. It was a shot. Aimed, calculated. And the bullet was meant for him.
After dinner, when the wine and the hum of voices became unbearable, he slipped through a side door onto an empty balcony. The cool night air, smelling of wet asphalt and autumn leaves, was a gulp of freedom. He pressed his forehead to the cold stone balustrade, trying to quiet the chaos in his head.
“Do you still prefer running away to speaking plainly?” came a voice behind him, familiar to the point of pain.
He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to see her to feel her presence. It thrummed in the air like a taut string.
“I’m not running. I’m simply refusing to take part in your elaborate performance, Veronika.”
“This isn’t a performance, Arseny. I didn’t buy this house to manipulate you. But since you’re here… perhaps it isn’t mere coincidence. Perhaps it’s a sign. A chance that comes once in a million.”
“Seriously?” He spun around, anger and hurt blazing in his eyes as they met her calm, unruffled gaze. “Do you really think everything can be turned back as if nothing ever happened?”
“I think anything can be forgiven,” she said, her words falling slowly, like drops that wear away stone. “Even the bitterest betrayal. Even the deepest wound. Especially a wound.”
As if it were yesterday, that night rose before his eyes. How he had returned home early from an extended trip and found her in the living room. Not alone. How she cried, begged, said it had been a single, fatal, insane mistake, that she loved only him. He hadn’t believed her. Or rather, his pride, his inflated ego would not let him believe. He left. And he hadn’t seen her for nearly five years, erasing her like a miswritten line.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d bought this house?” he asked, weariness of the whole world in his voice.
“Because I wasn’t sure you’d be invited. And if you had found out… you would never have come. You’d rather burn every bridge than cross this threshold.”
“And I would have been right.”
“Are you still angry with me?”
“No,” he exhaled, tension slowly draining from his shoulders. “I just… don’t recognize you. I don’t know who you are now.”
“And you?” she parried, folding her arms. “Who are you, Arseny Gradov? The man who brings his young mistress to a society gala to prove to himself and everyone else that he’s moving on? Or are you simply taking revenge on me, flaunting our old pain dressed in velvet?”
“I’m not taking revenge,” he whispered, and knew himself how untrue that was. “I’m just trying to live on.”
“Then live honestly. Start with yourself. And then—with her.”
She stepped closer, and the familiar maddening aroma of her perfume—lavender, vanilla, and something indefinably bitter, perhaps wormwood—wrapped around him, conjuring a thousand forgotten moments.
“I don’t want you back, Arseny,” she said, and for the first time her voice held genuine, human warmth. “I just want you to be truly happy. Even if my place in that happiness is nothing at all.”
She turned and left as silently as she had come, leaving him alone with the humming quiet and the weight in his heart.
When he finally mustered the strength to return to the hall, Emilia was nowhere in sight. He found her in the vestibule, already in her simple yet elegant black coat. She stood by the massive door, ready to leave.
“You’re going?” he asked, stupidly, feeling his throat tighten.
“Yes,” she said without looking at him. “I don’t belong here. And it seems I never did.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Because I feel not just out of place in this world of gilt and pretense. I feel out of place in your life, Arseny. Because… you still belong to her. Not to her, perhaps. But to her shadow, which covers you completely. You still love what you two once had. The love you buried.”
He wanted to object, to find words of denial, of vows, but his tongue felt numb and his voice refused to obey.
“I don’t want to be your cure for loneliness, Arseny. Or your instrument of revenge. I want to be your conscious, free choice. And you… you’re still choosing your past. You live in it like in a crypt.”
“Emilia…”
“Don’t,” she said sharply, lifting a hand to stop him. Tears glinted in her eyes, unshed. “Just… take me home. If it’s not too much trouble.”
He nodded silently.
The drive back passed in oppressive, absolute silence. Only the monotone thump of the wipers and the soft hiss of rain outside disturbed the quiet of the car. When they stopped by her modest house, she didn’t move to get out right away. Her hand was already on the door handle when she asked the question that had hung in the air all this time.
“Tell me the truth. Honestly.” She turned to him, her face pale and endlessly tired in the half-dark of the cabin. “Do you still love her?”
He was silent. Seconds stretched into an eternity. He sifted words in his mind, searching for the right ones, but found only shards of thoughts and scraps of feeling.
“I don’t know what I feel,” he finally breathed, and it was the first truly honest phrase of the entire evening. “But I know this: I don’t want to lose you. Your smile. Your laughter. Your gaze.”
“That… is not an answer,” she whispered, and her voice held final, irrevocable emptiness.
“It’s all I have right now. All I’m capable of.”
She looked at him for a long, farewell moment, as if trying to imprint his image in her memory, then opened the door without a sound and stepped into the drizzling rain. She didn’t turn back. Didn’t wave. She simply dissolved into the darkness like the very ghost with which he had surrounded himself.
The next morning Arseny woke with the feeling of a granite slab on his chest. He had hardly slept, replaying over and over the scenes of the previous night—the words, the glances, the pauses. He understood: something had broken. Not just between him and Emilia. Inside him. His iron certainty, his impenetrable armor—turned out to be tinsel.
He dialed Veronika’s number. His hand trembled.
“Hello,” she said, calm and matter-of-fact, as if she had been expecting the call.
“Hi, it’s me,” he said, feeling like a schoolboy.
“I know. Do you want to talk?”
“Yes.”
“Come over. I’m home.”
He arrived an hour later. The house was the same. Stone, wood, bronze—nothing had changed. Only now it belonged to her. To the former part of himself.
She met him in a simple silk robe, a cup of black coffee in her hand. Without makeup, she looked younger and more vulnerable.
“You look awful,” she observed, letting him in.
“I feel even worse,” he muttered, following her into the living room.
They sat in the very chairs where once they had drawn plans for a shared future that never came.
“I don’t want to come back to you,” he began, staring at the floor. “That would be a lie to you and to myself. But I can’t just cross you out. You’re part of my story. Its brightest and most painful chapter.”
“That’s normal, Arseny,” she said gently. “Some people remain in us forever, like scars or like tattoos on the soul. Even if we’re no longer together, they shape us. You shaped me. And I shaped you.”
“And you?” He raised his eyes to her. “Do you feel anything for me? Besides chilly politeness?”
She thought for a moment, stirring her coffee.
“I love you. But not the way a woman loves a man. I love you as someone who has gone through fire and water loves her companion on that journey. I love the young man you were. But I don’t want you back. I want you finally to find your place. Your happiness. Even if I’m not its source.”
“What if I already found it—and then destroyed it myself?”
“Then pick up the pieces. Or find new ones. But do it honestly. Without self-deception. Without trying to run from ghosts.”
He nodded. For the first time in many years, a strange, painful, but long-desired peace settled in his soul.
“Thank you, Veronika.”
“For what?”
“For finding the strength not to hate me. For not playing stupid games. For remaining yourself.”
She smiled her real, not the staged, smile.
“Go, Arseny. Think. About everything. And if you realize your happiness is with Emilia, go back to her. But go back changed. Whole. Free. Not out of duty or guilt. But at your heart’s call.”
He left. And this time he didn’t rush to smooth things over with Emilia at once. He gave himself time. A week. Two. He walked through autumn parks, listened to the wind, watched nature fade, and talked to himself. He remembered every word, every look of Emilia’s. And he understood that he loved her. Not because she had been there when he was lonely. But because with her he felt alive. Real. The way he had been before he put on the mask of the impenetrable Arseny Gradov.
He came to her house with a huge bouquet of white roses, her favorite flowers. He stood in the rain, not daring to ring.
“I don’t know if you’ll forgive me,” he said when the door finally opened. She stood on the threshold in a simple house dress, a book in her hand. “I won’t ask forgiveness for my past. It’s with me, and I’ve learned to live with it. But I want to ask you for a chance. A chance to build a future with you. Something real. Without ghosts. Without shadows. Just you and me.”
She looked at him for a long, long time. Her eyes were clear and bright. Then she silently stepped back and opened the door wider.
“Come in. You’re soaked.”
Half a year passed. Arseny and Emilia lived together in a bright, spacious apartment overlooking the river. They didn’t hurry to the registry office, deciding that a stamp in a passport wasn’t a synonym for happiness. Far more important was to wake each morning and make a conscious choice—to be together. And Veronika? She sold the mansion on Prechistenka and moved to Paris, where she opened a small but very successful contemporary art gallery. Sometimes she and Arseny exchanged messages. Brief, friendly, without subtext or pain.
One morning, while going through the mail, Arseny found an envelope with French stamps. Inside was a postcard of the Eiffel Tower in the morning haze. On the back, in her familiar elegant hand, it said:
“Sometimes, to find your own happiness, you have to have the courage to let someone else’s go forever. Thank you for once letting me let you go. And thank you for, in the end, finding your own. Where it was hidden all along—not in the past, but in the present.”
He smiled; a light sadness and gentle gratitude stirred in his heart. He placed the card carefully into an old wooden cigar box where he kept the most important, piercing memories of his life. Then he closed the lid, went to the window, and looked at Emilia sleeping in their bedroom. A smile played on her face. Perhaps she was dreaming of something beautiful. And he knew that their future—their present happiness—was right here. And it had been worth all the past storms and wounds.